Pelikan Technixx D99 Mechanical Pencil Review

Pelikan Technixx D99 Mechanical Pencil Review

This pencil is blue, really blue. Fantastically blue even. It’s a mid sort of blue, almost azure-ish, with a semi metallic gloss. It’s great. Really great. One of the best colours out there in a whole world filled with colour. The Technixx probably comes in other colours, but why would you bother? The blue is great. The sort of blue that reminds a land-lubber he lives on a water-planet. The sort of blue that Neil Armstrong saw when he looked homeward from a long long way away. The sort of blue that...OK, OK, I’m going over-board here, but it is a very nice colour.

Clearly I like the looks of this pencil. Blue body with matt steel / chrome trims. Very nice. The gently tapering lower body, the break at the centre ring to a slightly wider upper body, the long straight bold pocket clip, the colours and textures – everything just fits together to produce a pencil that looks new, cool, modern, etc, etc, etc. Without wanting to insult Pelikan, I am surprised that this pencil hasn’t got “Lamy” on it, because to me, it just reeks of their styling.

In the hand the Technixx has got a very good heavy cold solid feel to it. At 32 grams weight and a top heavy balance you know you have got something in your hand. This pencil feels ready to write something significant. The metallic finish is slightly textured so the grip is quite reasonable wherever you choose to hold it. The cool temperature of the metallic body also adds to the effect the first time you pick it up.

The lead sleeve is a fixed tapering cone so this is for general writing only, and not totally pocket-safe. It’s another Pelikan twist-action ratchet mechanism, the whole top half of the body twists to activate the lead advance mechanism. Unlike the Pura, this one is reasonably easy to operate one-handed with the pocket-clip available to help if necessary. The 0.7mm lead mechanism appears to be another Schmidt like the Pura and other Pelikans, so I won’t repeat the complicated little game to refill your Technixx – just read the Pura review. But just to keep us on our toes, this time they played a trick on us. When you pull the top half of the body off to expose the eraser, if you then pull the eraser out of its housing there is a lead refill hole. Disappointment soon follows, it’s a just a hole to nowhere. (“Fooled yah”. You can hear those pelicans cackling away at you with their rotten stinking fish-breath.)My pencil arrived with a nice Pelikan label stuck on the body to identify the pencil model number etc. Now I’m generally all for this sort of thing, BUT this time around the label adhesive was totally unsuitable for the job. It was definitely not an “easy-peel” type of adhesive and it left a dirty sticky residue behind that really took some significant cleaning effort to get rid of. Very strange and disappointing.
The pocket clip is a strong powerful looking spring-loaded piece of matt steel. This in particular really looks Lamy to me - it is definitely not your Souveran pelican beak clip. It is held in the top cap by two little grub-screws, which are seemingly flaunted as part of the overall design appearance of the pencil.

Right, better call it quits before I write something even more enthusiastically ridiculous.







Final statement - this is a pencil worth owning. Full stop.

• Best Points – This pencil is blue.
• Not So Good Points – I’m currently blinded by the blueness and can’t see anything bad. (‘cept maybe the whole thing about twist-action mechanism, hard to refill, small useless eraser, non-retractable tip, but that would be being picky, ‘cause this pencil is BLUE, really BLUE, the sort of blue that…)
• Price Range – Mid.

Dimensions – Length 139mm, diameter 11mm at lower body. Balance point about 85mm up from the tip.

Hmmm, yes, well maybe I’d had one glass too many of the happy juice when I wrote this review?

Ten Things Not To Do

OK, well, a while ago I did a bit of blog searching to see what people were saying about mechanical pencils on “non-pencil” blogs. It gave me a few ideas, one of which was this list, “Ten Things Not To Do With Your Mechanical Pencil”. According to the blogs I read, people have actually done these things. Without further ado, in no particular order,

DO NOT

1. Roll up your exam cheat notes and store them inside your MP.
2. Stab people with your MP.
3. Use the barrel of your MP as a drainage device during (presumably) illegal home-surgery on your cat.
4. Use the lead sleeve as a toothpick.
5. Use the lead sleeve as a fingernail cleaner.
6. Use the barrel of your MP as a blowgun.
7. Use two MPs as drumsticks and get thrown out of class.
8. Use the barrel of your MP as a dispenser of meat marinade.
9. Use your MP as a dart to play darts with.
10. Use the barrel of your MP to snort (illegal) substances.

