Dave's Mechanical Pencils

DMP 2011 Awards

2011-12-18T08:29:00.000+13:00

Well, 2011 is nearly over, and despite my recent lack of activity I thought I should make an effort for the 4th annual DMP Awards...but not too much effort! So, there is only going to the one announcement, the supreme award, the “Mordan-Hayakawa Trophy” for the best mechanical pencil (or item) of the year. So, without further to do, the winner is...drumroll...Tombow Mono Stick Eraser. Insanely useful. Enough said.

Time to go now, good luck for the end of year holidays, etc. I'll see you all in 2012.

Wish List

2011-12-04T12:04:00.001+13:00

The Christmas holiday season is fast approaching for me, and a reader has suggested a "What pencil would you chose for Christmas' money no object competition? survey? thing?" Thats seemed like a worthwhile idea, so, if money and availability were no object, what mechanical pencil would you wish for?

Remember, availabilty is not a problem - you can wish for discontinued and vintage items. Just because money is no object, don't feel compelled to go all diamond encrusted solid gold on me, not that there's anything wrong with that, but maybe a 1930 plastic Eversharp would complete your collection, or that MP you had when you first started school?

New Home

2011-11-19T10:26:00.000+13:00

A few folk wanted to see the collections new home, so here it is -

Down in the garage in a nice freestanding cupboard, about 1.8m high x 0.8m wide. There's also some spill over into the cupboard next to it.

I am still only part way through organising it within the cupboard, but basically items with their own packages or cases are stored in small boxes (like photocopy paper boxes or shoeboxes) by brand

The Lamys

and loose pencils are stored mostly in these plastic paper filing drawer sets. In side each drawer I have folded up paper inserts (acid free paper, archival grade glue, etc) to organise the contents. Again storing by brand.

One of several Pentel trays

Trays are double layered and can easily be taken out.

Basically I've still got to re-box things, but then it's pretty much done.

Packaging

2011-11-11T17:35:00.000+13:00

I have been silent for a long time now. I would like to say that the rest has refreshed me, and that my muse has returned, but it hasn’t. However, I get occasional flashes of inspiration, like last weekend when I was moving the collection to its new home in a nice big storage cupboard. I was rearranging the Lamys, Rotrings and a few others and was struck by the variety of boxes they used. Perhaps they are not so important to many collectors, but I’m sure for many people who are buying a writing instrument above the everyday price range, then a nice presentation package or box is part of the decision making process, particularly if it is a gift. From some catalogues I have, it seems that most writing instrument sellers have a standard range of packages and boxes, and within reason retailers have some choices to do some mix and match of boxes, particularly within the business ranges offered to corporate gift buyers. So, here’s a quick selection of packages from my Lamy collection.

Lamy are a company who pride themselves on design and innovation, and some, though not all, of their packaging matches that.

A clear plastic cigar tube sort of container. I really quite like this one.

Very unusual. Black foam, split in two with a hole drilled down the middle for the pencil to fit into. This is the sort of thing that sets Lamy apart. I am surprised they do not do more of this unusual type of packaging, although it is not terribly functional.

A clear plastic package with silver-paper binder. Unusual, but I’m not so sure I like it that much. Let’s say it is a little bit too economy class when matched with a Lamy.

These cardboard packages are a staple of the Lamy range. The grill-like cut-outs are some attempt to set them apart from others.

These plain metal containers are another common offering from Lamy, and lots of others too.

Plastic cases are another common alternative to the metal cases. Nice enough, but nothing special.

A more expensive and less common plastic case, double hinged.

A somewhat more retro case on an older pen-pencil set.

Another older item, with a cardboard case with elastic binder.

This may not be the greatest post to make a return with, and the photography may not be the best, but hey, I had some inspiration, 10 minutes spare time and Arnie’s comment gave me a kick in the pants at just the right moment. So there you have it.

Relief

2011-10-24T19:32:00.000+13:00

New Zealand 8 - France 7

Book Alert

2011-09-20T19:16:00.000+12:00

Some of you will have previously visited Jonathan Veley’s pencil museum (link in the sidebar). Well, Jonathan recently contacted me to tell me his book on American Pencils will soon be published. You can see some details about the book on and sign up for a copy on his website. While there, do visit the mechanical pencil museum, and take a look at that opening image.
Bow down in wonder and awe! All Hail the Wall of Pencils!

Cryptic Jeopardy

2011-08-27T08:22:00.000+12:00

Well, a big international event is coming soon to my hometown and country, so here's a little brain-teaser for you. Kind of a cryptic Jeopardy. Instead of a normal Jeopardy where I give you the answer and you guess the question, the pictures are a clue to the answer. So, what then is the question?

Sorry, there's no prize. You are just competing for honour and glory.

PS - I am thinking normal blog transmission will resume in another month or two.

Blog Holiday

2011-07-15T17:47:00.000+12:00

Hello Folks

Well I write this with some trepidation, but my muse has deserted me. Gone. It happened around the time of my 5th Birthday celebrations. Suddenly it sort of hit me...5 years of nearly twice weekly blogging...I just sort of felt like I'd reached the finish line of the marathon, the race was over, I was drained. I have struggled on since then, but as is usual around this time of year I am soon going on vacation and would have put the blog on hold for a while anyway, so I think it's time to come clean and try taking an honest break from blogging for a while in the hope that a little RnR will recharge my batteries and that I'll be back as good as new in a couple of months or so. My interest in MP's is unaffected, just my ability to convert that into blogging.

I have got a couple of articles half started, so if a burst of enthusiasm strikes I may finish something and publish it, but in general don't expect to see anything new on this blog for the next 6 - 8 weeks or so. In a few days I will turn commenting off.

Thanks for reading this blog, and I hope you will continue to do so when I return.

Ka kite ano, and I'll see you in a while!

Mitsubishi Novelty Pencils

2011-07-08T02:41:00.003+12:00

Germ sent me these ages ago. A bunch of NOS "novelty message" mechanical pencils made by Mutsubishi Pencil, i.e. Uni.

As mechanical pencils they are just lightweight aluminium bodied push top ratchet basic models. Their only branding is the Mitsubishi diamond logo on the body, and on the price sticker. 500 Yen.

There is some corrosion to the chrome plating on some of the pocket clips and tips, so I would guess they are about 15+ years old.

Each has a different message or pattern printed on it in English. They are those sort of messages which don't really sound right to native English speakers. I always assume these sort of things are verbatim translations of the original idea or thought in Japanese, and it just gets lost in translation.

Fantastic Sharp - Pretty flowers are perfumed in your room.

LOVELINESS - She's kind of a friend of mine.

Pantone Pencil and Notepad

2011-07-05T01:13:00.001+12:00

I seem to be tripping across more and more Pantone stationery these days. It’s certainly not commonplace, but it’s not exactly uncommon either. Do you ever see any Pantone products in your part of the world? Early this year I was in an upmarket booksellers store and they had a rather large selection of good quality writing instruments and stationery including a lot of Pantone products. In one of those bizarre coincidences, the very next day the postie delivered a present from my friend Kent in Korea…Ta-dah!!

Pantone Universe mechanical pencil and notepad

I quite like the marketing ploy of numbering the products with their Pantone colour number. In this case the yellow mechanical pencil and notepad are colour 13-1746 “Maize”. For a proper colour swatch (well as accurate as your screen can display it) you can go here.

Not the greatest of colour matches between pencil and notepad

The mechanical pencil is nothing flash. In fact it surprises me Pantone haven’t gone for something of better design and quality. I’m not saying it’s a bad pencil, just to me it doesn’t fit with the price point and the market niche they appear to be aiming at. For the record it is a push top ratchet 0.5mm mechanical pencil with retractable sliding sleeve conical tip. The sticker on it states “Made in Japan”.

I might not be that impressed with the pencil, but I am impressed with the notepad. It is A6 sized with 100 sheets of lined paper. The Pantone Universe branding is rather subtly marked onto the cover by a difference in the gloss level. Nice.

That paper is smooth, your pencil really seems to glide across it, yet it grabs hold of graphite. Frankly, it’s the sort of paper that makes me think I should pay more attention to the quality of paper that I use. If a pencil writing experience consists of three elements – pencil, lead and paper - then I admit it’s a bit incongruous how I generally ignore the paper. My three legged-stool must be on a terrible lean! (Erasers are of course a fourth element).

I also like how the cover folds right back, and how the pages easily tear out.

Apparently "Maize" evokes feelings and thoughts like ‘radiant’, ‘inviting’ and ‘wisdom’.

Anyway, if you see some Pantone stationery, take a few minutes and check it out.

Koh-I-Noor 5608 Notebook Pencil

2011-06-28T01:23:00.001+12:00

From far away, and an embarrasingly long time ago, a parcel arrived in my letterbox. Amongst the contents was this interesting little fellow. The Koh-I-Noor 5608 Notebook 2mm mechanical pencil.

The 115mm length and 7mm diameter belie it's rather surprisingly substantial presence in the hand. Thats clearly an effect of the knurled grip zone and its weight to size ratio from all that metal componentry.
It's an ordinary push top ratchet mechanism pencil, but the lead is an 80mm length of 2mm diameter. Only one lead fits in the pencil, there is no spare carried inside. A replacement lead is fed in through the tip rather than in through the top end. Although not my favourite size, 2mm lead would suit many for writing quick rough and ready notes, particularly where thinner leads might get broken from the rough and tumble of being carried around in a bag, or where the writing situation is not ideal. There is no eraser under the top cap, rather it unscrews to reveal a lead sharpener.

It's a particularly vicious looking little sharpener. Lots of nasty little fangs to attack the lead.

Just FYI - you can unscrew things and remove the pocket clip.

Thanks to Nick from Hungary for sending this to me.

Wörther Slight 1.18mm Mechanical Pencil Review

2011-06-21T01:58:00.001+12:00

Here we have the last of the feedback from the Dave Turns Five Giveaways. The Grand Finale Prize, a shopping spree at Cult Pens to the value of £150 was won by "Stell" and here now is an article she has sent in about her prize. So, over to Stell.

Review of Wörther Slight 1.18mm Mechanical Pencil

130mm long, 9mm diameter, 18g, Price Range - Mid/High
Disclosure : this pencil was part of a prize in the celebrations of Dave’s Mechanical Pencil Blog turning Five.

Why did I choose the Wörther Slight Pencil?

Well ‘back in the day’ I worked in a Engineering drafting office (the early 1980’s), when mechanical drafting pencils came in 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9mm and each draftsman was issued with a complete set on day one. We were also issued with two 2mm clutch pencils. All drawings were completed using the mechanical pencils, selecting the lead size for different thickness lines on the drawing to indicate different materials or construction details. Final drawings were inked in, using pens with the same line thicknesses. Those pencils were held perfectly vertical and rotated as one drew lines to ensure the line was always of a constant thickness. Any text or writing was done with a 2mm pencil. I left engineering for academia in the late 80’s but I just can’t bring myself to use a pencil in the sub 0.9mm category for anything other than technical line drawings, even though I know that a 0.5mm lead has become the default standard for most mechanical pencil users for writing. I simply enjoy the line variation that a 0.9 and 1.18mm pencil provides when writing and sketching. When I spotted the Wörther Slight Pencil at Cult Pens, I was curious to try out a modern production 1.18mm pencil, and I’m so glad that Dave’s birthday celebrations provided the impetus to order one.

First Impressions

The Wöether Slight comes packaged in a stylish, almost too stylish grey cardboard box.

The outer sleeve is in fine ribbed corrugated cardboard with the Wörther logo centred in reverse silver. The sleeve slides open to reveal a sleek black pencil and two information cards. Everything about this packaging is elegant and in keeping with my understanding of current EU regulations on manufacturers responsibility on providing packaging and products that are recyclable. There is not a plastic tie, band, or bag to be seen, only cardboard. Right on top was a small thick white card detailing the 3 steps to replace the leads. In an era where what Dave calls ‘keep on clicking’ 0.5mm pencils dominate the market, having this information readily available is probably a good move. The reverse of the card has the same instructions in German, well I suppose they are the same as German is not one of my languages. Also on top of the pencil is neat little folded card explaining the pencil is manufactured by hand, to a high standard, comes with a world wide guarantee and a ‘wish for great pleasure with Wörther products’. There is a link to the Wörther website which lists some lovely pencil products. That site was enough to make me wish for an executive desk on which to display such things.
But what about the pencil? Well the first visual impression is that it is a classic pencil shape, hexagonal with a sharp taper at the writing end just like a wood cased pencil. Picking up the pencil there is a sense of weight, of quality; the pencil is metal and weighty, at 18g. My heavier vintage fountain pens weigh in at between 19.4 and 24 g, and a wood cased Faber-Castell 6B at 5g. The Wörther Slight feels substantial, cool to the touch, smooth and heavy, but is of course much thicker than a wood cased pencil, at 9mm diameter is more like a fountain pen, or significant ballpoint/roller ball pen.

The Wörther Slight is available in two finishes, Aluminium and Black. I ordered the Black with some slight apprehension about the matt black marking with finger smudges, but after several weeks of constant use there are no noticeable smears or marks. Unlike many mechanical pencils there is no special grip section or grip area. You can hold the pencil anywhere that suits you best, if anything the pencil is too smooth, initially the cool metal finish felt very smooth, almost slippery, but after using the pencil for a few weeks I realised that even though it felt slippery it wasn’t. This is a sleek pencil, with no pocket clip. Many pencils have pocket clips to prevent them rolling off a desk, as well as to clip them to pockets, but as this is a hexagonal pencil there is no risk of desk roll. I don’t clip pens and pencils to my self, in the past I have even amputated clips from some cheaper plastic pens and pencils because I disliked the way the clip interrupts the design. The lack of a pocket clip was something I liked about the Wörther (YMMV). The balance point is 65mm from the tip, exactly half way, making for a nicely secure feel in use.

The Lead, a 1.18mm, is advanced by a twist mechanism, as is common in many vintage pencils taking this size. To advance the lead you twist the nose cone of the pencil until enough lead protrudes for your use. A firm hold is required to twist the nose cone enough to advance lead, which may annoy if your fingers are not so nimble or are perhaps prone to slipping. The twist mechanism isn’t always obvious on vintage pencils, on some the mechanism is cap activated (push-click) or the twist mechanism is at the non-writing end of the pencil so there is always a sense of discovery as one works out how to advance the lead. The supplied lead is soft, possibly a 2B. Replacement leads are available from Wörther, in the same grade as supplied with the pencil, Autopoint 1.1mm leads fit and are available in H, HB, as well as Blue, Red and Green. Scripto leads fit and come in H, B, 2B, and CX supersoft leads, as well as Red, Green and Blue. 1.18mm leads are not commonly available where I live but are easy and affordable to buy online, and vintage and usable packets are often found ‘in the wild’ in antique or used goods shops.

Spare lead access, is at the non-working end of the pencil where there is a hexagonal plug, with Wörther and Germany etched on it. This is the only branding on the entire pencil, unlike much of the commercial pencil offerings which are branded, bar-coded, logo’d and have lead sizes and other information liberally applied to the entire surface of the pencil barrel, and clip.

Removing the hexagonal plug reveals an eraser so small that it could only be considered an emergency eraser and a black rubber tube plugged with a grey stopper. This tube contains spare on-board leads, and prevents the classic mechanical pencil rattle sound from occurring. I can’t help but think of this as a stealth pencil, rugged, silent, and dark.

Leads are replaced by removing the old lead stub, fully retracting the lead mechanism and inserting a new lead thru the nose cone before tamping it home gently with a firm push against a hard surface.

Second impressions, after a few weeks of constant use. The all-important use test. The pencil has a conical lead sleeve so is a writing and free-drawing pencil rather than a drafting or technical pencil. The supplied lead is soft and generous so writes like a classic wood cased pencil, but can be sharpened or rotated to write with a fine line. What I like about 1.18mm leads is they are thick enough lead to last a while and to give you options. I have been known to use a lead pointer to sharpen the lead to a point, or drafting sandpaper block to smooth the lead to a chisel suitable for italic writing.

My only negative comment about the pencil is that the hexagonal shape is sharp, the edges are very noticeable when handling the pencil but not at all noticeable when using the pencil, so hardly bears mentioning. In contrast my Black Fixpencil 22 is a similar shape and material but far slimmer and the edges are much more rounded.

Did this pencil live up to my expectations?

Good question, as well as my drafting office inititation into the world of quality mechanical pencils, my expectations were also based on a small collection of very nice vintage pencils I have and use daily. My collection consists of a few Conway Stewart Duropoints, a Scripto, Parker 51 pencil, two Burnhams, some Autopoints, a Koh-i-nor, and a Fixpencil. All those are well made, comfortable to use and by their age alone have stood the test of time and use. The Wörther Slight certainly feels like it is in the same league in terms of build quality and durability. Compared to my vintage pencil collection there is a different aesthetic with the Wörther Slight, it is without a doubt a markedly more modernistic pencil, showcasing ideas of form follows function and total absence of any decoration in the design. If I was at a meeting and some one borrowed my Wörther Slight to jot down a note or two… I can imagine their sense of discovery that this uber-conservative pencil was a lot more than they expected. The Wörther Slight is already one of my favourite pencils and I expect it will age well.

Again – a huge thank you to Dave and his blog, to Cult Pens, and all Dave’s blog followers which allow me to experience not only the Wörther Slight but also to indulge my love of quality writing instruments at a technical geek level.
Stella aka Knitknitfrog

Thanks Stella, a great read, and I'm glad you enjoyed the fruits of your shopping spree. Stella also sent in this photo of the whole spree. Dave.

A full list of the items pictured is here on Knit Knit Frog

Tombow Mono Zero Stick Eraser Review

2011-06-09T18:27:00.000+12:00

Tombow Mono Zero Stick Eraser Review

Insanely useful.
The End.

The shortest review ever on DMP? Well, I could just leave it there, and I have found the Tombow Mono Zero 2.3mm diameter stick eraser so useful I am very tempted to do just that for maximum impact, but that would make me a plagiarist, and not really provide some information that folks might find useful.

Firstly then, the plagiarism. When first using the Mono Zero the Eraser Queens comment that it was “insanely useful” immediately came to mind, and I can’t think of anything better to say about it. So, now I’ve acknowledged the source I think I’m cleared of the accusation of plagiarism.

Right then, a little more information about this eraser. Actually there are two versions of the Tombow Mono Zero stick eraser. The one I have primarily been using is the EH-KUR “Ultra Fine 2.3mm” version. So, its eraser is a 2.3mm diameter round core.

Tombow Mono Zero round core

There is also the EH-KUS “Ultra Fine 2.5 x 5mm” version, which is a rectangular eraser core.

Tombow Mono Zero rectangular core

I personally prefer the blue/white/black striped colour scheme to the solid silver grey scheme.

Tombow Mono Zero alternative colour scheme

The Tombow Mono Zero stick eraser functions like an ordinary push top ratchet pencil. You push the top pocket clip section down to advance an increment of eraser. Ten clicks will get you about 9mm of eraser. The amount advanced has to be kept fairly short because the thin eraser cores do not have a lot of strength and will bend, tear and break if you advance too much out of the tip. The erasers are actually stuck onto the end of a plastic rod, and it is the rod that is held and advanced by the clutch mechanism. There is about 45mm of usable eraser length on each refill. You feed a new eraser core in through the tip rather than in through the top end like a mechanical pencil.

Comparison of Tombow Mono Zero eraser sizes

Tombow Mono Zero eraser refills

The elastomer eraser core erases quite well, but there are better. I would describe its erasing power as adequate or good rather than top notch. Let’s be fair though, the Mono Zero is not made to compete with block erasers, rather it is all about precision erasing of very small areas. I have been playing a certain online city building game and in my notebook have ruled up a grid of buildings and cities to record the level of advancement of each building in each city. As they are upgraded I erase the existing score and write in the new score. The Mono Zero is fantastic for this sort of thing. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I said above that the Mono Zero was not meant to compete with block erasers. ..well that is of course unless you toss an eraser shield into the mix.

I wonder how many younger folk even know of these? Staedtler and others still offer them. For those not familiar, an eraser shield is a very thin piece of metal (usually stainless steel) with a range of holes and shapes cut out of it so you use an appropriate opening to reveal only the area you want to erase and then rub away with your normal big fat block eraser.

Some might moan about the Mono Zero eraser core not being suitable for erasing large areas, the core breaking if you advance too much, the eraser residue not twisting up nicely like a good block eraser, the price, the refills not being big enough, blah blah, blah. Get over it! It’s an eraser for small precision work. Use it for what it is intended for and I stick by the opening statement, “ insanely useful”. If it was a pencil I’d add it to My Top 5 Pencils list, but it’s not, so I can’t.

The three Tombow Mono Zero stick erasers pictured in this review were tossed into a parcel sent to me ages ago by Cult Pens. Thanks Cult Pens – excellent freebies.

Freds Pencils

2011-06-09T17:03:00.001+12:00

Just FYI, you might want to visit this newish blog, Freds Pencils. It's primarily wooden , but mechanicals get a look in too.

Giveaway Feedback 3

2011-06-07T02:27:00.001+12:00

Palimpsest was the winning girl in the 5th Birthday Giveaway 1, and she has kindly sent in a few words and pictures of her winnings. So, over to Palimpsest.

How wonderful to get a parcel in the post – and with a handwritten letter too. Many thanks to Dave’s Mechanical Pencils. The pencil within is the Tasche SP-10T Ohto Japan. A mini mechanical pencil just over 100mm long but post the cap and it becomes a full-sized writing instrument. Cap and barrel are made of aluminium – lower part of the barrel is silver, the other half and the cap is a smoky pink. The tip, trim and clip are chrome. Unscrew the top and a mini eraser is revealed.

Performance? The Tasche SP-10T Ohto is a smooth writer producing a nice dark line. There is one disadvantage. The top of the barrel is a wobbly affair. By pressing it down a fresh pencil tip is revealed. When it doesn’t serve that purpose it rotates freely to the annoyance of this user. When the cap is posted the barrel is inadvertently pressed down to produce more pencil lead. This can be prevented by holding on to the chrome ring rather than the barrel when posting.

Eraser is so tiny that it must be used in emergencies only. But then trembling hands can hardly cope with the fiddly task of unscrewing the top. And it takes more than 5 seconds to complete the task.

Still, the mini Tasche is a winner for portability and smooth writing. And as all mechanical pencils it promises to go where no pencil sharpener can follow.

Thanks Palimpsest.
Just FYI, for anyone interested, here's my review of the Ohto Tasche mechanical pencil.

For The Ears

2011-06-04T12:39:00.001+12:00

The ears have been neglected on this blog, but AndrewJ from Australia has put that right. Long time readers may recall his guest review of the Pentel Forte mechanical pencils. Well he recently alerted me to a podcast from the BBC that is all about two pencil companies from the same city in Germany. Have a listen.

BBC Worldbiz podcasts are here.
The specific one in question, "GlobalBiz:Quick on the Draw: 14 May 11"

Thanks Andrew.

Chatelaine and Vintage Mechanical Pencils

2011-05-31T02:23:00.001+12:00

Last year a self-confessed stationery addict who reads this blog contacted me and corresponded a little about her eclectic collection of mechanical pencils. With a little encouragement, Sandra agreed to do a guest piece on some of her pencils, so here’s her article on some pencils that came from her great aunt.

The Inheritance

My interest in Victorian and Edwardian mechanical pencils and pens began when I inherited the ones in the picture below from my Great Aunt. She was born in 1899 but her parents, to whom most of the pencils had belonged, were born in the 1870’s. These pencils and pens might not be as convenient to use as modern mechanical pencils but I thought they were beautiful and I felt lucky to have them. As a child I liked to listen to family stories - to hold an object in my hand which some of these elderly people had owned and used when they were young somehow made these people’s lives more real to me and linked me back through generations of my family in a way nothing else could.

The inherited pencils – with standard wooden pencil for size comparison.

I am not a technical person and how these things were made was less interesting to me than their ability to evoke aspects of everyday life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pens and pencils were things used constantly by thousands of people in 1900. But many of these late Victorians and Edwardians would have understood that their grandparents might only have dreamed of the education and literacy which would make carrying a pencil with you a normal thing to do.

The design of many of these old pencils reflects not only the tastes of a different era but also links through to the way people dressed and the way they conducted their lives. For example, this was an age when no man would consider himself properly dressed without a jacket and a waistcoat – and the ring on the end of some pencils could have been used to attach the pencil to the watch chain which adorned almost every waistcoat. There, it rested safely in perhaps the opposite pocket to your watch, if you wore a double Albert, or even in the same pocket - ready to hand when you needed it.

Women’s clothes in the 19th century had far more pockets in them than they do now – the watch and chain was not exclusively a male adornment, as this picture shows.

A wedding picture taken in 1877, earlier than the date of my pencils but giving an idea of how some watch chains were worn -from a button hole to a waistcoat pocket or in the woman’s case a pocket made at the waist of her dress.
Picture from Avril Lansdell, Wedding Fashions 1860-1980, copyright Miss P Williams

Women too were still wearing chatelaines (see footnote). By the end of the 19th century these were more a fashion item than a way to keep your personal belongings safely on your person. But they frequently included a pencil and/or pen and tiny note cards amongst their contents

The Countess of Aberdeen, 1891 (copyright National Portrait Gallery)
from Vanda Foster, ‘A visual history of costume:the 19th century.’ by Vanda Foster.

In an age when there was no telephone, but when a postcard dispatched before 9am from your writing desk in the library or morning room would be delivered to someone in the same town before noon; when sending written messages was as normal and as frequent as sending text messages is now, a pencil or pen was a very useful thing to have about your person.

As far as I am concerned – it still is!

Two of my pencils are examples of one-ended combinations. That is, they contain both a pen and a pencil.

To use the bottom pencil, you twist the lower half of the barrel to make the pencil nozzle emerge from the centre of the barrel. Leads are fed in through the nozzle end of the pencil. The small cap at the other end of the barrel unscrews to give you a space in which to keep spare leads. You can retract the pencil and then use the sliding collar to push up a nib holder for a steel dip-pen nib. This comes out of a slot in a collar which encircles the business-end of the writing instrument.

I think this is gold-plated as it has no hall marks on it and it is showing small areas of wear – but it doesn’t seem to need polishing!

The other example in the picture also includes both a pen and a pencil. It has a slider pin in each side of the inside, plain barrel – one to push out the pen and the other to push out the pencil. In this case the pencil comes out towards one edge of the barrel opening and the pen towards the opposite edge. This example as well as allowing you to slide both writing instruments down inside the plain part of the barrel, then allows you to slide this whole assemble inside the ribbed end of the barrel. (As in the first picture). The ring at the end allows you to hang it from your watch chain from or from your chatelaine. It’s a white metal, but not silver.

Both pens with pencil showing.

Both pencils with nib showing.

This type of design with pen and pencil at the same end was popular right into the 20th century and I suspect the gold-coloured one is later than the other one.

The pencil below, however, I think is probably a late Victorian one, largely because of the heavy chased decoration and the weight of it.

The knurled collar at the base of the nozzle of this pencil should make the lead advance – but at this point in time it doesn’t work. The sliding collar on the barrel retracts the end of the pencil. So ‘pocket-safe’ is not exactly a new idea. Electronics apart almost everything you think is a modern idea – the Victorians probably got there first!

There is no hallmark on the pencil but it looks and feels like silver and it tarnishes slightly if left for any length of time. I suspect that this pencil has been well-used at one time as the whole pencil has a slight curve along its length.

It has a bloodstone in the seal end. (Which just happens to be my birth-stone.)

This is a small pencil with a spherical finial.

The whole of the nozzle end, beyond the part of the barrel with parallel sides, twists to advances the lead which is quite thick and is fed in from the writing end. It is only 6cm (2.5 inches long) and the thin covering of white metal has worn through in some places to what looks like a brass inner sleeve. A handy thing perhaps to keep with a notebook in your desk, or in a writing case, or it may even have belonged in an etui.

This slim gold pencil is, I think, newer.

Although it looks in this picture as if plate is wearing off this is just reflections from my rotten photography! The engraving on the barrel, beneath a picture of a Pointer dog, reads “Baker’s Pointer Pencil Pat 7985110, 9ct.” The finial unscrews to reveal a space for keeping spare leads. These are quite thick both in comparison to modern pencil leads and considering the slim shape of this pencil. Leads are inserted from the writing end and advanced by twisting the top half of the barrel (from the double ring to the right of the engraving.)

Although these are my most treasured pencils - because they are family things - they are not of course the only ones. Either you have the collecting gene or you don’t – and I can’t even imagine what it’s like not to have it! I’m not the sort of person who has to have every example of something, but if its interesting or unusual or appealing, in short if it tells me very plainly ‘Take me home’, then who am I to argue?

Footnote
The simplest explanation of the chatelaine I have found is from 'The History of Needlework Tools and Accessories' by Sylvia Groves:
“In Anglo-Saxon England women carried their needlework implements in cylindrical metal boxes, about 3 inches in height and 2 inches in diameter, suspended from the girdle. . . In the domestic life of the period, and for many centuries to come, there was little provision for the safe storage of personal belongings: privacy as we understand it was quite unknown. Small, individual possessions were therefore, of necessity carried on the person. Not only sewing implements but keys, pomander, seal, pen-knife, swung from the waist on chains or cords.
These accessories lent themselves naturally to enrichment and decoration and came eventually to be regarded as symbols of occupation and rank. In a large house or castle, for instance, it became the prerogative of the mistress or chatelaine to wear an elaborate equipage of this kind, and in the course of time the name chatelaine passed from the wearer to the object itself.”

Schneider iD Mechanical Pencil Review

2011-05-24T02:13:00.002+12:00

Schneider iD Mechanical Pencil Review

In recent times Keir from Scotland has slung his bagpipes over his shoulder, hitched up his kilt and gone exploring through the bazaars of the United Arab Emirates, and it is fair to say he has found many bargains to haggle over with the mechanical pencil merchants of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Keir has been feeding his strange and growing Rotring obsession, finding such delights as brand new dusty old Rotring 900’s still sitting on shelves…neglected…just waiting for a pencil person to recognise and rescue them. Keir took pity on poor me, far from the bazaars and sent a package of goodies my way. Amongst the exotic contents of the package was a strange looking little pencil which immediately caught my eye…the Schneider iD mechanical pencil... that short, sharp, tapering yet fat body, the very antithesis of many a long sleek drafting instrument. Vast expanse of shiny chrome on matt black rubber body, fluorescent end cap, this pencil is making a statement and it certainly looks interesting, sitting on a desk.

Right time to pick up the iD. As expected it is rather weighty, 32 grams according to my kitchen scales. The body tapers so you can hold it fairly low down or high up as suits you, and it also has a large scallop taken out of it as part of the ergonomic design.

I’ve got to say the body scallop and general size of the iD just didn’t suit me for long term writing. The scallop just didn’t seem to be of any particular use or relevance to me. The thickness of the body meant I wanted to try and grip the iD fairly low down and the body scallop contour appeared to be too high up for me. Even gripping the body low down it was basically still too wide for me, long term.

However, having said that it didn’t suit me for long term writing, I feel completely the opposite when it comes to short term use – like writing a shopping list, writing down a phone number, a couple of quick notes during a telephone conversation, jotting the notes for this review in my notebook and so forth. As a pencil to have lying around to grab for short term use, the iD is well worth consideration, a definite competitor to the Lamy Scribble. Whilst I generally prefer thinner leads, the 0.9mm of the iD is acceptable for quick notes and doodles.

Take a look at that pocket clip. It is chrome plated steel, surprisingly springy and very unusually shaped. On the one hand it works quite well, but because the clip is so wide and wraps around the body it needs to bend whatever it is clipped to. So, it’s not so good on thick papers, etc.

Note the lanyard eye at the top of the pocket clip. A rather rare thing these days.

Neither the pocket clip nor the body scallop effectively stops the pencil from rolling on your desk, although they do try and partially succeed.

The lead advance mechanism is a twist top ratchet. The coloured end cap twists about ¼ turn to advance the lead. Naturally it springs back of its own accord. Ten activations will get you about 5mm of the 0.9mm lead. Although it is possible to do it one-handed, advancing the lead on this mechanical pencil is really a two handed job and thus a definite interruption to the writing process.

The lead sleeve is a short tapering cone and retractable for pocket safety.

Refilling the leads is a little unusual too. I certainly expected that big end cap to pull off, but it doesn’t. To refill the lead magazine you unscrew the tip section from the main body and pull the whole mechanism out.

Of course since the end cap doesn’t come off, there is no eraser beneath it, or anywhere else for that matter.
Markings on the mechanical pencil are “iD” printed on the body near the tip of the pocket clip, and “Schneider Germany” is moulded into the black rubber body at the top of the body. Now, the use of the word “Germany” does not necessarily mean ‘Made in Germany’, which I find rather misleading at times but there's no subterfuge or hidden origin here as the Schneider iD webpage states “Writing comfort and quality ‘Made in Germany’ ”.

Overall then, the Schneider iD as a very interesting mechanical pencil, and I’m very grateful to Keir for sending it my way. Thanks buddy.

• Best Points – The looks.
• Not So Good Points – personally the body is too wide for prolonged use.
• Price Range – Low/Mid.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 123mm, diameter 21mm at widest point. Balance point about 60mm up from the tip.

Wallpaper

2011-05-17T01:43:00.001+12:00

Do you need to do some decorating? Fear not, Wes Z has come to your aid with some wallpaper.

Image copyright Wes Z, used and made available for copying with his permission.

It's his Pilot H-325 and the image is 1600 x 1200 pixels. Hopefully if you click on the image you will get a full size high resolution copy that you should then be able to download, save and use as your screen background.

Thanks Wes.

Paper Mate Biodegradable Test

2011-05-10T02:54:00.001+12:00

Paper Mate Biodegradable Mechanical Pencil Biodegradability Test

(Phew, that's a mouthfull)

Long term readers should recall that for the past year I have been putting the Paper Mate Biodegradable mechanical pencil to the test. Well 1 year is up so the test is over. Let’s just refresh our memories. The main body of the Paper Mate Biodegradable mechanical pencil is made from a special plastic which is claimed to be biodegradable. The Paper Mate website states

“Paper Mate® Biodegradable* products have been tested according to internationally recognized standards ISO 17556 and ISO 20200. Tests confirmed that, under normal temperature conditions found in soil/home compost, the product’s biodegradable components biograde(sic) in about a year.”

Not one to miss an opportunity for scientific investigation, I decided to put this to the test myself, and a year ago buried a Paper Mate Biodegradable mechanical pencil in my garden. You can read the previous postings on all this via these links:

Right then, it is now early May 2011 and one year is up. As noted above, Paper Mate claim the pencil should biodegrade in soil in about a year, so let’s go out to the garden. The herbs and flowers are looking quite nice, especially those red capsicums (bell peppers) towards the far end.

Push aside the mint and parsley to find the Paper Mate stuck in the soil as a grave marker.

Now dig down a bit to find the body.

Here’s the body and the marker, fresh from exhumation.

Now let’s give them a good scrubbing in some lukewarm water with detergent to remove as much dirt and grime as possible.

Those barcode labels still look pretty good!

Where are the tips? That’s interesting. They were definitely buried with the main bodies but are now nowhere to be seen. I can only guess they have biodegraded away!? As for the main bodies though…well there doesn’t appear to be a lot happening. There’s no question the bodies are being eaten away by micro-greeblies and such. The parts stuck in the soil are no longer nice and smooth. They are rough and pitted, looking almost sort of fibrous. My photographic skills aren’t really up to the job, but hopefully the two images below will give you some idea.

It is interesting to note that the grave-marker pencil has only been attacked from the soil-line down. It is basically as good as new above ground level despite being outdoors for a year. Equally interesting is that the barcode label has protected the surface of the buried pencil. The body surface directly beneath the barcode label has not started to degrade like the rest of the body.

At the start of this little experiment the two test pencils weighed in at 16 grams. After 1 year they now weigh in at…14 grams. So they have lost 2 grams of material in a year. Most of that would be the two tips which have gone missing. I can only assume those much smaller sections with much greater surface to volume ratios have been eaten away quicker? Either that or grave-robbers.
Whilst there’s no question these pencils are starting to biodegrade, I really must question the statement that these pencils will biodegrade “…in about a year”. Personally I think my garden counts as “normal temperature conditions found in soil/home compost”.

Giveaway Feedback 2

2011-05-08T06:32:00.000+12:00

I have been rather slack lately and not updated the blog with some more reports of 5th Birthday Giveaways in their new homes. So, my apologies to Viperman and Jack.

First then here’s a photo and a few words from Viperman on his winnings – the Faber-Castell eMotion Pen-Pencil set.

“In the time that I have used them I have really grown fond of the maple wood finish and the smooth writing. This is the first pencil I have had that uses a twist of the end cap to advance the lead and I have to say I like it a lot. The only thing I didn't like about the pencil was the lead thickness, and I thought the pencil was a little to large in diameter where I usually grip it. The pen is also very nice and the only thing I didn't like was the original refill which I have replaced with one from a Parker Jotter.” - Viperman

Secondly, from Jack, we have the Ancient Kauri pencil in its new home.

"Not much to say, but: I really like the pencil!" - Jack

Thanks guys. Glad you liked your winnings.

The Big Day

2011-04-29T03:02:00.005+12:00

The big day is upon us. Today our future King marries the future Queen. It’s pretty big news in my part of the world. For many the interest and popularity in the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton is not necessarily evidence of support for the monarchy but rather support for a seemingly nice couple tying the knot, an excuse for a celebration, some excitement, pomp and ceremony, a distraction from recent disasters and difficult times, etc.

Lots of people are joining in the celebrations in all sorts of ways. Like many ladies, Mrs Dave will be wearing a tiara and veil at work today. Well, the tiara is a little worse for wear because it broke and last night I was dispatched to the shopping mall to buy another one. All the dollar stores, department stores, etc. had been stripped bare. No tiaras or crowns to be found anywhere, so it was super-glue to the rescue. Equally I have heard that it is impossible to hire a wedding gown from any source – genuine wedding hire companies or fancy dress stores. Apparently many ladies are even digging their dresses out of the storage chest. “Wills and Kate Dress Up Wedding Parties” are all the rage, but Mrs Dave will be home, glued to the TV, champagne in hand. Local watering holes are also joining in the festive occasion with promotions such as half price drinks for all ladies in wedding dresses, beauty pageants for the best wedding dress, ~~sluttiest~~ hottest bride, etc.

So, what’s this got to do with mechanical pencils? Well, in the good old days, there’s no doubt we would have had plenty of royal wedding souvenir pencils to buy. You can see various examples of such items in this blog in previous posts such as Royal Tour Pencils, Royal Coronation Pencils and more.

I haven’t gone looking for Wills and Kate souvenir pencils, but have you seen any? Would you buy one? I haven’t had a poll for ages, so, vote in the poll.

*******
Edit - The voting on the poll was 17 x Yes and 41 x No.

The Good Old Days

2011-04-19T17:27:00.000+12:00

These days leads come in plastic. I'm far too young to have been around then, but back in the good old days, when life was slower and simpler, before everything came in plastic, lead refills came in...well...lots of different things.

Like glass tubes with stoppers.

Conway Stewart and Eversharp glass tubes - note the square leads.