Truth be told, most of these are pretty standard stuff, except numbers 3 and 8 are rather disturbing, for different reasons.

Pelikan Souveran D800 Mechanical Pencil Review

Pelikan Souveran D800 Mechanical Pencil Review

This is the second of my two Souveran reviews, and since they are sort of a series it would be best if you had some familiarity with the first one (Pelikan D400) as this review is more of a comparison than an independent stand-alone review.

First off, as a higher numbered model the D800 should be larger than the D400, and as you can see from the comparative photo this is indeed the case. If the D400 is one of the smaller to mid-size models then the D800 is one of the larger sized ones.Photo - Top = D400, Bottom = D800

Overall the D800 is only 7mm (1/4”) longer, but it gives the appearance of being considerably longer because it doesn’t have the narrow push-top button of the D400. This also gives it a much more substantial and impressive look. I mentioned that the D400 didn’t really seem to weigh enough, well the D800 corrects that criticism – it weighs 27g versus 17g for the D400, and it’s a very top-heavy weight as well so you really notice it. This extra size and weight combine to produce a completely different writing experience. Far superior. Call me shallow, but in this case it appears that weight certainly does = value for money and customer satisfaction.

The change to the top of the pencil is a reasonably significant stylistic change, but also mechanistic as well – from push-top ratchet mechanism to twist action ratchet mechanism. The mechanism is exactly like that of the Pelican Pura I recently reviewed – the whole top half of the body pulls off to reveal the eraser, and then its that complicated unscrewing ‘carry on’ to get to the lead chamber.The pencil insert takes 0.7mm lead. I found this twist-action mechanism a little easier to operate one-handed than the Pura’s because of the more prominent pocket-clip. Speaking of the pocket clip, it’s the same styling but somewhat larger pelican beak than the D400 – 41mm versus 35mm long. Even better looking!
As well as looking more substantial the top of the D800 is also somewhat reminiscent of a crown, the sovereigns’ crown I guess. So stylistically I’m much more impressed with the D800 than with the D400. The colour scheme of my D800 is black pinstriping on a blue background. As with the D400 I’m not too impressed by the pinstriping apparently being some sort of sheet wrapped around the barrel.

Overall I am much happier with my D800 than with my D400, and whilst I would recommend the D800 I’m not sure that even my lax value for money system feels totally at ease with it.

• Best Points – Looks and feels substantial. Love that pelican beak.
• Not So Good Points – Complicated lead refill system, tip not retractable.
• Price Range – High.

Dimensions – Length 143mm, diameter 10mm lower body. Balance point about 95mm up from the tip.

6 February

6 February is a national holiday here in New Zealand. It commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and most of the Maori tribes of New Zealand, which was the official beginning of NZ as a British colony. Not surprisingly there were significant differences between the English language and Maori language versions of the treaty, and both sides thought they were agreeing to rather different things. Been disagreeing ever since. But at least we agree there is an agreement to disagree over, and that both sides actually wanted to agree.

Well, as you know I am interested in history, and it got me thinking a little. What role did the humble pencil play in all this? For instance, was the treaty drafted in pencil? So, I’ve spent the last week or two digging for pencil links, without much success, but then again...

Captain William Hobson (1792 – 1842) was a British naval officer of some repute. He joined the navy when he was nine years old (yes 9), and served in the North Sea and West Indies during the Napoleonic Wars, and then later against the Americans in the War of 1812. In 1815 he was aboard one of the vessels escorting Napoleon to exile on St Helena. He then spent much time chasing and being chased by, capturing and being captured by, pirates and slavers in the West Indies. Eventually his path lead to the East Indies, Australia and finally New Zealand. In 1839, when Britain reluctantly decided to establish New Zealand as a crown colony, Hobson was appointed to command it. He was given the title of Lieutenant-Governor, but precious little else - he would basically have to run the colony by persuasion.