Also there were all sorts of metal and wood tubes and containers.

Various metal tubes and containers

Special leads in heavy duty metal containers
Of course the claim of extra thin would be laughed at today. More like "thick for strength".

Moving on we have a variety of wooden tubes and containers

I really like these slotted wooden type holders.

Scripto's in wooden holders

0.036" = 0.9mm = 'Extra Thin Lead'

Wooden tubes for politicians?

Of course there were also just plain old cardboard boxes

and of course cardboard tubes

Gonna get that Road Runner

iPhone Pocket Sketches Notebook

2011-04-12T01:46:00.001+12:00

iPhone Pocket Sketches Notebook

Picture the group of tech-savvy folk at the café, enjoying their cappuccino and witty repartee when suddenly a light bulb goes off. Ah-ha, a great new idea for an iPhone app! But how to capture the moment and develop it just that little further whilst it’s still fresh in the head and surrounded by inspirational people all eager to assist? Well thanks to Pocket Sketches, the new iPhone sketchbooks are at the ready - a small notebook with a real life size iPhone screen template printed on the page so you can draw and layout exactly how your app will display on an iPhone screen.

Light card cover with 16 pages stapled in.

The paper is printed with faint gridlines, with iPhone template superimposed on one side.

At 89 x 141mm overall size, the notebook is a little smaller than A6.

Well, I don’t actually have an iPhone, and I’m not a tech designer guy, so I just used it as a normal sort of notebook. It worked OK.

Inside front cover. A place to put your contact details so if lost the nice person can return it to you...or at least know whose app idea they are stealing.

Inside rear cover – just look at how much money my app is going to make for me!

The notebook isn’t particularly robust or durable, but then I imagine it is not intended to have a long life. It’s to replace serviettes, hamburger bags, used envelopes and all those other bits of scrap paper that get pressed into service when inspiration suddenly strikes. I haven't really had any expereince with highly specialised notebooks before so this was a novel experience for me, and it seems a really good idea for those in the mobile app industry.

To be honest I’m a little surprised the folk at Pocket Sketches sent me some samples, but for me the notebook was such a specialised and unusual concept that I was happy to accept and put a mini review on the blog. Being tech savvy folk they even included a little sheet suggesting keywords and links to put in the review to help their search engine results ranking.

Rotring Rapid Pro 2mm Mechanical Pencil

2011-04-02T13:10:00.001+13:00

Rotring Rapid Pro 2mm Mechanical Pencil

One of the comments on the recently published Rotring Rapid Pro mechanical pencil review was essentially asking about the differences between the 0.5/0.7mm and the 2mm Rapid Pro mechanical pencils. That’s a good question, and not something really covered in the review, so I will attempt to address it here. In a nut shell, there’s not much difference.

All three lead size models of the Rapid Pro are essentially stylistically and mechanically the same. The only differences are at the ends of the pencils. Lets start at the top.

As you can see the push top buttons have different ends on them. On the 0.5/0.7mm models there is a hole through which you can see the eraser underneath. On the 2mm version there is a black plastic end piece. There is a hole in the black plastic too, you just can’t see it in the photograph. The top button on the 2mm version doubles as a lead sharpener so you stick your lead in through the hole in black plastic, twist and sharpen. I’m not really a 2mm lead user, but the sharpener seems reasonable compared to other integral sharpeners I have tried. Remember the 2mm Rapid Pro is a push top ratchet mechanism mechanical pencil just like the 0.5/0.7mm versions. It is not a traditional clutch pencil with jaws.

If you pull the top buttons off you can see the difference in shape, and that the 2mm version doesn’t have an eraser. Also, the 2mm lead chamber is only big enough to hold one stick of lead at a time so there are no spares. You are writing with the only piece of lead in the pencil.

Now to the other end of the pencil. With lead sleeve retracted the tips look almost identical.

Of course the 0.5/0.7mm versions then have a retractable sliding sleeve whereas with the 2mm version the lead just comes straight out.

So, there we have it. Not much difference at all.

Rotring Rapid Pro Mechanical Pencil Review

2011-03-22T02:22:00.004+13:00

Rotring Rapid Pro Mechanical Pencil Review

The Rotring 600 mechanical pencil is a classic icon in the pantheon of writing instruments. In recent times Rotring released a new pencil which has some similarities to the venerable 600. I refer of course to the Rotring Rapid Pro mechanical pencil. Back in June last year I held a giveaway on this blog for a Rapid Pro, and now it’s time for a review…well actually more than one review, and all three of them are guest reviews…a trifecta of Rotring champions, if you like.

So, here we have the Rotring Rapid Pro family of mechanical pencils - 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 2.0mm, all stylistically the same. The 2mm is a ratchet advance mechanical pencil just like the others. It’s not a clutch pencil.

The winners of my giveaway were Spuddybuddy and Rhonda Eudaly so I present their two reviews here, and the third triumvir is none other than Ovidiu who previously reviewed the mighty Rotring 600 here on this blog. We shall see what he has to say about its new brother, the Rapid Pro.

We will start the tri-review with Spuddybuddy, and in a first for DMP we have a video review.

Yep, no more reading, just sit back, get comortable and enjoy the Spuddybuddy Rotring Rapid Pro Movie below.

Well then, now for a more traditional review, here we have Ovidiu's written review.
**************
Rotring Rapid Pro Mechanical Pencil Review - words and images by Ovidiu

The Rotring Rapid Pro is the newest release from the Hamburg based company, part of Sanford, who is also part of Newell Rubbermaid Company. And unlike the Rotring 600 or Rotring 800, officially available only in Japan, the Rapid Pro seems to have worldwide availability and also can be seen on Rotring homepage and also Rotring Catalog from 2010. I really commend Rotring for this bold decision to release, after so many years, a high quality mechanical pencil, that is, as they say, “the perfect professional tool for all sketching, writing and drawing applications”. We really needed a comeback from Rotring. There are three versions of Rotring Rapid Pro available, the 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 2mm and there is only one color available so far, silver, for all of them. The nice thing about the 2mm model is that it features an automatic mechanical pencil mechanism, rather than the standard clutch mechanism usually found in the classic leadholders.

The packaging consists from a grey cardboard box that slides into another which has the word “Rotring” embossed on it. You receive a lot more “package” than with the Rotring 600 for example. Of course, no true professional mechanical pencil comes without the mandatory user manual, in fact a folded sheet of paper, which, in this case, doesn’t refer to the Rapid Pro at all, but to it’s Japanese relatives, Rotring 800 and 600. This could be to the fact the pencil was bought from Japan and it’s quite possible that this manual could differ for other countries.

For sure, the Rotring Rapid Pro is a very nice pencil. Almost all the body is made of brushed metal, with some shiny polished surfaces on the tip of the pencil and the pocket clip. I usually don’t like shiny surfaces on pencils, especially on drafting pencils that I always consider should look more “serious” than the regular ones, but on the Rapid Pro, those touches really look good.

Side by side : Rotring Rapid Pro and Rotring Rapid

The name alone suggests a resemblance with the Rotring Rapid, an interesting, plastic body / rubber grip pencil with a “vanishing point” mechanism and a very long eraser hidden under the cap.

But in the end, these two pencils don’t have too much in common, besides the fact that both are pocket safe. The Rapid Pro looks more like a Rotring 600 relative than Rapid’s one.

Rotring Rapid Pro flanked by two nice Rotring 600

The Rapid Pro is a very solid, well-made pencil. Writing with it I didn’t fell any play in the parts of the mechanism, which is quite rare these days, even with “pro” pencils. The grip is standard for a drafting pencil with a laser cut diamond like pattern. As you can see from the picture, the grip’s texture is much denser than the one from Rotring 600 and this really feels in use, especially if your fingers get a little sweaty, the Rapid Pro tends to slip much easier. Unlike the Rotring 600, Rapid Pro uses a so called sliding sleeve, which can be hidden inside the body for pocket safety, when the pencil is not in use. This is in fact not the only advantage of this kind of mechanism, because on long writing sessions the sleeve cushions inside the body while the lead consumes itself so this way you don’t need to push the pencil’s cap that often to advance the lead. The sleeve’s length is around 3mm and seems pretty sturdy, without too much play.

The grip texture difference between Rotring 600 and Rotring Rapid Pro

The body is hexagonal, finely brushed, but where the 600’s edges were quite sharp, here are a little rounded. As with the grip, I also find the barrel to be a little too slippery for my liking and since this isn’t a very light pencil, it’s quite a challenge to keep it stable in hand after you write with it for some time. The Rotring trademark, the red ring, is positioned this time between the grip and the barrel. Also, on the barrel the text “Rotring Rapid Pro 0.5” is written in black. There is no indication about the country where it was made anywhere on the pencil.

The shiny things : pocket clip, eraser, the cap, and the lead magazine

The pocket clip looks the same as the one found in Rotring 600, only this time it is polished and shiny. It is also removable.

The cap is also polished and has a small hole on top of it. The eraser is probably identical to the one in Rotring 600… small but functional if you have nothing else on hand. It sits on top of the lead magazine, which is made of metal.

The mechanism is a standard, automatic one, pushing the button the lead is advancing in small steps. The click is a quiet but audible one. Ten clicks will give you around 7mm of lead, just like with the Rotring 600. As you can see there is a fair amount of plastic used.

I was writing with the Rapid Pro for about one month and the impressions are mostly positive, but this should be expected since it resembles in many ways the Rotring 600. The grip is just a little thicker which is good, the sliding sleeve is a very nice and useful addition, since it helps you keep up in long writing sessions without the need to push the button to advance the lead. The build quality is as expected – very good, as it should be on an instrument of this kind.

In the end, probably the greatest thing is that Rotring finally re-opened to the world and decided to continue their rich tradition in producing high quality writing instruments.

Best points : Classic design, very good built quality, sliding sleeve
Not so good points : Rotring was a little overzealous with the grip and barrel, a little too slippery for my liking.

Dimensions :
Length : 145mm
Thickness : 8mm (the barrel – between the points), 8mm for the grip.
Price Range : Medium.

**************
Last then, but not least, we have the third part of our tri-review. It's by Rhonda Eudaly and is posted on her own blog. So, no point in duplicating here, this is the link to Rhonda’s Rotring Rapid Pro mechanical pencil review. Head over for a browse.

Well, that’s about it. I think we are all Rotring Rapid Pro’d out. It’s a fine pencil, a worthy addition to the Rotring stable…but will it reach the status of the 600…time will tell.

Please join with me in thanking all three guest reviewers for their sterling efforts, and wish them many years of Rapid Pro enjoyment.

Follow up article on Rotring Rapid Pro 2mm mechanical pencil.

Giveaway Feedback 1

2011-03-19T16:37:00.001+13:00

Well the various Dave Turns Five giveaway prizes departed DMP HQ a while ago and reports of their arrival at destination are starting to filter back in. Here are two giveaways that are in the hands of their new owners.

First, the Pentel Sharp Kerry mechanical pencil won by “ThirdeYe”.

Photo courtesy of ThirdYe

You can read more of what ThirdeYe has to say about the Sharp Kerry over on his blog.

Second we have the Conway Stewart Nippy No. 3 pencil won by “Economy Pens”. Here it is shown in its new home.

Photo courtesy of Economy Pens

You can read more on Economy Pens blog.

We Have A Winner 4 - Part 2

2011-03-08T13:11:00.000+13:00

OK, well 3 days have now gone by, no sign of xMisoSoupx, so sorry but you have missed out and the prize now goes to a new winner. I have switched the Casio on again, hit the random number button and the new winner is....

Stell

So, Stell, you've got 48 hours or so to get in touch with me. Send me an email by using the address in the sidebar "About Me - View My Complete Profile".

We Have A Winner 4

2011-03-05T11:44:00.001+13:00

It's all over. The final giveaway has closed and the random number generator on my old Casio fx-82TL calculator has selected xMisoSoupx as the winner.

So, please down your soup and send me an email by using the address in the sidebar "About Me - View My Complete Profile".

Thanks to all of you who have enetered into the various giveaways, sorry I could give you all a prize.

xMisoSoupx - it's been over 48hrs and I haven't heard from you...time's running out.

Dave Turns Five Giveaway 4 - The Final

2011-02-28T02:36:00.015+13:00

This giveaway is now closed.
The winner was xMisoSoupx

**************************************
This is it, the one you have all been waiting for, the last and ultimate prize of the Dave Turns Five Giveaway series.

The prize is MONEY! Cold hard cash. Well, not quite, how about cold hard pencil-money? The prize is a shopping spree at Cult Pens to the value of £150 excl VAT sales tax but including free delivery worldwide. Hurrah for Cult Pens!

Now for those of you who don’t think in British Pounds, then that’s roughly about 175 of the Unions Euros or 240 of Uncle Sams Dollars, or 19,500 Japanese Yen. There aren’t even any restrictions on the shopping spree. You could turn around and buy a bunch of fountain pens with the prize and I’ll just grit my teeth, smile nicely and wish you hours of enjoyable inking.

To enter this giveaway you simply leave a comment here on this posting. Any comment will do. BUT, you must have fulfilled the “registration requirements” back in August last year (see the fine print below)

This giveaway will remain open for 5 days, after which the winner will be chosen at random, and announced here on this post, so check back in to claim your prize. If you don’t claim your prize within a couple of days then a runner-up will be chosen to replace you.

The fine print
This giveaway is open to all registered readers as of August 2010. It is not open to unregistered readers.

Not sure if you are registered? Well back in June 2010 I published this article to get you to register. You are registered if you met any of the listed criteria by the end of August 2010. So, for example, if you were a public Follower or had commented on this blog before end August 2010 then you are registered. Here’s the criteria published back then:

•If you are, or become, a public Follower of this blog (using Google Friend Connect, see the sidebar gadget) then you are registered.
•If you have a sign in that identifies you when you leave comments on this blog, and you have previously left a comment on this blog, then you are already registered! You don't have to do anything. If you want to double check, then use the Lijit search box in the sidebar. Just search on your comment display name and check it brings you up. If it does, you are registered. (Example, search on ‘adair’ to bring up their comments) Only one trap - if your first comment ever was in the last few weeks then it may not yet have been indexed by Google/Lijit search, but give it a little time and it will be.
•If you have a sign in but have never left a comment, then leave one here on this post now and you are registered.
•If you do not have a sign in then you could get one by creating one here at OpenID. These ID’s are effectively anonymous. You can create them without any real world ID so you don’t have to get worried about privacy. Anyone who uses Yahoo, AOL, Blogger, Wordpress, MySpace, Live Journal to name a few already has an OpenID. Then leave a comment here on this post using your nice new OpenID and you are registered.
•If you do not have a sign in and do not want to get one, then you can email me at the address in my Profile (see About Me in the sidebar) and register. In your email you can just say something like “I’ll be the Anonymous commenter who calls themselves JD-84”.
•If you are one of that small number of people who have computer trouble commenting on this blog then you can also email me and register. We can work on resolving the problem you have, but if we can’t fix it, then when the giveaways are on, I will enter you into the draw myself.

Remember - that was how to register back in August 2010. You cannot register now. If you didn't meet the criteria back then, sorry but it's too late now.

Only 1 comment per person. Extra comments will be deleted. If you want to ask any questions, start some discussion, etc then please use the Guestbook, or email me direct. If you somehow botch your comment and need to delete it, then whilst signed in you should be able to click the trashcan beside it and then start again from scratch. If you can’t then email me and I should be able to do it for you.

Having trouble commenting? Make sure your browser security settings, especially with Firefox, are set to allow third-party cookies. Still got trouble? Email me and we'll work on Plan B.

For this giveaway Cult Pens are donating the free worldwide delivery and 100 of the £150, the other £50 is from my pocket, I'm sharin' the love.

Soennecken Mechanical Pencil

2011-02-25T06:55:00.000+13:00

Live and learn. Well it was quite a long time ago now, but Memm of Bleistift made the effort to send me something he thought might be a little unusual, something new as it were. He was right, and I appreciate the effort. I’d never previously heard of Soennecken, the German brand of office products, despite Wikipedia’s assertion that “Its products are well-known in the Anglo-Saxon world”. Apparently though back in the early and mid 20th Century they were a brand of significance, supplying writing instruments of good reputation, but they went belly up in 1973. In 1983 the brand trademark rights were purchased by Branion eG and today it operates as some sort of cooperative. Frankly, I don’t quite understand its current legal status.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the Soennecken brand mechanical pencils that Memm sent. I doubt Soennecken actually manufacture them.

Simple but classic styling.

The semi-metallic blue coloured pencil has a certain style.

Lightly grooved grip zone. The lead sleeve is fixed.

Eraser under top button.

Wave-curved pocket clip with branding.

We Have A Winner 3

2011-02-23T19:17:00.000+13:00

Right then, I've made the draw for the winner of Giveaway 3

The winner is Jack.

The runner up, chosen by me for the best entry is...Economy Pens. I do like a bit of dark humour and Economy Pens little poem really made me sit up and take note with that little story of death ~~drugs~~ and rock-n-roll.

Frankly, I'd like to give all of you who enetered a prize, your entries were all excellent and I enjoyed reading them all. Great stuff. Thanks very much for taking the time to enter.

So, Jack and Economy Pens please email me using the address in the sidebar About Me - View My Complete Profile.

Dave Turns Five Giveaway 3

2011-02-17T04:14:00.002+13:00

This giveaway is now closed.

The winner is Jack
The runner up is Economy Pens.

Welcome to Dave Turns Five Giveaway Number Three.

This time it’s Back to the Past, with “They Don’t Make ‘em Like This Anymore”, and “From The Dawn Of Time”.

The above picture is of the actual giveaway items.

From top to bottom:-

“They Don’t Make ‘em Like This Anymore” - Conway Stewart Nippy No 3 (1.18mm) propelling pencil. Used but good condition, dating back to the days when the UK had a significant propelling pencil industry.
“From The Dawn Of Time” - Ancient Kauri (0.7mm) PSI Slimline Pro Pencil 24k GT. As explained in this linked article, this pencil was commissioned by myself from a local wood turner. It is new unused, but remember, such pencils and mechanisms are not usually up to the same standards as modern retail...but hey...it's fifty thousand years old!!!!!

The winner gets to choose which pencil they want.

On earlier giveaways a few readers made the effort to jazz up their comments by submitting in the form of a poem, haiku, a word play or some other such little something extra. So to enter this giveaway you simply leave a comment here on this posting. BUT...not just any comment will do...your comment MUST be a little something extra...for example a poem, a haiku, a word play, a little prose on the joy you will experience at winning, one sentence on why a vintage pencil will suit you...anything will do, just make a little effort! You do not have to state your preferred prize; you can make your choice after winning.

But wait there's more! The best entry, ie.e the best poem, word play, story, etc as chosen by myself, will be the runner up and receive the pencil not selected by the winner.

This giveaway will remain open for 5 days, after which the winner will be chosen at random, and announced here on this post, so check back in to claim your prize. If you don’t claim your prize within a couple of days then a runner-up will be chosen to replace you.

The fine print

This giveaway is open to anyone and everyone. Both pencils are from my collection so this giveaway is at my expense.

Only 1 comment per person. Extra comments will be deleted. If you want to ask any questions, start some discussion, etc then please use the Guestbook, or email me direct. If you somehow botch your comment and need to delete it, then whilst signed in you should be able to click the trashcan beside it and then start again from scratch. If you can’t then email me and I should be able to do it for you.
Having trouble commenting? Make sure your browser security settings, esp. with Firefox, are set to allow third-party cookies. Still got trouble? Email me and we'll work on Plan B.

Wyvern Mechanical Pencils

2011-02-15T02:17:00.002+13:00

Wyvern

I’ve always been a fan of the vampire genre (‘cept never seen nor read any Twilight) and recently there’s been a big surge in popularity of vampires, zombies and other such mythical and mystical horror things. It all got me thinking about links between such mythical beings and pencils. Pretty much the first thing that popped into my mind was Wyvern.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with dragons, a Wyvern is a dragon-headed winged reptilian sort of creature, and is a fairly common symbol in mediaeval heraldry. I have two Wyvern brand mechanical pencils. I have actually attempted to do something more than just a quick Google search to find out about the history of Wyvern pens, and I even found a book in the library that mentioned them, but I still don’t really know much. In a nutshell though, Wyvern dates back to the mid 1890’s in Leicester. They originally manufactured eye dropper pens and also sold pens made by others. The coat of arms of the City of Leicester includes a Wyvern, hence the brand name. By the 1920’s they were also manufacturing gold nibs for other pen manufacturers and in the early 1930’s they began manufacturing mechanical pencils after recruiting a mechanical pencil expert from Germany. I don’t know what went wrong later, but manufacturing ceased in the mid 1950’s.

So, I’ve got a Wyvern pen case. ‘Made in England’, it’s plastic with cream lid and black base. Kind of like a little mini art deco coffin.

Inside are my two Wyvern mechanical pencils. I bought them separately, sans fountain pen.

The rather large company logo of a wyvern, and the words ‘WYVERN’ and ‘MADE IN ENGLAND’ are impressed into the bodies. Additionally, the black and gold pencil has ‘707’ between ‘WYVERN’ and ‘MADE IN ENGLAND’ so I assume that is its model number which I believe dates it c1950’s.

Of these mythical creatures, I personally prefer the short blue one.

Unlike the 707, the blue one also has the Wyvern logo on the metal pocket clip.

Both are screw mechanism tip feeders using 1.18mm lead. I quite like the look created by the dark blue striations down towards the tip.

The quality of the metal pocket clip on the 707 and its method of attachment to the body seem rather questionable to me.

Apparently many Wyvern fountain pens were of very high quality. From my two examples I’m not sure you could say the same about their pencils, although I’d guess that they are both from late in Wyverns history so perhaps economic circumstances had lowered the quality by then. Still, irrespective of that I’m glad to have a couple of Wyverns in the collection.

We Have A Winner 2

2011-02-14T01:12:00.003+13:00

Right then, I've made the draw for the winner of Giveaway 2, and it is "Viperman".

So, please email me using the address in the sidebar About Me - View My Complete Profile.

There will now be a short intermission in the giveaways, but don't worry, there's plenty more coming!

Dave Turns Five Giveaway 2

2011-02-09T01:08:00.002+13:00

This giveaway is now closed - Viperman was the winner.

For When You Need Some Ink

This is Dave Turns Five Giveaway No.2. It’s a slightly strange thing to be giving away a ballpoint pen on a mechanical blog, but whilst the mechanical pencil is mightier man cannot write by pencil alone. The permanence of ink does have its place, however limited, and if you are going to sign your life away in ink you may as well do it with a bit of style.

Therefor today we have a giveaway where the winner gets to make a choice. They can choose to win either the Parker Urban ballpoint pen in “lacquered magenta with chrome trims” OR they can choose the Faber-Castell E-Motion Pen-Pencil set in “maplewood with black plastic”.

These pictures are of the actual giveaway items.

To enter this giveaway you simply leave a comment here on this posting. Any comment will do. You do not have to state your preferred prize; you can make your choice after winning.

This giveaway will remain open for 5 days, after which the winner will be chosen at random, and announced here on this post, so check back in to claim your prize. If you don’t claim your prize within a couple of days then a runner-up will be chosen to replace you.

The Fine Print
This giveaway is open to all readers, but registered readers will have an extra chance in the draw. (Don't ask how that works, just trust me.) Both the Parker Urban and Faber-Castell E-Motion set are new unused from my collection, so this giveaway is at my expense.

Only 1 comment per person. Extra comments will be deleted. If you want to ask any questions, start some discussion, etc then please use the Guestbook, or email me direct. If you somehow botch your comment and need to delete it, then whilst signed in you should be able to click the trashcan beside it and then start again from scratch. If you can’t then email me and I should be able to do it for you.

Having trouble commenting? Make sure your browser security settings, esp. with Firefox, are set to allow third-party cookies. Still got trouble? Email me and we'll work on Plan B.

We Have A Winner 1

2011-02-07T16:39:00.002+13:00

OK, I've made the draw and we have the winners.

For the Boys - ThirdYe

For the Girls - Palimpsest

Congratulations to you both. Please contact me via the sidebar profile link to claim your prize.

Dave Turns Five Giveaway 1

2011-02-02T01:01:00.006+13:00

For Purse or Pocket

ENTRIES NOW CLOSED. THE WINNERS ARE
For the Boys - ThirdYe
For the Girls - Palimpsest
Please contact me via the sidebar profile link.

Welcome to the first of the Dave Turns Five Giveaways.

This giveaway is a classic ‘His & Hers’ double header, boys against the girls, but don’t worry, there are two winners! So, boys and girls, just what have we got for you? Well, for His Pocket we have a Pentel Sharp Kerry P1035 0.5mm mechanical pencil in boyish blue, and for Her Purse, an Ohto Tasche SP-10T 0.5mm mechanical pencil in feminine pink. Yeah well I like my stereotypes even if it’s not particularly PC these days. Anyway, both of these pencils are class acts and they are both capped pencils for the ultimate in pocket and purse safety. Two pencils = two winners! One Him and one Her.

This picture is of the actual giveaway items.

Just the pencils!! Him, Her and The Stig not included.

To enter this giveaway you simply leave a comment here on this posting. Any comment will do, the only compulsory requirement is that part of your comment MUST declare whether you are a boy or a girl, or man / woman, male / female, whatever, I don’t care, just make it clear whether you are a Him or a Her, e.g. “Count me in. I’m a boy”. But hey, the internet is just one big melting pot and I’m not the gender police, so if your screen-name is ‘SanFrancisoStan’ and you say “I’m a girl” or ‘1.8m Hamburg-Heidi’ says “I’m a man”…well, who am I to challenge your self-identification?

This giveaway will remain open for 5 days, after which the winning Him and Her will be chosen at random, and announced here on this post, so check back in to claim your prize. The winning bloke of course gets the Kerry and the winning lady gets the Tasche. If you don’t claim your prize by contacting me within a couple of days then a runner-up will be chosen to replace you.

The Fine Print
This giveaway is open to all registered readers. Kerry and Tasche are both brand new and unused, from my collection, so this giveaway is at my expense.
Not sure if you are registered? Then you probably aren’t, but you can check here.
Also, if you aren’t registered, but have recently become a reader then don’t despair, there will be some contests you can enter.
Only 1 comment per person. Extra comments will be deleted. If you want to ask any questions, start some discussion, etc then please use the Guestbook, or email me direct. If you somehow botch your comment and need to delete it, then whilst signed in you should be able to click the trashcan beside it and then start again from scratch. If you can’t, then email me and I should be able to do it for you.
Having trouble commenting? Make sure your browser security settings, esp. with Firefox, are set to allow third-party cookies. Still got trouble? Email me and we'll work on Plan B.

Dave Turns Five

2011-01-30T01:13:00.005+13:00

Hello readers, and fellow mechanical pencil people.

Five years old. I’m somewhat surprised I’ve made it to my fifth birthday. Well anyway, various people have pointed out to me that very few regular ‘weekly plus’ blogs make it to five years, so this is a significant anniversary and a little contemplation and celebration seem in order.

Around about six years ago I somehow tripped across Pencil Revolution, was hooked, and flushed with revolutionary zeal, I started this blog on 30 January 2006.

I once read somewhere that the secret to long term blogging is to “Blog what you love” and I guess that’s worked for me as I have enjoyed publishing this blog. On the technical side, learning the ins and outs of publishing a blog, improving my photography skills, learning a little HTML and so on has kept my interest up. On the pencil side I’ve certainly dramatically increased the size of my collection, which today stands at about 700 mechanical pencils, plus heaps of other things like leads, catalogues and ephemera. It’s fair to say this blog has not helped the focus of my collection, rather the reverse, leading me down all sorts of divergent pencil pathways. Still, I guess that’s part of the fun.

Blogs are inherently designed to be read from the most recent entry to the oldest. If you reversed that and read this blog from the first post to the most recent I think you would see the standard of my reviews improve, my aversion to rubber grips decline and my pencil-photography skills improve. There would also be my battles with PAS (Pencil Acquisition Syndrome), NID (Notebook Inferiority Disorder), boozy-sirens and sundry other problems that folk have to watch out for. Of course you would also see me learn lots of things about mechanical pencils and the companies that manufacture and sell them.

Besides all of that, one of the main things I like about this blog is the interaction with you, the readers. I really do enjoy getting comments and emails from you. At the risk of offending some by omission, I must make mention of several long time fellow pencil bloggers who have communicated with and helped me for a large part of this blogs life, so, in alphabetical order – Lexikaliker, Pencil Talk, Pencils11 and The Uncomfortable Chair. Also of course the aforementioned and recently resurrected Pencil Revolution. Thanks guys. There are of course many other bloggers and correspondents I should mention, but there are too many of you to mention individually, especially Henrik, so I hope you won’t be offended. Thanks to you all.

Perhaps above all though, I have been very pleasantly surprised at the generosity of so many of you out there. People who I have never otherwise met or corresponded with, just contacting me and saying, “Hey, I’ve got a couple of pencils I thought you might like. I’ll send them to you”. I really do appreciate your generosity, and I have tried to keep the cycle going, although I’m sure I’ve ended up receiving more than I have given.

Right then, some numbers would seem to be appropriate, just for posterity. When I was writing this post about a week ago, this blog contained 476 posts with 6,206 comments. Which is my favourite post? Well that’s a tough one, but certainly one of the first that always springs to mind when I think of that sort of thing is The Pencils Of Vice.

I guess though blog readers have a different favourite, because the article that has enticed the most people to actually take the time to comment on it is my review of the classic Pentel Sharp Kerry with 127 comments.

Of course there are “lies, damn lies and statistics” and that’s certainly the case with trying to measure anything to do with blogs and websites. I employ numerous reporting packages, and the differences between them is frequently mind boggling, but taking a bit of a statistical average, I can give some ballpark figures. Over the course of this blog there have been about 900,000 visitors who have generated about 2.6 million pageviews, but these days I get about thirty thousand visitors and one hundred thousand pageviews per month. Strange but true, there appears to be a mechanical pencil season, a specific month when the stars, moons, planets, biorhythms and all that stuff align such that mechanical pencil madness breaks out on the internet. The month of MP Madness is October. October 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 each set a new all-time record for the most visitors per month! The most frequently viewed article on this blog is “Lead Size and Hardness”. It’s then a long way back to second where my reviews of the Pentel Sharp P205 and the Pentel Sharp Kerry continually battle with each other for the silver and bronze medals.

For the static pages of ‘My Top 5’, ‘Top 10 General’ and ‘Top 10 Drafting’, the most frequently viewed is ‘My Top 5’ with ‘Top 10 General’ a fair way back in second. As for regular readers, well the blog currently has 201 public Blogger Followers, there are about 850 feed subscribers, and 489 people voted on my reader survey although that was way back in March 2010. Not surprisingly most visitors are from the Anglosphere, with the USA accounting for about 56% of all visits, followed by, in order, the UK (9%), Canada (6%), Australia (3%), Germany (2%), Japan (2%), and then Turkey, Brazil, Italy, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan and India all at around 1% each. My Flag Counter has 194 flags, thus recording visitors from 194 different countries/territories around the world. The last flag added was that of Rwanda. ClustrMap makes it clear where the home of mechanical pencildom is…at least as measured by visits to this blog. A big Hello then to Los Angeles, you MP nuts! Your northerly cousins up there in San Francisco follow closely behind, then London and New York. Actually, as a source of American visitors, the state of California is so far ahead, that the next two US states added together (New York and Texas) still don’t get near California.

Well, that seems like enough contemplation and other carry on, so I wish you all well, thanks for reading this blog, please carry on reading and commenting, and maybe I’ll see you in another five.

Now, as you know I’ve never really been one for giveaways, but as part of these birthday celebrations there will be a series of giveaways throughout the month of February. The giveaways are mostly items from my collection, but will culminate in what I think is a real whiz-banger, thanks to some generous sponsorship from Cult Pens. That’s the reason for the new headline and sidebar references to Cult Pens. Quid pro quo. So, if you are doing a little writing instrument shopping then I would encourage you to check out their website, and spend your money with them. As a bonus, they are actually nice folk too. Anyway, the first giveaway kicks-off shortly and I hope you will all enter. You gotta be in to win.

So, in closing then, happy pencilling my friends! May your lead stay strong and unbroken.
Ka kite ano.

Dave

Only the severity and duration of the celebratory hangover are in question.

PS - Just so you know, the month of February will be mostly giveaways, there won't be much in the way of normal postings.

Ohto Auto Sharp Mechanical Pencil Review

2011-01-25T01:47:00.001+13:00

Ohto Auto Sharp AP-205 Mechanical Pencil Review

For general writing mechanical pencils, I guess that effortless automatic lead advance, which the user is unaware of, is one of major goals for the designers. I’m not sure they will actually reach that goal with the current types of auto advance mechanisms as they are activated by physical contact with the writing surface, and thus the alert writer will always be aware of something going on. For perfect automatic lead advance I think we will have to wait for some sort of proximity sensor that knows the tip of the lead sleeve is getting too close to the paper and that it is therefore time to advance some lead.

I feel I should know better, but automatics do have a certain allure to them, and so yet again I found one in my hand. Will this tale of the automatic be the familiar one – long on promise, short on delivery? With pencils like the Super Promecha, Ohto are known for marketing some of the most advanced, customisable, technical, complicated, gimmicky (take your pick) mechanical pencils around. Surely an automatic from them is likely to be better than most?

So then, the Ohto Auto Sharp AP-205 mechanical pencil.

It’s a lightweight mostly plastic pencil. The styling and colour scheme are quite nice, although nothing outstanding. The body and the grip are triangular, although the front end of the grip does start to taper down and transition into round where the front tip screws in.

The triangular grip is made from a smooth rubber compound which is quite hard, with a relatively smooth surface. The rubber does improve the grip properties a small amount, but not by much. The grip is an average size so should suit most who like an average sized pencil.

Now, as we know, the Ohto Auto Sharp has an auto-advance lead mechanism. Firstly though it is also a standard push top ratchet mechanism pencil. Ten clicks on the top button will get you a whopping great 14mm of the 0.5mm lead. The lead sleeve is a short plastic cone which is retractable so this is a pocket safe pencil. Right then, how does this pencil perform when you don’t click the top button and let the auto-advance mechanism take over? Well, basically it performs as expected. It advances lead when the tip hits the paper and when that happens you can notice some small differences in the feel and lead application to the paper. For me personally the major issue I have with many auto-advancing mechanisms is ‘plunging’. That’s my name for the phenomenon of suddenly, whilst you are happily writing away, the whole lead sleeve retracts back up into the front tip and you ‘plunge’ forward. It’s really annoying and disconcerting. It sees to affect some pencils far worse than other…although for all I know they all possibly have the same design mechanism. Well, the Ohto Auto Sharp is one of the better performer in this aspect – whilst I did experience some plunging, it was relatively rare and not too dramatic. So, basically as always, I’d suggest you use the pencil in the normal manner, advancing the lead manually and just letting the auto-advance take over for those infrequent occasions when you are ‘caught short’, as it were.

Hmmm, just thinking about the auto-advance mechanism for a bit longer. It works by having the plastic lead sleeve make contact with, and thus rub on, the paper. I assume the plastic sleeve is made from a decent engineering plastic like acetal or something, but paper is just really compressed wood fibre and any woodworker knows that saws and all their other fine steel tools go blunt when in contact with wood. Really, despite what is feels like, paper is actually reasonably tough and abrasive. Cutting paper with a steel knife will dull the blade over time. So, how about that plastic tip then? Actually, I didn’t even need my magnifying glass. After two weeks of use, I could see the edge of the lead sleeve cone had been worn away. Viewing with a magnifying glass just confirmed it. The triangular grip on the Ohto Auto Sharp must actually increase the wear because the pencil can only held at three specific rotations, and because of the pocket clip, many users, like myself, will not even rotate it at all and thus the exact same spot on the lead sleeve will always be making contact with the paper and thus be worn down even quicker. Obviously paper type, amount of hand pressure, amount of use of the auto-advance feature and amount of rotation will all affect the rate of wear on the lead sleeve. Who knows how long it would take before the cone wears down so much as to affect the operation of the auto advance? I imagine though it would be a fairly long time, and most users would have misplaced their pencil before it happened. Still, it’s an interesting little thought process.

Carrying on then, as expected there is a small eraser under the push top button, and you remove that to access the lead refill magazine.

The pocket clip is moulded plastic and actually quite stylish and functional.

Markings on the body are “Ohto” printed on the pocket clip, and “Auto Sharp 0.5mm AP-205” on the body. I fail to find the word “Japan” anywhere on the pencil. I imagine that implies something.

So, in closing then, the Ohto Auto Sharp is a nice enough mechanical pencil for its price range, but as usual I am left a little nonplussed with the auto-advance mechanism. Must try harder to resist the allure of the automatic…but hey, down this way the general public can’t own handguns…so temptation abounds…automatic pistol…automatic pencil?

• Best Points – The auto-advance works reasonably well.
• Not So Good Points – Considering what this pencil is, and its price range, then nothing much.
• Price Range – Low.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 141mm, width 11 mm across the face of the body. Balance point about 65mm up from the tip.

This Ohto Auto Sharp AP-205 mechanical pencil was sent to me gratis by Cult Pens. Thanks Cult Pens.

White Lead and Embroidery

2011-01-19T02:27:00.019+13:00

When I first started this blog I thought it would be of interest to a few people from the mechanical pencil using groups like engineers, architects, designers, artists, writers, etc. This has largely turned out to be true, but there is one group of readers that I did not anticipate, and it’s rather silly of me to have not anticipated some interest from them, especially because my mother is one of them. The group I am referring to is the one I have come to call “The Crafty Ladies” with a subset of “The Ladies Who Sew”. Mechanical pencils and multi-pens find favour with many who scrapbook, make cards, sew and embroider, etc. The search for the ultimate multi-pen is not taken lightly, and the quest for the perfect white lead is a True Quest.

White lead? Yes. Over the course of this blog I have had quite a few contacts from ladies trying to find the ultimate in white lead for material marking. For many, the traditional soap and chalk markers just don’t cut the mustard. Strong enough to not break when marking woven fabrics. Thin enough to be accurate. Preferably temporary in that it can be washed off. Definitely non-running or bleed through. These are just some of the desired attributes of the mechanical pencil white lead. I am afraid I haven’t been able to offer much help. Sakura have some white leads, but they generally seem to be 0.9mm. The white lead for the Striker mechanical carpenters pencil has some possible uses but requires sharpening. Pergamano offer a 0.5mm lead which many seem to use. These and the others though all seem hard to obtain and not entirely satisfactory. Recently I was contacted by Christine who was looking for some multi-pen and lead assistance for her embroidery hobby. I suggested she might like to do a little blog article about her use of pencils, and she agreed. So, without further todo, I will now hand over to her.
****

My name is Christine and I use colored pencil leads and multi pencils in my craft work. During my pencil/leads quest, I came across Dave’s blog. My hobby is Japanese Embroidery, which you may have seen on Japanese kimonos. While my pieces are smaller ones intended for framing and hanging on our walls, kimonos are even more intricate, and may take several professional stitchers a year or more to complete. The tools, techniques, fabrics, threads, designs, and colors have remained largely unchanged for 1600 years. There are 2 Centers of study, located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA , and in Japan. These 2 Centers create all of our designs, color schemes, and techniques for completion. To provide some general information, the embroidery is done on silk fabric stretched on a frame, using silk thread:

We use only a few tools, specifically, scissors, needles, a laying tool called a tekobari, and an awl (not pictured):

I some times need to mark on the fabric, for example to note the direction of stitches. Depending on the color of the fabric, we use either a white or non-photo blue 0.5 mm pencil lead - whichever will show up better. The blue lead is one which has been tested by the professionals at the Japanese Embroidery Center, and its color will not run during the finishing process, when we apply a wheat starch to the back of the piece and steam it thoroughly. My teacher gave us several leads, it is a Staedtler Mars product per the printing on the container. Historically, the white lead is a Prismacolor Verithin pencil, which can be sharpened to a fine point. For us, the finer the point, the better, as we may stitch with silk threads as thin as 0.1 mm. Recently, I have discovered a 0.5 mm white lead from Pergamano, which provides the fine point we like. I find the Pergamano color to be shiny, sometimes appearing silver/grey, and the lead is soft. The Pergamano white lead is designed for a card-making process called Pergamano, and I’ve only found it via one supplier. In this photo, I’ve drawn on white and brown paper with 4 leads - 0.5 mm regular lead, Verithin white lead, Pergamano 0.5 mm white lead, and 0.5 mm Non Photo blue lead.

Here, I’ve drawn directly on the silk embroidery fabric as I would do when working, placing direction lines in the small rounded areas in the middle of the picture with blue and white leads:

To reduce the number of pencils I need to carry, one of my favorite toys is a multi pencil, created from a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto 3 Color Multi Pen Body and 3x0.5mm Mechanical Pencil Components (blue, white, and regular):

My other multi pen is for travel use, and is a Uni-ball Style Fit 5 Color Gel Ink Multi Pen Pen Body, containing 2 pen cartridges and 3x0.5mm Mechanical Pencil Components.

Both of these multi pens are super for my needs. I wish I needed more lead colors so I could have more of these multi pen/pencils. They have turned me in to a pencil geek.

Here is a photo of this portion of the embroidery completed:

If you’re interested you’re welcome to view my facebook albums (you don’t need to be on facebook to view them) here and here. More information is at http://www.japaneseembroidery.com/.

Cheers,
Christine, Washington DC area, USA.
****
Great stuff. Thanks Christine. The hours of work in those Facebook embroideries….
Dave.

Happy New Year

2011-01-07T10:28:00.001+13:00

From The ~~Desk~~ hmmmm, Courtyard Deckchair.

Happy New Year folks. Well I'm back from holiday, melting in the heat. However, whilst I've been away several of you 'up over' northerly folk have sent me pictures and/or stories of yourselves buried beneath mountains of snow and ice so I do spare a thought for you. Also of course my friends and rellies across the ditch in Aussie sitting unhappily in the middle of their muddy lake the size of Germany and France put together.

But this is a pencil blog, so we must move onto pencilicious matters. This Christmas I purchased a little pencil present for myself. A book, which I'm slowly working my way through, from the chair, as it were.

"Fountain Pens for the Million
The History of Conway Stewart
1905-2005"
By Stephen Hull

Published 2010, my copy is one of the Limited Edition copies, signed by the author, with gold stamped cover box.

Hmmmm, number 93 of 100....I'm kind of worried that might mean I'm the 93rd biggest Conway Stewart nerd in the world? I don't even collect FP's!!!

It's a history of the company just as much as, perhaps even more than, a history of their writing instruments. Some interesting stories like the difficulties of manufacturing during the wartime. From the amount of vintage Conway Stewarts available locally I've always assumed the Antipodes were an important market for CS and the book confirms this.

Chapter 1939-1948, "Conway Stewart were particularly strong in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa" and "By 1948 60% of Conway Stewart's output went overseas with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa still the major markets".
Chapter 1955-1962, "New Zealand, despite the size of its population (with sheep outnumbering them 100 to one!) was also an important market".

Of course most of the pictures are of inky things, but graphite and mechanical pencils gets it fair share.

Also lots of data like tables of model numbers, copies of old patents, etc.

Clearly a must have for anyone with an interest in Conway Stewart. The book is available as detailed here.

A special thanks to Leigh Reyes (she's a verb not a noun) for alerting me to this book by mentioning it on her blog.

Normal blog transmission will resume in a week or two.

Closed For The Holiday

2010-12-14T02:03:00.000+13:00

It's that summer holiday time of year again. Well, maybe not quite just yet, but the Christmas holidays are fast approaching, so it's time to put this blog on hold until sometime in mid/late January. Of course I may publish a post or two in between if I have the time and incilination, but no promises. The big event for early 2011 is of course the DMP Fifth Anniversary. Hold your breath in eager anticipation.

As always, thanks for reading this blog, your comments and correspondence are always appreciated. Whether you celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, a secular holiday, or not at all, I wish you well for my festive and holiday season, and for 2011.

Ka kite ano
Dave

The 2010 DMP's

2010-12-10T02:20:00.002+13:00

Welcome to the third annual DMP Awards.

Just to remind you, any mechanical pencil or other item featured on this blog in the 2010 calendar year is eligible for an award, but preference is given to mechanical pencils. Awards will not be given if there are no suitable candidates. The awards are:-

The “Bonus Slice of Pav” and “Last Nights Left Over Warm Flat Stale Ale” - special awards for anything judged worthy of an award, good or bad, respectively.

The “Pencil of Shame” awarded for the worst pencil (or item).

And the supreme award, the “Mordan-Hayakawa Trophy” for the best mechanical pencil (or item) of the year.

All decisions are final and the judges need offer no justification or defence of their decisions.

Right then, the first envelope please. This year there were no nominations for the Pencil of Shame, so that's a good start. However there were two nominations for a Last Nights Left Over Warm Flat Stale Ale award - the Yoropen Pencil and Monami Gripix-T leads. After due consideration the judges decided that both were enough of a let down to be awarded an open bottle of left over flat stale ale.

Enough of the negative! Moving on to things more positive. First up, the nominees for a Bonus Slice of Pav are:
Keun Young notebook
Platinum Hayakawa M-10000B mechanical pencil
Yoropen Pencil
Zebra Sharbo X multi pen
Papermate Biodegradable mechanical pencil
Tombow Onbook mechanical pencil

The judges have decided to award a Bonus Slice of Pav to Keun Young notebook (cheap, little, unpretentious but damn useful) and Zebra Sharbo X multi pen (love the options and customization).

The judges noted the apparent contradiction of the Yoropen Pencil being nominated for both a Bonus Slice of Pav and a Last Nights Left Over Warm Flat Stale Ale award. The first being for it's attempt at innovation, the later for failing.

Now for the main event. This year there was a strong field of nominees for the supreme award. The nominees are:

Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition mechanical pencil - a great tribute and special edition pencil.
Rotring Side Knock mechanical pencil - a very interesting mechanism
Metaphys VISS 44050 eraser - a new twist on the old problem of keeping a sharp edge
Platinum OLEeNU mechanical pencil mechanism - stronger is better, and for once the marketing hype is true.
Rotring 600 mechanical pencil - the august classic just keeps on going.

Drum roll...this years winner of the supreme award, the Mordan-Hayakawa Trophey is...
the Platinum OLEeNU mechanical pencil mechanism. Just as Kuru Toga showed, there are still advancements to be made in the design of mechanical pencils.

Cross Classic Century Pencils

2010-12-07T01:03:00.004+13:00

Cross Classic Century Pencil

The roots of the A. T. Cross Company go all the way back to Providence, Rhode Island and the year 1846. Elegant gold and silver casings for wooden pencils were among their first products and pencils continue to be an important part of the Cross product line up. The Cross website has this to say about the Classic Century range of writing instruments.

Forever Classic
An icon of American design and innovation. The choice of movers, shakers and ground breakers since 1946.
Does form follow function? Or does function drive form? Whatever your point of view, Classic Century delivers. Its sleek profile and patented twist-action barrel sparked a design revolution. Generations later passionate fans remain loyal to the iconic silhouette, while trendsetters appreciate its authenticity. Cool comes full circle.

I’ve ended up with three Cross Classic Century mechanical pencils – two old BP/MP sets and a recent MP.

From top to bottom

Classic Century 10K Gold Filled/Rolled Gold 0.5mm mechanical pencil with 23-karat gold plated appointments. Twist action ratchet lead advance with retractable sleeve. Cross item 450305. This is a current item.
Classic Century Classic Black ballpoint pen / 0.9mm mechanical pencil set, with the Mobil Pegasus logo on the pocket clips. Screw mechanism lead advance. Cross item 2501. This is a vintage item, and marked “Made In USA”.
Classic Century Lustrous Chrome ballpoint pen / 0.9mm mechanical pencil set. Screw mechanism lead advance. Cross item 3501. This is a vintage item, and marked “Made In USA”.

Two generations. Modern 0.5mm and classic 0.9mm.

At some stage I suppose I should try and find out when Cross introduced 0.5mm and when they dropped 0.9mm. If you've got an old Cross catalogue feel free to tell me what lead diameters it has in it.

A perennial favourite. A lot of the Cross writing instruments down my way seem to have been business gifts, embellished with company logos.

Pull the top half of the body off to access the eraser. The classic Classic has an eraser, but as a screw action mechanism new leads are fed in through the tip. Spare leads are stored inside the body beneath the eraser, but thats just storage, to replace a used up lead a new one has to be removed from under the eraser and inserted in through the tip.

The current Classic has an eraser as expected, and you pull that out to access the lead refill magazine.

Note the change in font for CROSS on the pocket clips. Current above classic.

The modern Cross Century Classic in 10K Gold Filled – as timeless and popular as a day at the beach with fish-n-chips for dinner.

The Cross Classic Century 10K rolled gold pencil featured in this article was supplied by Euroffice, an office supplies specialist in the UK, in exchange for being featured on this blog and an acknowledgement.

Lamy Logo Mechanical Pencil Review

2010-11-30T02:25:00.002+13:00

Lamy Logo 105 Mechanical Pencil Review

It’s been quite a long time since a Lamy mechanical pencil featured on this blog, so it’s time to put things right. Here then we have the Lamy Logo model 105 black mechanical pencil.

The Logo is part of what Lamy call their Modern Office range, as opposed to their High Quality Writing or Young Writing ranges. Modern Office…well the Logo does have a relatively modern looking style about it. Stainless steel and black plastic body, square end to the body and pocket clip mount. Overall then it’s a fairly plain simple look, but with a stylish silhouette.

Like most Lamy writing instruments the Logo comes in other system options – BP, FP and multi-pen. The 105 option has a stainless steel body with a slightly brushed finish, but is mirror polished on the clip. The plastic accents are black on mine, but there are other colour options. There is also the Model 106 which is brushed stainless steel, and the Model 104 which is a black resin body.

Weighing in at about 13 grams, the 105 is definitely not in the heavyweight class, despite its steel body and reasonably substantial dimensions. The grip zone is formed by a series of rounded rings pressed into the steel which feel quite nice under-finger and work very well at keeping your grip firm. There are also some ridges on the upper part of the plastic tip for those who like to grip their pencil really close to the tip. They also of course continue the ridged aesthetic look.

The Logo mechanical pencil is only available in 0.5mm lead size. The lead sleeve is a 2mm long thin pipe, not long enough for drafting work. It is retractable for pocket safety. Now this is the bit that a small number of you are not going to want to hear. Wobble. Yes, lead wobble. It’s not bad and didn’t really worry me, but there is definitely some wobble between the small black plastic front cone and the black plastic front section. Then there is also some wobble between the lead sleeve and the black plastic front cone that it is inserted into. Some of this is possibly due to lead cushioning, and for general writing it’s of little to no concern, but it’s there and some of you ask about lead wobble. There is a lot of cushioning in the tip, you can feel the lead springing back if you press hard onto the paper. It’s also a fairly noisy pencil. There is rattle of the internals, and the spring motion of the lead cushioning also sometimes produces some springy sounds. I didn’t actually mind the aural experience, but some might.

As you would expect, it is a standard push top ratchet mechanism pencil. Ten clicks will get you about 9mm of lead. The pencil though has two somewhat unusual features for a push top ratchet pencil. Firstly, there is no eraser under the push top button, or anywhere else for that matter. Secondly, you don’t refill the lead magazine by removing the push top button. Instead, you unscrew the plastic front section from the body, pull the innards out, and then you can pull the little cap off the refill magazine and stick a couple of pieces of lead in. Note the lead jam clearing needle on the refill magazine cap. As is so often the case with my Lamy’s, no instructions were included in the box. With a bit of effort you can find instructions on the Lamy website, but it would be better if they were included with your purchase.

The pocket clip is spring loaded and very functional. It slides onto anything with ease, yet has the strength to keep the pencil clipped on.

As is usual for Lamy, their logo and branding is minimal and muted. “Lamy” printed at the top of the body by the pocket clip is the only marking on the pencil. There is no indication of country (incorrect - see reader comments), model name or lead size.

A nice pencil, as always, from Lamy.

• Best Points – Good looks, good pocket clip.
• Not So Good Points – No eraser, noise?
• Price Range – Low/Mid.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 137mm, diameter 10mm. Balance point about 80mm up from the tip.

This Lamy Logo 105 mechanical pencil was provided to me by Cult Pens. Thanks Cult Pens.

Striker Carpenters Mechanical Pencil

2010-11-25T02:24:00.001+13:00

Striker Carpenters Mechanical Pencil

The oldest known pencil in existence is a carpenters pencil dating from the 17th Century.

Time moves on. Part of the Biss Products design brand group, “Striker” is the brand name used for their range of hand tools, which includes a mechanical carpenter pencil. Or should that be carpenters mechanical pencil, or mechanical pencil for carpenters or…?

Striker claims their carpenters mechanical pencil is tough, durable and reliable, and you can run it over with a ¾ ton truck and it will still keep working. I’m not a carpenter, which makes me the black sheep of the family. I suppose I should really be a collector of carpenters pencils…but I’m not?

However growing up around all that sawing and hammering, helping build many relatives’ houses, etc means I do know my tenon saw from my fret saw, and I just don’t see my sawdusty relatives using a Striker. I don’t see it being suitable for all the non-drawing things that a carpenters pencil gets used for – as a glue spreader, a little wedge or lever, and so on.

Anyway, putting practicality aside, the Striker carpenter mechanical pencil certainly looks interesting, and I’m glad to have one. Thanks to Henrik for sending me one.

The Striker is of relatively normal dimensions for a carpenter pencil. Tough plastic body with a pocket clip.

It is a push top mechanism - that whole black pocket clip section is the ‘push button’ - but it’s not your normal mechanism. Basically it’s a clutch pencil or leadholder with a rudimentary advance mechanism. The pencil has to be held horizontally for the lead to advance. Hold it vertically facing downwards and the lead will free-fall as you push the top, and the lead won’t advance if it's facing upwards.

Feast your eyes on those leads!

Woo-hoo! The Catepillar of lead!

That’s impressive.

Striker brand them as Dura Lead.

As well as “medium density” graphite, there are red and white coloured replacement leads available.

I’m under the impression some artists use carpenter pencils so the Striker maybe useful for them, and I could see it being used in some home workshops, but for carpenters out on the building site…I have my doubts. So, if anyone who swings a hammer for a living (well these days its probably more like pulls the trigger on a nail gun) reads this and has used a Striker then it would be interesting to read your comments. Of course that also goes for anyone who uses a Striker for any other purposes too.

From Isu, here’s two mechanical pencils aimed at the Japanese domestic market for carpenter pencils…but that’s a posting for another day.

Half Way

2010-11-22T01:01:00.001+13:00

Regular readers will hopefully remember I am putting the Paper Mate Biodegradable Mechanical pencil to the test. Well, 6 months is up, time to dig up ole Papermate Biodegradable and check him out. So, just as a reminder, here we have the ~~gravesite~~ test site.

Now then, lets dig down about 30-40mm (1 1/2 inches) to uncover our test subject.

First glance doesn't show any changes.

Let's have a closer look. Note I have just brushed a little dirt off. I didn't want to wash or clean it for fear that would remove too many micro-greeblies, and set the whole decomposition process back.

Well, the surface etc all looks in pretty good condition. The green colour of the top section has lightened, and much of the Paper Mate printing on the barrel has vanished. I guess they are the tastiest bits to the relevant species of microscopic life in my garden soil?

The Paper Mate website states:

Paper Mate® Biodegradable* products have been tested according to internationally recognized standards ISO 17556 and ISO 20200. Tests confirmed that, under normal temperature conditions found in soil/home compost, the product’s biodegradable components biograde (sic) in about a year.

Appears to me those micro-greeblies are really going to have to build up a powerful hunger if they are going to eat the rest of that pencil in the next six months.

Well, Paper Mate Biodegradable is now buried again, see you in another 6 months.

Rotring Side Knock Mechanical Pencil Review

2010-11-16T01:59:00.004+13:00

Rotring Side Knock Mechanical Pencil Review

Here’s an unusual one for you, the Rotring Side Knock mechanical pencil.

First off, I’m not really sure of its current status. The ballpoint pen in black with chrome trims is available on the Newell Rubbermaid ⁽¹⁾ B2B (business to business) website for corporate non-retail customers, i.e. corporate promotional sales. A small number of B2B and retail websites also have the BP and/or MP in polished or matt chrome. Overall though it has a rather scarce presence on the web, and really appears to be part of Rotrings corporate customer offering rather than their retail offering.

Second I’m not sure of its relationship to the Rotring 900 Side Knock. I don’t have one of those but it would appear to use the same mechanism so I would guess it’s internally the same, just a different body.

Third, it’s a Rotring but it doesn’t have a Rot Ring (Red Ring). [As an aside, how about you German speakers suggest some suitable names for Rotring-less Rotrings.] Some websites do though show the Side Knock with a red ring. Even the Newell Rubbermaid website has images with and without the red ring. I also found it described as the Rotring Side Knock by Parker!

Fourth, an indication of country of origin is conspicuously absent. That “side knock” terminology is suspiciously Japanese, so I’d suspect it is another one of the many Japanese manufactured Rotrings. I wonder, do Rotring actually make any mechanical pencils themselves these days?

Right then, enough of what I don’t know, let’s get on with the review. On the one hand the Side Knock in matt chrome is a fairly plain looking mechanical pencil. It doesn’t have any trims or other embellishments that stand out. On the other hand it has classical lines and the metallic look is not unattractive, just a bit plain. When you pick the Side Knock up, that metallic look certainly combines with the weight (25 grams) to send a clear message that this is a writing instrument of substance.

The Side Knock is a general writing pencil. The matt chrome body is smooth, so the grip is not fantastic, but not too bad for a pencil without any specific grip zone or enhancements. The short lead sleeve is fixed so it’s not pocket safe. There is a small emergency use only eraser – you unscrew the very top section of the body to access it. A bit of a rigmarole quite frankly.

The pocket clip is solid and functional.

The main feature of the Side Knock is clearly its unusual method of advancing the lead. The actual lead advance mechanism is a standard everyday ratchet mechanism, but the means of activating it is quite unusual. As you can see from the little leaflet below the lead advance mechanism is activated by bending the pencil in the middle. Roughly about 15 degrees. The whole bend in the middle thing seems rather strange and I imagined it all being a bit unnatural, very much a forced pose,

Rotring Side Knock leaflet

but I’ve got to admit, I got used to it very quickly and quite liked it. I’m not usually a fan of side-clicker buttons on mechanical pencils. The side button may get in the way of where you want to grip the pencil, you cannot rotate the pencil at will, the button often isn’t particularly pleasing to my eye, etc. The bend in the middle concept of the Side Knock though eliminates all those negatives – you can grip the pencil wherever you like, rotate it at will as the pencil bends in any direction, and there’s no ugly button sticking out the side. You can just write away and when the lead wears down you just press inwards with your thumb to bend the body and ‘Hey presto’, more lead. It’s a very minimal interruption to your writing if you want it to be. Alternatively if it’s time for a little pause and contemplation then the bending action can provide a welcome interlude. If you like side button clickers then you will probably love the Rotring Side Knock.

Check out the bend

Ahhh, but nothing is perfect. A mechanical pencil that is designed to bend in the middle…well it’s not exactly going to win an award for sturdy rigidity is it. There are times when you can feel the pencil flex, particularly if you grip it fairly high up. Those folk who grip their pencil really tightly might have some extra problems. I personally noticed the flex most often when I just grabbed the pencil off the desk, gripping it fairly high up and intending to just tick a couple of boxes or scribble a couple of numbers down. The flex can be rather disconcerting, particularly to a new user. I should emphasise though that the flex was never enough to inadvertently advance the lead.

So, how exactly does bending the body make more lead come out the tip? Well, like I said, the mechanism is a normal everyday one just like in your everyday push top button mechanical pencil. The difference is in the activation. How does it work? In simple terms, inside the body of the mechanical pencil, the rod that would normally be pushed down by the top button has a cap on it which rests against a curved face. As the pencil body is bent to one side the rod slides against the face and is pushed downwards by the curve thus activating the lead advance mechanism just as if a button had been pushed down on the top of the pencil.

One question is how long will the curved face and rod last? Over time will the rod and/or the face wear to such an extent that it affects the action of the pencil. That’s something I can’t tell you after a few weeks use. However, a couple of people who have had pencils with this type of mechanism have contacted me over the years and mentioned that there was some wear and/or failure over time, but I think they also felt they got an acceptable lifespan out of the pencil.

Ten bends of the pencil will get you 7mm of the 0.5mm lead. To refill the lead chamber you unscrew the top half of the pencil to reveal the push rod.

Then you pull that metal cap off the rod. Note the lead clearance needle.

The word “Rotring” just above the centre joint is the only marking on the pencil. That’s a little disappointing. If ever a pencil could do with a name or model number on it, this it.

In summary then, I didn’t really expect to like this mechanical pencil all that much, but it really surprised me. It is a worthy addition to any collection of writing instruments, and if you have read this far you should go shopping now.
• Best Points – it gets a lot of points for the unusual mechanism.
• Not So Good Points – a touch of colour wouldn’t hurt…like for instance a red ring. Non-retractable lead sleeve.
• Price Range – Mid.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? – Hmmmm…difficult. This is a very interesting pencil. OK, I need to go back to the beginning. The main criteria for the Top 5 is, “If I was starting from scratch and could only buy five pencils, would it be one of them?” So, let’s compare it to the existing Top 5. Sharp Kerry is safe, Scribble is safe, Tasche is…not, 925 25 is safe, Accugraph is…not. The buildings on fire, Tasche, Accugraph and Side Knock are on the desk…only got time to grab two…which one gets left behind? Arrrrgghhh, an agonising choice…but…sorry Tasche. So, Ohto Tasche is removed from the Top 5 and replaced by Rotring Side Knock.
Dimensions – Length 135mm, diameter 9mm. Balance point about 60mm up from the tip.

Notes:
1 – Sanford LP, a company of Newell Rubbermaid of the USA. Sanford's brands include Paper Mate, Parker, Waterman, Rotring, Sensa, Sharpie, Berol and Reynolds

Pentel Champ AL17 Mechanical Pencil Review

2010-11-09T01:42:00.003+13:00

I feel like I’ve gone from a famine to a feast. Normally guest articles are few and far between on this blog, but over the past few months I’ve had a whole bunch of guest submissions. All that arm twisting has paid off, and there’s even been some volunteers too! Now, here’s a guest review from Derek, aka ThirdeYe, who recently started his own writing instrument blog, as you’ll see below.

Pentel Champ AL17 0.7mm Mechanical Pencil Review

The first things I noticed about the “new” Pentel Champ were its color and interesting grip. This is one of Pentel’s more modern releases, consequently made in China like some of Pentel’s other newer releases like the Client and the Jolt. While I find this trend disturbing, I don’t have any real issues with the Jolt or the Client.

I am not sure exactly when they changed, but both the Pentel Champ and the Pentel Icy used to have a smaller grip that did not interfere with the way you held the pencil. Pentel decided to shake things up a bit by introducing a new grip on both of the pencils while still offering the old version on their website. However, this is the “new” Champ that I am reviewing.

Let’s start with the vitals. The Champ comes with 2 60mm HB sticks of lead. It is offered in both 0.5mm (AL15) and 0.7mm (AL17), but I tested only the 0.7mm. The MSRP for these pencils, according to Pentel, is $1.05/each for both the new and old style Champ. It comes in a variety of bright colors, such as blue, orange, light green, red, pink, purple, etc. It utilizes a fixed plastic sleeve, with no metal support like those found in drafting pencils. It has a 1” conformed grip and it uses a standard Pentel PDE-1 universal eraser.

At first glance, the grip looks soft, ergonomic and comfortable. In practice however, all it seems to do is collect dirt/ink and get in the way. I hold my writing instruments differently than most, only using my index finger tip, the underside of my thumb, and the side of my middle finger. Most people tend to do a 2 or 3 fingertip grip, while I use one tip for control/precision and the sides of my fingers for sturdiness. With this pencil, it leads to an awkward and uncomfortable writing experience. When you compare it to other pencils like the EnerGize, TranXition, and Paper Mate Mega Lead (which have better grips), the grip on the Champ forces you to hold the pencil higher up the barrel which to me at least, reduces the overall control and precision of my writing. I know that in Dave’s review of the Pentel Client, he enjoyed the contoured grip, so I know my opinion may be going against the grain.

Another point I’d like to mention is the overall cheap construction of the pencil. On the green Champ I own, the grip appears to be distorted or installed incorrectly, causing it to look “pinched” in an area. The pencil feels flimsy and the top removable green insert that holds the eraser feels like it could break easily. When you use the clip on a stack of more than 10 papers, it actually causes the entire green section to start to bend and put pressure on the inner lead-retaining tube.

Back to the grip collecting debris… the material reminds me of Silly Putty, with its bright color, squishy consistency and also its tendency to transfer ink & other materials when pressed against a newspaper, etc. When testing my fleet of Champs for this review, I would occasionally glance at the grip only to notice it was covered in black debris that could be wiped off with some effort. Fast forward a few days to when I was using one to do some crossword puzzles and I realized this is not a good crossword pencil. When I do crosswords, I occasionally take a break by using my pencil/pen as a temporary bookmark like I imagine others do. Normally this isn’t an issue for me, but rather a convenience. The Champ however, even without any applied pressure, transferred the ink from the two pages it was sandwiched between much like silly putty to the grip. You could actually read the letters on the grip! This is definitely a nuisance to someone like me who tries his best to keep my pens/pencils in like-new condition.

After physically writing out the latter paragraph in my hand-written draft of this review, my hand and wrist started to hurt and fatigue too much to continue. In college, I would use Bic Matic pencils almost exclusively and never had this happen this severe, even during extended periods of writing. I had to take a break and rest my hand before I wrapped up the review in my next paragraph. I have a Pentel Icy with the old grip that the Champ used to share with it, and I much prefer that to this new Grip that they put on the Champ and Icy.

As readers of my blog could attest to, I am a big fan of Pentel products and I really wanted to “crown” the Champ. Don’t get me wrong, it may be a decent pencil to those that hold their pencil in a way to utilize the grip more properly, but it was ruined to me by the poor ergonomics, its seemingly cheap construction, and the grip’s “Silly Putty”-esque features. I would pass on these pencils and opt for one of Pentel’s better offerings. Pentel is known for making high-quality, yet affordable, mechanical pencils. In my opinion, the Champ does not do Pentel justice. For only $2 more or so, it’s a no-brainer to opt for the much better Sharplet-2 or try to find the Champ/Icy with its old-style grip that is still being sold on Pentel’s online store.

-ThirdeYe (Derek)
Derek’s Pens & Pencils

**************************************************
Thanks Derek. I can certainly see that silly putty business being annoying. Keep up the blogging. Dave.

Marie’s Leadholder

2010-11-04T04:57:00.001+13:00

Following on from Monteverde Grafica, here’s my other 5.6mm leadholder. I really don’t know why I bought it, but I picked it up for a couple of bucks in a Dollar Store.

The tip and jaws are metal, the body is plastic with an almost rubberised sort of feel to it. Round grip section and octagonal main body.

There is a rotatable lead hardness indicator, with selections 2B, 4B, 6B and 8B.

I note that the packaging also implies HB lead is available, even though there's no such option on the hardness indicator.

There is no lead sharpener under the top cap, which isn’t intended to come off.

The brand is Marie’s, and according to the packaging that would be Shanghai SIIC Marie Painting Materials Co. Ltd.

For the price, this actually seems a pretty good buy to me.

Monteverde Grafica 5.6mm Leadholder

2010-11-02T01:36:00.001+13:00

Monteverde Grafica 5.6mm Leadholder

After Vikrams leadholder articles, I thought I’d better just join in and show I’m not completely leadholder or clutch pencil-less. True, I don’t have many, but here’s the latest one I acquired. It tends to stand out from the crowd.

The Monteverde Grafica 5.6mm Pencil / Leadholder in the stained glass colourway. Other colour options, and ink options, are also available…well that should really be past tense as the Grafica is a ‘retried collection’ and no longer manufactured. Just FYI, Monteverde is a brand of Yafa Inc. of the USA.

Monteverde logo from the packaging

Monteverde mountain logo on top cap

"Monteverde USA" markings

The stained glass effect is embedded without borders, unlike stained glass lead light windows.

You do have some colour options in 5.6mm leads.

The pocket clip has a rollerball on its end. It works well, pretty FAB.

Multi-toothed jaws. Push the top cap to open the jaws. There is a sharpener under the top cap.

I can imagine 5.6mm leadholders being suitable for some sketch artists and making rough layout drawings, etc.

At the end of the day though, for me personally...5.6mm... the answer is yes.

Metaphys VISS 44050 Eraser Review

2010-10-28T01:42:00.002+13:00

Metaphys VISS 44050 Eraser Review

I first saw the Metaphys VISS eraser back in 2008 on the ISOT (International Stationery and Office Products Tokyo) Trade Fair website, and it immediately caught my attention.

From what I can make out, Metaphys are a design cooperative that partner with a range of manufacturers and distributors to design products that the partner then sells under the Metaphys brand. A consortium brand as it were. In this case the Viss eraser is in partnership with フエキ Fueki (Fueki Nori Kogyo Ltd) a company whose primary business is apparently industrial glues and adhesives, but who also have some presence in the stationery market, particularly products for the construction industry, e.g. carpenter pencils.

The idea behind the Viss eraser is simple. We all know that the nice sharp corners of a block eraser quickly become rounded and far less useful. The screw thread or spiral design of Viss means there is always a sharp edge available, or at least that’s the theory.

The Viss is somewhat similar in size to your standard block eraser – it is about 58mm long and 15mm diameter. At the time of writing it is available in white, orange and black. Metaphys state it is made from “elastomer resin” so that probably means it is what many others would call a “PVC-free and latex-free” eraser.

In keeping with the premium stationery concept the Viss comes in its own little clear plastic container.

Anyway, earlier this year I finally got around to getting a few of these Viss erasers to try. First off then, the spiral design provides an interesting sensation for your fingers every time you use it. An eraser and a fingertip massager all in one?

The main design concept of the Viss is that the spiral means you will always have a sharp edge available. Well, that’s a bit of a yes and no. If you hold the eraser at a relatively horizontal angle to use the edge as a thin line eraser then you will quickly wear down or blunt the peaks of the spiral. On the other hand, if you hold the eraser at a relatively vertical angle then you can use the outside edge of the spiral as the end point of what you are erasing. By that I mean you can easily erase up to a fairly well defined line from one side. The same as if you only ever held your block eraser perpendicular to the paper and just wore its end down without rounding the corners. It would still be a big fat eraser, but you could easily run the edge up to a controlled point when erasing. I think that’s the advantage of the Viss eraser, its design makes it much easier to do that. Much easier to hold it relatively perpendicular to the paper and erase up to a set point. It’s great for precisely erasing the first or last letter of a word, or even an entire word, but not so good at erasing a letter out of the middle of a word. Don’t get me wrong, you could make a reasonable attempt at erasing a letter from the middle of a word, by orientating the eraser horizontally to use a peak of the spiral but your vision is a bit restricted and the edges will blunt if used thus frequently. Of course you can re-sharpen them to some extent by later using the eraser vertically. All that aside though, long term, the spiral edges are never going to be as precise as a fine core stick eraser like Tombow Mono Zero, but they are sort of halfway between that and a traditional block eraser.

The eraser waste of Viss twists up very easily into strands. Actually it twists up better than most.

When you are doing some heavy erasing though it sometimes feels as if the eraser compound is starting to tear, or maybe even partially melt from the heat of surface friction? The eraser waste can bunch up too much and the surface of the eraser can be left looking a little torn or hairy.

Right then, time to get serious and head on down to the lab and get our highly expereinced staff to put Metaphys Viss to the test against our benchmark eraser, Staedtler Mars Plastic.

OK, first up, 0.5mm HB mechanical pencil lead.

Well, that’s a draw.

Let’s try again, this time really pressing the pencil lead hard into the paper to make it much heavier and darker.

Again, pretty even, but perhaps Mars did a very slightly better job.

Next then let's try some wooden pencils, starting with two coloured pencils.

A clear but narrow victory to Mars. Basically Mars feels ever so slightly more abrasive in use and I imagine this was the secret to its success here.

Now wooden HB grade lead.

Another draw! Well maybe Mars was an absolute fraction better. But only maybe.

Lastly then wooden 5B lead.

Interesting. Mars certainly smears the lead about more. Overall it’s very close yet again, but if forced to choose a winner I think Mars erased better by a very small margin.

Frankly, I am surprised. I used Viss for several weeks and I thought it had only average erasing power, and that Mars would clearly be superior when they went head to head.

Overall then, I am very glad I spent my money to fly a couple of Metaphys Viss erasers across the ocean to my letterbox. Earlier in this review I described the Viss as “sort of halfway between that [Tombow Mono Zero] and a traditional block eraser”. Well being halfway between those two is a pretty good place to be. The Viss eraser looks cool, feels interesting in your hand, erases well, and the spiral design means you always have a reasonably sharp edge available. Get one and check it out for yourself.

From The Desk 4

2010-10-25T01:33:00.009+13:00

I’m rather partial to multi bladed knives and Victorinox brand Swiss Army Knives in particular. Not that I own many, but here’s my first one. It lives on my desk and sees fairly regular use...opening up all those pencil packages!

It was given to me about 25 years ago, by a friend of Swiss descent. It’s a very basic model. From what I can find on the web, I believe it is a long discontinued model, a “Standard”, although the blade is stamped "Economy" rather than "Standard" so maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, apparently Standard was a variation of Weekender and of Spartan. Weekender = Standard plus a key ring, and Spartan = Standard plus a toothpick, tweezer and key ring.

There's no prize, other than honour and glory, but take a guess - one of the blades/implements on this knife is somewhat superfluous to the requirements of life in Kiwiland.

You can hover your mouse over the right hand drawing of my SAK to see the answer.

Fürst 5.6mm Leadholder

2010-10-21T03:18:00.004+13:00

OK folks, here’s the second of Vikram’s guest articles.

Fürst 5.6mm Leadholder

The first thing I thought when I saw this leadholder for sale was, “That’s a huge lead!” and at 5.6mm, I have never seen one like it before. I bought it in the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Germany, and like it very much.

5.6mm lead versus 0.5mm

The Fürst 5.6 is just what it says it is, a leadholder with 5.6mm lead. It has an all metal body which is pretty heavy but very suited to sketching, the only thing I would do with this leadholder. The octagonal body is good because it doesn’t roll off the table, but it also does not force any particular hand position. It kind of reminds me of those large diameter children’s’ pencils, like “My First Ticonderoga.”

Furst 5.6mm Leadholder

Disassembly reveals an all-metal inner mechanism - quality at its finest! Country of origin is not stated, but I am assuming it is Germany.

The supplied lead is fantastic - a very soft lead (2B according to the manufacturer’s website) that does not smear very easily. Up top, the pushbutton twists off to reveal a sharpener - convenient!

Overall, I would highly recommend this leadholder to anyone who sketches or draws - it is a great tool to have!

Pros: All metal body, solid feel, great soft lead, octagonal body, built in sharpener

Cons: None

Price: about USD $11.60, € 8,90

Thanks again Vikram. Hope you are happy with your week.
Dave.

Faber-Castell TK4600 Leadholder Review

2010-10-19T02:49:00.001+13:00

A while ago Vikram from Illinois got in contact with me and I persuaded him to do an article or a review for this blog. Well, the end result is that he sent in two articles, both on leadholders, because he quite rightly thought they were under-represented on this blog. So, this week is Virkam’s Leadholder Week, with two postings to publish. Here’s the first one.

Faber-Castell TK4600 Leadholder

Firstly, I would like to thank Dave for this great opportunity! I have been interested in pencils for a while, and at 16, I think I am the only one of all my friends to love pencils so much.

Faber-Castell: a name highly regarded in the pencil and writing instruments industry for high quality yet affordable products. As a drafting student, I was eager to try out one of their leadholders, the TK4600.

Faber-Castell TK 4600

This 2mm leadholder is a normal, economy grade pencil. The balance point is almost exactly at the midpoint, making this an ideal drafting instrument. A forest green, hexagonal body, similar to that of their Castell 9000 series of drawing pencils, makes it clear that Faber-Castell associates this leadholder to that high standard. The all plastic body of the TK4600 is very solid, similar to the Pentel P205 - able to withstand abuse and still deliver - a student model, for sure. The foil stamping on the body clearly states “TK4600 Faber-Castell” with “Germany” stamped in small letters on the clip. The metal tip section, (removable?) clip, and pushbutton show that Faber-Castell did not skimp on quality with this one.

The grip of the TK4600 is aided by the ridges toward the front of the pencil, but they do not really help; when drafting, the draftsman generally holds the pencil farther away from the tip-closer to the midpoint. Maybe this was conceived as a multi-use pencil; one for occasional writing and sketching as well as drafting? While writing with the TK4600, it was very clear that it is not a writing tool primarily - after a half page, my hand started to develop a painful cramp. Sketching and drafting is comfortable, and this is plainly the TK4600’s forte. Another, slightly shorter version, the TK9500, has “HB” stamped into the body, making it seem like more of a sketching and writing tool than the TK4600.

Faber-Castell TK 4600 and TK 9500

The TK4600 is a student leadholder, and a good one at that. However, the lack of a built in sharpener, higher price point (about USD $16, $12 for the TK9500) and the small grip section push me toward the Staedtler Mars 780 technico leadholder (USD $3-5) as a general leadholder. However, this one remains highly recommended!

Pros: -solid design and feel, great for drafting and sketching, solid metal clip

Cons: -high price for student leadholder, ridged grip in inconvenient place, no built-in sharpener

Overall: highly recommended, but consider Staedtler as well.

Thanks Vikram. Posting No. 2 coming in a few days.
Dave.

Mitsubishi Pure Malt Pencil Review

2010-10-12T02:26:00.001+13:00

Over the years of this blog I have made quite a few pencil-friends. Somehow, my correspondence with several of these pencil-friends rapidly turned to drinking...tea that is...so it should therefore come as no surprise that when I was first in contact with Ricardo from Portugal he quickly reminded me that I drink tea because my cultural heritage has strong roots back to Britain where, in the later 17th Century, tea was first popularised by the young Portuguese royal, Catherine of Braganza, the queen consort of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. But tea is not the only beverage of importance in the world, for instance there is also whisky, 'uisge beatha' - 'the Water of Life'. Far, far away from its origins in Scotland and Ireland, that Water also has its place in Japan, where they also take their tea seriously. One day as I sat at my wintery Antipodean window sipping tea, an email arrived from sunny summery Portugal, where Ricardo was no doubt shading himself as the ice clinked and the Water was cool and refreshing. Here then, is a guest review by Ricardo from Portugal on one of his favourite mechanical pencils, a pencil steeped in Watery tradition.

Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [M5-5015] - 0.5mm Mechanical Pencil Review

The Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition range of writing instruments were released on Monday, October 29, 2001 in Japan by the Mitsubishi Pencil Co. Ltd as the high-end series of the Mitsubishi Oak Wood line of writing instruments. Available only in the Land of the Rising Sun this line of products is composed of ballpoint pens, a multi function pen, 0.5mm mechanical pencils and a 2mm lead holder. Here's a description of the entire line:

Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [M5-5015] 0.5mm mechanical pencil.
Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [SS-5015-P10] 1.0mm ballpoint pen.
Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [MH-3005] 2.0mm lead holder.
Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition Multi Pen [MSE-3005] 0.5mm mechanical pencil and 0.7mm black & red ball point pen.
Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [M5-2005] 0.5mm mechanical pencil.
Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [SS-2005] 0.7mm ballpoint pen.

All these products have one thing in common, the high quality materials they are made of - chrome plated stainless steel and recycled dark oak wood. Mitsubishi claims the wood is over 100 years old and I read an official press release that says it's 150 years old and was used before in the form of casks to age whisky for at least 50 years, which is why the wood is so dark - no pigments, dyes, waxes or varnishes of any kind were used to achieve this rich dark brown hue, just time and The Water of Life (lots of both). It then took another 50 years for the wood to get completely dry and to be free of the characteristic whisky smell - the wood is completely odourless. This pencil is then a unique and magnificent combination of very old and space age materials!

The subject of this review, the Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [M5-5015] 0.5mm mechanical pencil is the top of the line and its appearance is striking. To me it is one of the most beautiful mechanical pencils I have ever seen and one of the best I've had the pleasure to use. It can easily be mistaken for one of those luxury products that cost a small fortune, it was marketed as such and really is a luxury product, but it is just not that expensive because there are no precious materials in its composition. The quality of construction is superb, Mitsubishi did an amazing job. I don't know if capped mechanical pencils like this were invented by Pentel or even if the Kerry was the first of this kind but I can only say without a doubt that Mitsubishi went a step further and improved it in a way I never thought possible.

Mitsubishi Pure Malt Mechanical Pencil & Pentel Kerry

With its short 2mm fixed sleeve this is a pencil suited for writing, drawing and sketching though it can also be used with some rulers and templates. As I said before the concept of this pencil is basically the same as the Pentel Kerry [P1035 AD], another favourite of mine (I actually carry a black one with me most of the time), but the Mitsubishi is way too precious to be carried around so it stays at home. By being slightly heavier and bigger than the Kerry, the Mitsubishi is a much better pencil in my opinion, also, because it is made out of wood it retains the warmth of the user’s body in a way plastic can’t. The wood polishing also provides a feeling to the touch very similar to silk without losing the wood's texture, so using it really is a very pleasant and unique experience. The grip has a concave design which works very well both for precise drawing and writing. There are no issues at all on griping this pencil, and just above the grip there's a metal ring which acts like a cap lock and works as a counter-weight when the pencil is used without the cap, moving the balance point to approximately 1cm above it, also, the only inscription on the pencil, the words Pure Malt, are embossed in it.

At first I was afraid the ring would be very inconvenient as it could dramatically reduce the grip area and could interfere in the way I usually hold my pencils, but I was wrong, it actually helps when I need to use the pencil to make quick sketches or cover large areas with graphite. On such occasions I usually hold the pencil 2 cm above the centre of the grip, with the M5-5015 that's 4cm above the tip of the sleeve, precisely where the ring is located so I just hold it by the ring to obtain an optimal positioning of the pencil between my fingers. The conical shape of the barrel is excellent for rotating the pencil in order to keep the lead sharp if needed (no need for a Kuru Toga Turn Engine here). As I said this pencil also has a "writing mode", when posted (with the cap on) the centre balance is moved 7.5cm above the tip of the sleeve which is excellent for this task. The cap doesn't wobble when posted and the pocket clip, besides being very well designed and beautiful, is very robust and secures the pencil very well to most pockets as it has some springiness. Naturally as a capped pencil it is totally pocket safe. This pencil is heavy, 26.3g posted, so conveniently the mechanism has a very short incremental advance which helps prevent lead breakage. With the lead fully retracted the first 2 clicks will advance it by 1mm and 10 clicks gives approximately 6mm of lead.

One final note goes to the presentation of this product, which is very complete. It comes sealed in a cellophane sleeve with a transparent acrylic tag attached to the pocket clip stating the model name, reference number, lead size, price and a couple more things written in Japanese which unfortunately I cannot read. The box is a matte black cardboard box with glossy imprints.

On the inside there's a detachable rectangular piece of corkwood cut with the shape of the pencil on one side and two identical ones on the other, meaning that two instruments can be stored in it. As well, an instruction manual and a small card written in Japanese that I assume to be some information about the Pure Malt line are also provided, along with a rectangular piece of black foam used to prevent the pencil from being loose when the box is closed.

I would dare to say the Mitsubishi Pure Malt Oak Wood Premium Edition [M5-5015] 0.5mm Mechanical Pencil is much more than a great writing instrument, as besides being one of the finest examples of Mitsubishi Pencil Co. Ltd. craftsmanship, it is also a work of art, of industrial design and an ode to mechanical pencils.

Technical specifications :
Composition : High quality chrome plated stainless steel, dark oak wood. Full metal mechanism and lead reservoir.

Size :
Capped: 135 x 12.8mm.
Pencil: 118 x 12.8mm.
Posted: 138 x 12.8mm.

Weight : 26.3g.
Lead Diameter : 0.5mm.
Eraser under the cap's push button.

Mitsubishi Pure Malt Mechanical Pencil - writing mode - cap posted

Mitsubishi Pure Malt Mechanical Pencil - sketching mode - cap unposted

(Text and images by Ricardo)

Thanks for this review Ricardo. I envy your artistic skill. Well, I guess its time for some more Water, be it brewed or distilled.

From The Desk 3

2010-10-08T01:10:00.001+13:00

The shameful truth is out, Dave cannot live by pencil alone. He also requires ink.

A bit over a year ago I decided to push the boundaries and every time I went to use ink I asked myself the question “Do I really need to use ink for this? If I used pencil and someone erased it, or altered it, would it matter? More to the point, would it hurt me?” The answer was usually “No” so I started using pencil for even more things – signing memos and purchase orders at work, signing bank cheques (but still writing the amount payable in ink) and so on. No one has ever challenged me, and nothing bad has ever happened.

Still, as loathe as I am to admit it, the permanence of ink does have its uses. Only a real idiot would fill out the amount payable on a cheque in pencil, and the G-man insists on ink when you fill out your passport application form which seems fair enough.

So, on those rare occasions that I reach for ink, here’s what usually ends up in my hand - the Cross Century II ballpoint pen, in royal blue with chrome trims. Cross item 412WG-24 to be precise.

When it comes to writing instruments blue is one of my favourite colours, and this is a nice deep semi-lustrous blue body.

Twist action to advance and retract the tip. The top half of the body pulls off to replace the ballpoint pen refill. I use black ink. I occasionally hear a small squeak from the twist mechanism, but pulling the top off and back on seems to fix it.

Here’s my review of the Cross Century II mechanical pencil.

Tombow Onbook Mechanical Pencil Review

2010-10-05T01:45:00.001+13:00

Tombow Onbook Mechanical Pencil Review

This is a different sort of review, more pictorial rather than text. This time I’m letting my camera do the talking, rather than my fingers.

The Tombow Onbook is currently available as a ballpoint pen and as a mechanical pencil. I will of course be confining myself to the Onbook mechanical pencil, which has a style number of SH-OBxx.

Designed to clip to and fit snugly down the spine of a notebook, hence the name Onbook.

Of course it also fits nicely to the cover of a book too.

A somewhat suggestive end on the top cap.

Long straight slim lay-flat smooth lines are a necessity for a pencil designed primarily to be clipped to books.

Note the unusual cross-section of the body. About 1/3rd of the circumference is pushed in to make a concave section to assist in fitting snugly to whatever it is clipped to.

The unusual body cross section does make for an unusual writing experience. It’s fine for a few notes and other short term use but this is not really a pencil for writing a novel with.

I imagine Onbook would be entirely suitable for bookies. The sleeve is retractable for pocket safety.

The pocket clip is a strong steel clip, firmly sprung against the body.

Note how the pocket clip is attached at the very top of push top button so the pencil won’t stick out up past the top of the book it’s clipped to. This does mean there is a risk of the main body inadvertently detaching from your book at some inconvenient time, but the top button is very firmly press fitted to the main body so the risk is minimal. Well at least while the pencil is reasonably new.

Very small eraser under the push top button. Lead refill chamber beneath the eraser as usual.

• Price Range – Low/Mid.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 137mm, diameter 8mm before part of it got squashed in.

The Tombow Onbook mechanical pencils featured in this review were gifts from Cult Pens.

Comments

2010-10-03T18:06:00.001+13:00

Just FYI, I have changed the Comments set-up on this blog back to using a separate pop-up window rather than the inline comments. Comments on Blogger blogs have always had a few problems when using the inline comments, particularly for Firefox users, and some recent changes seem to have made things a little worse. I much prefer inlne comments, but just for the moment I"ll revert back to pop-up and monitor things.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, there are new gadgets in the sidebar - including The Most Viewed Pages for the last rolling month.

Platinum OLEeNU

2010-10-01T02:09:00.000+13:00

Platinum OLEeNU Mechanical Pencil Mechanism

Rather than reviewing a mechanical pencil, in this post I’m reviewing a mechanism.

In August 2009 Platinum Pen of Japan announced the release of their OLEeNU range of mechanical pencils. So, what does OLEeNU mean? Well I don’t really know, but the English language version of the Platinum website says “‘OLEeNU’ mean that the lead is not broken easily when you drop off the pencil or take writing.” I’ve also been told that it means “unbreakable”. Anyway, let’s forget about the finer nuances of the translation, the effective meaning of OLEeNU is abundantly clear. It is a mechanism that, amongst other things, claims to significantly reduce lead breakage caused by shock to the pencil, for example if the pencil is dropped to the floor. It essentially does this by having a tube which supports the lead in between the chuck and the sleeve, thus reducing the chance of a lead break between the two. Check it out.

See how the lead is unsupported between chuck and sleeve in this ordinary non-OLEeNU mechanical pencil.

So, personally I don’t have a lot of trouble with this sort of lead breakage, but recently I received a parcel of pencils from overseas and…you guessed it…every single pencil had a broken lead in its tip. The parcel and the pencils were all outwardly undamaged, but clearly somewhere along the way they had taken a right beating. So, OLEeNU popped into my mind. Would OLEeNU mechanisms have made any difference? Time to head on down to the mechanical pencil test laboratory.

Warning:
Movies involving animals frequently carry a disclaimer along the lines of “No animals were harmed in the making of this movie”. Well, I’d like to say “No mechanical pencils were harmed in the writing of this blog post” but that be would a damn lie. The pencils involved in this article were treated harshly and may never recover from their grievous injuries. Those of a delicate disposition or squeamish nature should read no further.

Right let’s get down to business. It’s pretty simple, I’m going to get three mechanical pencils and do bad things to them to see if the lead breaks in their tip and sort out the tough guys from the wussies. The three guinea pigs are

Top to Bottom: Pentel Fiesta, Platinum OLEeNU MOL-200, and Paper Mate Flex Grip Elite.

I loaded each pencil with the same brand of 0.5mm HB lead. I’m not going to say which brand, suffice to say it’s a brand that I don’t think has particularly good strength. Before each test the lead was advanced until it just emerged from the sleeve and then carefully pushed back in so it was flush with the end of the sleeve.
Now then, let the games begin.

I held all 3 mechanical pencils horizontally and dropped them simultaneously onto the concrete floor of the test lab. They hit the deck and bounced freely. A total of five drops were carried out with the drop height randomly varying between “waist high” and “shoulder high”. The results were convincing. The Fiesta lead broke in 4 of the 5 drops, the Flex Grip Elite broke in a different 4 out of 5, and the OLEeNU didn’t break in any of them. I won’t bore you with the details of a few more pencil crash and bangs around the lab because the results are just more of the same. The champion is clear.

I’m the type who takes all these claims of “super new and improved” with a big dose of cynicism, and regard most such claims as little more than marketing department dross. This time though I believe the advertising is true, the product performs as claimed, the lead in an OLEeNU mechanical pencil really “is not broken easily when you drop off the pencil or take writing.” It may not be unbreakable, but it’s getting close.

Pentel Ain Stein Lead Review

2010-09-28T01:48:00.003+13:00

Pentel Ain Stein Lead Review

Prior to the 1960’s the thinnest commercially successful mechanical pencil lead was 0.9mm. Thinner leads of sufficient customer acceptable strength were just not possible. Then in the 1960’s Pentel developed pencil leads using polymer rather than the traditional ceramic clay as the binding agent. Suddenly leads of 0.5mm and even thinner were possible, and the 0.5mm mechanical pencil as we know it today was born.

Pentel have recently released their latest generation lead, Ain Stein.
S = Strongest
T = Technology
E = Enhanced SiO
I = Integrated
N = Network

Now, I don’t read Japanese so I can’t really say exactly what Pentel claim about Stein, but as far as I can make out from Google Translate, it appears they have incorporated some silica like crystalline regularity into the structure of the lead, thus improving strength, smoothness and darkness. I’m not sure if silica is the main binding agent or if it’s a polymer and silica mix.

Clearly a new product such as this immediately aroused my interest, and I was off on an internet shopping expedition. When I opened the parcel containing my first delivery of Ain Stein I was immediately struck by the sheer colourfulness of it all. It was a mighty pretty sight.

To coincide with the release of Ain Stein, Pentel have also released a Limited Edition Graph 1000 x Stein PG1005S mechanical pencil. There is also an Ain Stein plastic eraser as well. It’s eye-candy. It really is. I can only apologise and say that my photographic ability and equipment is just not up to the task.

The leads come in very nice plastic containers, with a bright colour scheme sweeping through the spectrum by lead hardness. As at the time of writing, in 0.5mm the range is 4B through to 4H, including F and HB Hard and HB Soft as well as normal HB. There is also red and blue coloured lead.

You twist the top of the container to uncover a small hole which the leads are dispensed through. The container is recyclable.

Well, Ain Stein certainly has the style, but does it have the substance? Is it smoother, darker and/or stronger than good ole’ everyday Ain? Time to put our size 0.5mm HB models to the test.

First up, how do they compare when erased by Staedtler Mars plastic eraser? (S = Stein, N/S = Non-Stein)

No difference as far as I can tell.

How about smear resistance?

No real difference. Both are quite smear resistant, although if you twisted my arm I might suggest that maybe Stein had a fraction more smear. Just maybe.

Let’s check out darkness.

Yet again, no difference that I can really tell.

Pentel also seem to be claiming an improvement in smoothness.
Well, here maybe for the first time I did notice some difference. Normal Ain is certainly a smooth lead, but Ain Stein did seem a fraction smoother. I did feel that little more of a glide over the paper.

Finally then the strength test. My lovely assistant loaded my test pencils with Ain and Ain Stein so I didn’t know which was which and I proceeded to snap leads. Over and over. The end result was pretty conclusively inconclusive. I did at times think I noticed a difference in failure mode with Stein being a much cleaner sharper break versus normal Ain tending to crumble and break, but other times they seemed the same. Equally on those occassions when I thought one was stronger than the other it was usually Stein, but not always, and most often I didn't think there was any difference. So, I’m not going to dispute that the lead testers down in Pentel’s lab can show Stein as being stronger, but out in the real world I don’t think your average pencil pusher will notice much difference.

So, final conclusion? Pentel apparently say Ain Stein has improved strength, smoothness, consistency and darkness. I can’t disagree, but overall I can’t really agree either. All of my tests here are very subjective, as is each users own experience with their mechanical pencil, lead, paper and writing style combination. I won’t therefore be surprised to see someone else disagree with my assessment of Ain Stein. As I said, I’m sure the Pentel lead experts can tell the difference, just not ordinary folk like me.

0.5mm Timeline

2010-09-24T02:44:00.004+12:00

I've been trying to document the introduction of 0.5mm and other thin lead mechanical pencils. I've got about as far as I can go, so am publishing this draft in the hope some of you out there may be able to fill in some of the gaps. You can leave a comment or email me via the My Profile link in the sidebar.

The Rise and Rise of Zero Point Five

A Timeline of the Introduction of 0.5mm Mechanical Pencils and Other Related Stuff!

1961
• Mitsubishi Pencil release 0.9mm and 0.7mm screw mechanism pencils (suspect this is ceramic lead)

1962
• Pentel release the world’s first 0.7mm and 0.5mm polymer leads, and pencils. (Pencil model number? Possibly Pentel Sharp 350?)

1967
• Faber-Castell release the worlds second 0.5mm polymer lead, and their first 0.5mm pencil "A.W. Faber Castell TK 9501".

1968
• Pentel release the world’s first 0.3mm polymer lead, and pencils (Pencil model number?)
• Mitsubishi Pencil release 0.5mm ratchet mechanism pencils (Pencil model number?) (Note the seven year time span from 0.7mm screw mechanism to modern 0.5mm ratchet)

1969
• Staedtler release their first 0.5mm polymer lead and pencil "Micrograph 770"
• Chitose Kagaku Kogyo Co. Ltd (OEM lead manufacturer) founded by Sekiya Takashi, former Pentel employee and developer of their polymer leads.

1971
• The Japan Stationery Company Ltd changes its name to Pentel, which it had been using as a product brand name, and as a company name for some overseas subsidiaries.

1973
• Pentel release the world’s first 0.2mm polymer lead and pencils. (Pencil model number?)

From now on 0.5mm continues to increase market share and by the mid-1980’s it dominates the mechanical pencil industry.

CATALOGUE DATA
For some illustration of the rise of thin lead mechanical pencils, here are some examples from some pencil catalogues. A simple measure of how many catalogue pages are devoted to traditional 2mm clutch pencil type leadholders compared to thin-lead mechanical pencils.
(Catalogues are either my own or as viewed on Leadholder.com)

Staedtler

1969 Staedtler Mars Catalogue, English language.
• Leadholders only, no MP.

1977 Staedtler Design Mars Group Catalogue, English language.
• 2 pages Leadholders, 2 pages MP

1987/8 Staedtler Catalogue, German language
• Less than 1 page Leadholders, 3+ pages MP

2005/6 Staedtler Catalogue, English language
• Less than 1 page Leadholders, 3 pages MP

2009/10 Staedtler Catalogue, English language
• Less than 1 page Leadholders, 7 pages MP

Koh-I-Noor

1980 Koh-I-Noor USA Catalog
• 1 page Leadholders, ¼ page MP

1985 Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph USA Catalog B
• 1 page Leadholders, ½ page MP
• Note the Rapidomatic MP rather than a Leadholder is described as “the professional’s ultimate choice for drafting”

Pentel Jolt AS305 Mechanical Pencil Review

2010-09-21T01:26:00.002+12:00

Pentel Jolt AS305 Mechanical Pencil Review

Here’s one of Pentel’s newer additions to their range, the AS305 Jolt mechanical pencil. At the time of writing it is available as the AS305 0.5mm or AS307 0.7mm, each in four different colourways.

First off then the Jolt is a pretty interesting looking mechanical pencil, and I mean ‘interesting’ in a good way. I’ve got to admit that personally I much prefer the pink and orange colour options as they look so bright, cheery and fun.

Then there is that clear window in the body. It’s reminiscent of some sort of reservoir level window in a pen so you can see how much ink you’ve got left. My first thought was that it would allow you to see how many leads you had inside the pencil, but I was wrong.

The eraser is moulded and shaped to be an extension of the design lines of the pencil body. It’s not just the usual standard cylinder of eraser material chopped off to length and stuck in a hole. So, there’s no denying it, when it comes to aesthetic styling, Pentel have done some mighty fine work with the Jolt. This is a pencil of dramatic looks.

In the hand, the Jolt is about what you would expect. A lightweight all plastic pencil with rubber grip. It looks and feels reasonably substantial given those parameters. The only slightly surprising thing is that the grip felt wider than it looked, if that makes sense?

So anyway, what about that window? Like I said, my first thought was that it would let you see how many leads you had inside the lead chamber. Well, it doesn’t. Rather it lets you see the shaker weight that operates the lead advance mechanism when you give the Jolt a shake or two. The weight is actually a spring, and it’s even painted in a nice colour so it looks good in the window. I told you, there’s some serious attention to aesthetics here.

So, this is a shaker mechanism pencil and the shaker weight is in the form of a spiral wound spring. Note the stretched ends of the spring which provide some impact cushioning when you shake the pencil. It’s very subjective, but I felt that the Jolt requires more of a shake to activate the lead advance than most other shaker pencils do. Things go best if you first extend the lead sleeve out of the tip by using the push top button before you start shaking away.

Pentel describe the Jolt as an automatic pencil with a shaker mechanism. I quote from their USA website, “Revolutionary Sliding Sleeve Technology automatically advances lead for uninterrupted use. Click pencil top to advance tip, then shake twice to expose lead.” Talk about marketing department exaggeration. “Revolutionary sliding sleeve technology” – hmmmm, that would actually be the normal everyday sliding sleeve that’s been on millions upon millions of mechanical pencils for decades. “Automatically advances the lead” – umm, no it doesn’t. The sleeve simply slides back a couple of millimetres to expose some more lead if you press it back. No lead is advanced, and after its retracted if you keep on writing you will have to manually operate the lead advance mechanism to advance some more lead. It is not an auto-advance mechanism at all. Pentels use of the word automatic to describe their mechanical pencils is quite confusing and somewhat misleading. I admit that they are just being historically consistent and continuing their tradition, as they originally used the term decades ago to mean that a new stick of lead from the lead chamber would automatically feed itself into the mechanism if you just kept clicking away. However these days when many mechanical pencils have auto-advance mechanisms, a lot of people get confused and think Pentel’s ‘automatic’ means auto-advance of the lead as you write and wear down the lead, particularly when Pentel state “Automatically advances the lead”.

As well as the shaker mechanism, the Jolt is of course also a standard push top button ratchet mechanism. Ten activations of the mechanism – by clicking or shaking – will get you about 6mm of the 0.5mm lead. The lead sleeve is a short retractable cone, so the pencil is pocket safe.

At the time of writing that nice looking eraser on the top of the Jolt is irreplaceable. Pentel state the eraser refill for the Jolt is their standard plain PDE-1 eraser refill. Garrrr!!! How boring! And talk about ruining the looks of your beautiful pencil.

See above how the original moulded eraser even fits into a positioning slot cut into the eraser housing! I assure you the PDE-1 does not do that! Nor does if maintain the aesthetic contour of the body.

As usual you remove the eraser to access the lead refill chamber.

The pocket clip is an integrally moulded plastic clip, but quite strong and springy. Most importantly it is fitted to the main body such that it is sprung tight against the body. There is no annoying gap between clip and body like you get on many cheaper pencils.

The grip zone is a moulded rubber section. It is round and generally smooth with only a couple of indented lines down low. The rubber compound is quite hard and not particularly grippy. So, the grip looks good, but…well you know I’m not a fan of rubber grips so let’s say no more. One problem I did have with the grip zone is that the clear window is raised slightly up out of the body, and it extends down low enough to sometimes interfere with my fingers when gripping the pencil.

Markings on the pencil pocket-clip are ‘Pentel’, ‘Jolt’, ‘AS305’, a mould or some other such ‘production identifier number’ and ‘0.5’ for the lead size. The sticker on the main body states “Made In China”.

Overall then, the Jolt AS305 mechanical pencil is a worthy addition to Pentels range, and to your pencil case.

Best Points – Looks great. Love the shaker viewing window.
Not So Good Points – The rubber grip is a bit of a let down, and the window interfering with the grip. No proper replacement eraser available.
Price Range – Economy.
Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 143mm, diameter 11mm. Balance point about 75mm up from the tip.

The Pentel Jolt mechanical pencils featured in this article were kindly sent to me as freebies by Cult Pens.

Platinum Pen Company Interview

2010-09-17T02:53:00.003+12:00

Platinum Pen Ltd Interview

I recently made contact with Mr Osamu Fukuoka, International Marketing Manager of Platinum Pen Company of Japan, and he agreed to answer a few questions about Platinum and their products.

Dave - Platinum Pen aren’t particularly well known outside of Asia so some readers of this blog won’t be too familiar with your company. To start with, could you tell us a little about Platinum’s history?

Osamu - Platinum Pen Co was established in 1919 as manufacturer of fountain pen. During 1930’s, Platinum started manufacturing Maki-e fountain pen. Maki-e is the Japanese traditional hand crafting. Also Platinum is the first company to adopt the fountain pen cartridge system. Mechanical pencils were added to range in 1935, multi-pens in 1978.

Dave - And what about Platinum today?

Osamu - Platinum main office is in Tokyo, Japan, and we have two factories in Japan. We also have the factory in Shanghai (China), Shenzhen (China), Taiwan and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam).

Japan’s factory is making the middle-high end writing instruments; other factories (China, Taiwan, and Vietnam) are making the low writing instrument & OEM products. In Japan we have 250 persons, overseas factory staff total 400.

Dave – I note that compared to many writing instrument companies Platinum seem to have a large selection of multi pens. What is Platinum’s speciality, your strongest product group?

Osamu - Platinum’s main product is fountain pen and multi-function pen. We have good sales of multi function pen in Japan market. Best sale is 3 action multi pen - black & red ball pen with mechanical pencil. Market price JPY 1000 - 3000 model is good sales.

There are lots of multi pen company in Japan. Platinum supply the standard multi pen, also we’re supplying the wood body, leather body, sterling silver body, modern maki-e multi pen etc. We have many multi function pen types, so for that reason we think that we are the leading brand of multi pen in Japan market.

Dave - What sells more in Japan – technical drafting style pencils like the Pro-Use, or general writing style pencils like MOL-500 and A-Pen MAQ-1000?

Osamu - Pencils like Pro-Use MSD series are suitable for drafting, however these item are specialised, our sales of general everyday writing pencils are better sales than MSD series.

Our biggest selling model of pencil is MSIQ-200 series; they are using the soft silicon grip. Price is JPY200, reasonable price. This model is good selling mechanical pencil in Japan market.

Dave – Can you give us some data on the sales ratio of pencils by lead size?

Osamu - We don’t have many mechanical pencils, so our pencils are 90% 0.5mm. The pencil’s standard lead is 0.5mm in Japan market, most everyday writing pencil is 0.5mm. Other size 0.7mm and 0.9mm are not so popular in Japan. This is the same for fountain pen. For example, Japanese prefer fountain pen nib of Fine or Medium size. However European or American market prefer Medium or Broad nib.

Dave - Which countries are your primary market?

Osamu - Platinum’s biggest market is Japan. Our main export market is USA, Korea and Taiwan. USA and Korea’s main exporting products are fountain pen. In Taiwan main exporting items are fountain pen and middle class products. For our pencil sales, 90% is Japan market. USA, Korea & Taiwan are not big.

Dave – Do you have plans to try and expand sales in Europe, America, etc?

Osamu - Our next trying market should be Europe. We think that there is the custom to use the fountain pen in EU market, so we’re trying to expand sales in Europe market.

Platinum main products are fountain pen or multi function pen. Last 20 years main item is multifunction pen instead of fountain pen. We would like to export the multi function pen to overseas market. However in USA or Europe market they are not so popular. We’re thinking how to promote the multi function pen in overseas market. Also regarding the pencils, we’ll try to promote them for overseas market.

Dave – Thanks very much Osamu. I wish you luck with expanding the Platinum brand around the world.

Papermate Biodegradable Pencil Test 1

2010-09-14T02:58:00.002+12:00

Alas! poor Papermate. I knew him…

Sacrificed for the greater good, poor Papermate Biodegradable Mechanical Pencil lies in a shallow grave just outside my window, there between the mint and the parsley, his resting place marked only by a brother pencil, stuck half into the ground.

Laid to rest in early May 2010, after six months I will exhume, examine, document, photograph, report and reinter, for another six months. Thus we shall witness for our very selves the circle of life, the miracle of biodegradability!

So then, exactly how much of the Papermate Biodegradable mechanical pencil is actually biodegradable?

Well, as shown on the box, when you decide it’s time to compost your pencil you disassemble and separate it into two groups of components. Basically the grip and mechanism go in the rubbish bin and the main body is the biodegradable part.

Here they are separated and ready for experimentation down in the lab.

According to my scales, 2 mechanical pencils weigh 25 grams, and the non-biodegradable parts weigh 9 grams, so that means 16 out of 25 grams or around about 2/3rds of the pencil by weight is biodegradable.

So, we shall see whats left after 6 months, in early November.

Here's a link to my review of the Papermate Biodegradable mechanical pencil. As noted in the review, these Papermate Biodegradables were donated by office supplies specialist Euroffice.

Lijit Update

2010-09-12T08:59:00.001+12:00

Just a quick bit of information re Lijit over there in the sidebar. I added the Lijit search function to this blog a bit over a year ago and find it very useful, and highly recommend it to any other bloggers out there. I have recently enabled a couple of other features on it. They’re not new, it’s just I’ve never previously enabled them. So, the “Surprise Me” button will now take you to a random article in this blog. The “Explore” button will give you a diagrammatic view of blogs that are fans of this blog, friends of this blog and blogs followed by this blog. You can then click on any of them to create their diagram, etc etc. It’s not totally accurate, but kind of interesting. Anyway, just thought I’d draw it to your attention.

Like A Phoenix?

2010-09-09T09:51:00.000+12:00

The Revolutionary Blood still pumps.
Pencil Revolution

Staedtler 760 Mechanical Pencil Review

2010-09-07T02:51:00.001+12:00

A little while ago Max from Copenhagen sent in a guest review of his latest mechanical pencil purchase. So, I’ll now hand over to Max.

Review of the Staedtler 760 Mechanical Pencil

I’ve just recently bought the fairly new Staedtler 760. (Mine is a 0.7 mm).

It looks nice and it’s reasonably priced at around £6 (GBP). It follows what has become the “new” standard triangular shape of Staedtler. I am not really a great fan of that triangular shape – neither with Staedtler nor with the Faber–Castell Grip 2011. According to Staedtler this pencil is designed for writing. It has a rubber grip. The grip has a sort of hard rubbery feeling. It’s not too soft but not too hard and plasticy either. I’m not a great fan of most grips whether they are of rubber, plastic or metal. I just prefer a plain pencil of a material that is pleasant to hold – like the Lamy 2000. Sorry…back to the Staedtler…

The pencil is very light, a little too light for my liking. The body is made of a shiny blue plastic. This makes it look better from a distance than up close. The transitions between materials are actually nicely made despite the triangular shape. The pocket clip may look a little cheapish from a distance – like the clips on cheap ball pens. But examining it a little closer reveals that it is actually of quite good quality.

It is a push top mechanism with a twist operated eraser as on the Paper Mate PhD and the Faber–Castell Grip Plus. The eraser itself is quite thin but does a decent job. There is no description of how to fill the pencil with leads, so you need to figure out for yourself just to pull the top off with a firm grip. The benefit of is that the ratchet is held firmly in place. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that it holds a lot of spare leads – actually on par with the Lamy 2000.

The push mechanism is pleasantly smooth and without noise. Ten clicks will give you about 9 mm of lead.
The pencil is completely pocket- safe. The tip supporting the lead stays firmly in place while writing without being locked. It only takes a light push to retract it after writing while pushing the top button down.

What is the Staedtler 760 like to write with? This is where it is actually a bit of a surprise! It is light, triangular and with a rubber grip. It has everything against it! But it is actually a very pleasant performer with good balance (approx. 40/60 weight distribution, being bottom heavy). But but but…after a while the rubber will start to loosen a little and the edge of the rubber grip is felt against the finger tips.

This will never become one of my favourite pencils. It just lacks the quality feel of my favourite pencils. But it is a good pencil for carrying at work. I do find it a bit pricey. You will get three Rotring Tikky 3 for the same price or almost a Lamy Safari which is far superior.

Update

2010-09-06T12:56:00.001+12:00

A number of readers are contacting me to enquire about my wellbeing after the Christchurch earthquake. So, firstly thanks for your concern. Luckily for me personally I and my immediate family and friends are all a long way away from the quake zone and are thus all unaffected. Obviously though a different story for those who live in the zone or were otherwise affected by the quake, and my thoughts are with them.
For a 7.1 quake the damage and casualties appear astonishingly light which is good fortune and I guess a testament to our earthquake construction code.
Thanks again for your messages.

From The Desk - of Florida Bob 2

2010-09-03T02:50:00.001+12:00

Some say “The pen is mightier”…but they are just wrong!

*******************

Oi! What's your game Bender?

All photos courtesy of Florida Bob.
Thanks Bob!

Space Pencils

2010-08-31T03:47:00.006+12:00

Just as a follow up to my recent posting on the 1969 Staedtler catalogue and the Space Race, here's an article from Flown Space Collectibles on the writing instruments that the astronauts of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions actually used in space.

Thanks to Henrik for sending me the link.

Paper Mate FlexGrip Elite Mechanical Pencil Review

2010-08-27T02:29:00.000+12:00

Paper Mate FlexGrip Elite Mechanical Pencil Review

Here’s a bit of an unusual beast from the Paper Mate stable. I say unusual because it sort of looks like a MechFranken pencil to me. The head of one pencil cut off and stuck on the body of another.

I’m not saying it’s necessarily ugly, just a bit unusual and disconcerting. I quite like the crimson red ring grooves in the grip zone and the red pocket clip moulding is quite eye-catching, but the transition from the straight thin main shaft to that large bulging silver top housing…like I say, it looks like the surgeons have been experimenting to me. I’m not sure about the colour scheme either. The main body is matt and has a brownish tinge to it that I don’t think quite goes with the metallic silver top section. And what exactly is that top section for? It looks like it should be housing something, like an extendable eraser, but it isn’t. It is apparently purely decorative. It serves no functional purpose. Just like decorative pillows…ahhh, I’m getting started…moving on now. Perhaps one of the other colour combinations available for the FlexGrip would suit me better - the black with silver trims for example!

In the hand the Papermate Flexgrip Elite feels quite good. The grip is on the narrow side, but I like the feel of the grooved rings under-finger. The main body has one of those rubberised coatings which even though they are rubber I can accept. They don’t feel that rubbery, don’t look rubbery, aren’t squishy and do actually improve the grip characteristics, particularly for long term use like in a lecture or exam. Having said that, there are sometimes issues with the long term durability of these rubberised coatings…but it’s not an expensive pencil. Also despite the large top section the pencil is still lightweight and neutrally balanced.

I did note an annoying tendency for the FlexGrip to sometimes squeak when writing. I think this noise came from the lead cushioning mechanism. Also, for the heavy handed, the FlexGrip lives up to its name and you can feel some flex in the body when writing.

The lead sleeve is a retractable cone as you might expect on a general writing mechanical pencil like this one. When retracted the front section is fairly blunt so the pencil is pocket safe. Again as expected the mechanism is a standard push top ratchet, with the uncovered eraser being the push button. Ten clicks of the quiet and smooth mechanism will get you about 7mm of the 0.5mm lead.

The uncovered eraser works reasonably well as an eraser but obviously won’t last that long if used frequently. Because the eraser is the push button for the lead advance mechanism you will probably inadvertently advance the lead when you use the eraser. Now there’s nothing particularly unusual about that, but for some reason I found this more of a problem than usual with the Paper Mate Flexgrip. Also of course being uncovered and out on display, when the eraser has been used and worn down, it does detract from the looks of the pencil. I don’t really think that fits with the Elite association.

You can pull either the eraser or the whole housing out of the top section to access the lead refill magazine. It is only a narrow plastic tube so you won’t get a whole heap of lead down there. The eraser housing is a push fit onto the plastic lead magazine tube.

The pocket clip is moulded plastic and quite strong, but like many such clips it does not actually touch the body so won’t securely clip onto something thin like just a couple of sheets of paper, but on something thicker though it is fine.

There are some Papermate graphics and model details printed on the body of the pencil, but these quickly wear off in use. See what a difference two weeks of use makes?

‘Papermate’, the Papermate double heart logo and ‘Korea’ are moulded into the top section.

Overall then, this mechanical pencil is a bit of a mixed bag, but it doesn’t exactly cost the earth!
• Best Points – The rubberised body.
• Not So Good Points – I don’t think the whole overall look really gels together.
• Price Range – Economy.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 148mm, diameter 9mm at grip zone. Balance point about 70mm up from the tip.

This Papermate FlexGrip Elite mechanical pencil was supplied by Euroffice, an office supplies specialist in the UK, in exchange for a review of the pencil and an acknowledgement.

Stabilo EASYergo 1.4mm Mechanical Pencil

2010-08-23T04:48:00.002+12:00

Stabilo EASYergo 1.4mm Mechanical Pencil

Back in April 2009 I reviewed the Stabilo ‘s move easyergo mechanical pencil. Whilst I was reasonably impressed with the pencil, I certainly was not impressed with that monstrosity of a name. Well, it seems that Stabilo have had a bit of a rethink and the ‘s move bit has gone, turning an abomination into something far more palatable. Hoo-rah for that, good on you Stabilo.

It’s been out for a while, but now there is a 1.4mm lead version to compliment the original 3.15mm version.

Advertised as suitable for ages 7+ I think this 1.4mm pencil is an excellent addition to the range. I was never totally convinced about the use of 3.15mm lead in the original version and feel that 1.4mm is a good choice – strong enough to handle the demands of learner writers yet fine enough to not require sharpening.

As pictured here, you unscrew the top half of the body to access the lead magazine.

See what a difference a simple name change can make to the general happines of the world!

Like the original version there is an absolute minimum of separable parts in this mechanical pencil, an important consideration when dealing with young investigative but easily distracted minds.

I noted that the packaging did not state any country of origin. Informed sources have since advised me that apparently EU rules only allow a country of origin statement when it is in all (17?) official languages and clearly Stabilo only use a subset of the official languages. As to it’s actual country of origin, well, like many manufactured goods that’s a complicated little game. Apparently the two-shot grip zone piece is made by Stabilo in Germany, and the remaining parts (except for the mechanism) are made by Stabilo in the Czech Republic. The lead mechanism is purchased from Japan, the leads from Korea, and the final assembly and packaging are done by Stabilo in the Czech Republic. I will leave you to decide country of origin.

Anyway, if you are in the market for a pencil for younger folk, then I suggest you check out the Stabilo EASYergo range.

This EASYergo 1.4mm mechanical pencil was given to me by Cult Pens.