Hobson arrived in NZ on 30 January 1840, and the treaty with the natives was then drafted from scratch and signed 1 week later, on 6 February. There were many drafts of the treaty prepared with the local missionary and residents, but I can’t find any references to their writing, other than that some notes of meetings were specifically taken “in pencil”. These were terribly stressful times for Hobson, and just a few weeks later, on 1 March, he suffered a paralysing stroke, caused by “violent mental excitement” according to his attending naval surgeon. Luckily he made a quick and reasonably good recovery, being able to pencil a letter to his wife on 15 March. Below are his signatures – firstly in ink from the multiple official copies of the treaty, some including his title ‘Lt Governor’. Next is his pencil signature on the letter to his wife after his stroke, just a few weeks after signing the treaties above. He never fully recovered from his stroke and continuing ill-health combined with the stresses of the job – extremely limited resources from the Crown, subversive and obstructive commercial interests, rival French settlements, etc – caused his untimely death by another stroke on 10 September 1942.

We aren’t very good at commemorating our history here in NZ, particularly our European history, so I thought I would make the effort, and go and visit the Captains final resting place.It’s pretty simple and run down, just a rather grimy small low plain raised concrete tomb surrounded by a wrought iron fence in need of a new coat of paint.A small plaque on the ground notes his role as governor and instigator of the treaty. Perhaps not exactly how most countries would treat one of their founding fathers.Seeing he was British, my wife thought he might appreciate some rosemary and a rose from her garden.At the time of his burial he would have looked down the valley to the bay named after him and out to the islands in the gulf.Nowadays though the English oaks and other trees have grown tall and shade the cemetery, and they along with road bridges and inner city buildings block the view from the graveside.It’s actually quite a nice secluded shady little place on a summer Sunday afternoon, the oaks giving it a little touch of Britain. However many strands of “spaghetti” (the numerous ‘on’, ‘off’ and interchange ramps) from the city central motorway junction also weave around the cemetery so it’s not exactly a peaceful place during working hours.I once worked with a mad kilt-wearing Scottish guy whose hobbies included grave-rubbings. (That’s rubbings, not robbing) Now there’s an unusual use for a pencil! I decide against joining that hobby on this particular visit.

Whilst trolling around various websites, I did come across this little snippet.The first pencil impression of our government headquarters in the architect’s notebook. He was a British “outsider” brought in to design the new government parliamentary offices, and was rumored to have whipped up his design on the back of a napkin during dinner with the Prime Minister in 1964.

Pentel Customer Service

I recently received the below comment on my Guestbook page. Now I try to stay away from the commercial side of blogging, but since this comment is a great story, and is really a commentary on a brand rather than a specific retailer, I thought I’d draw it to your attention. The comment begins:-

Hi,
I wrote a while ago asking if you had any suggestions re. my sharp kerry dropping its leads rather than advancing them and your suggestion was to contact Pentel.

I went to the Pentel webpage and contacted the customer service department with a vaguely pathetic e-mail explaining my problem. A few days later the Pentel VP of customer service contacted me and told me to send my pencil to the Pentel distributors in my town, and they would be able to help me.

So sometime in mid December I put my Sharp Kerry into a padded envelope with copies of my vaguely pathetic e-mail and the e-mail of the Pentel VP of customer service, and a note asking about repair options. I didn't hear anything from them until one day a few weeks ago. Just before the end of my work day a well-groomed, well-dressed (black and tan), presentable young man carrying a padded envelope came into the office looking for me.

He introduced himself as Sean from Pentel, and shook my hand happily. He held up the envelope and said "I have your pencil in here." and I happily asked, "Were you able to fix it?" and he said that they weren't. When I asked sadly "What was wrong with it?" he said, "We don't know." Then he said, "We've given you a new pencil." and pulled it out of the envelope. Then he pulled the original pencil from the envelope and gave me that one back too.

So to recap - my Sharp Kerry which was given to me broke down after 15 years of use, and the company not only gave me a new Sharp Kerry (msrp less than $20), but they hand delivered it too. How great is that? Pretty damn great I have to say.

I'm always going to buy Pentel, as are my friends.

Thanks for your blog.
Vanessa

OK, well thanks for the story Vanessa.

Poll 5 – Rubber Grips

The latest poll has closed.

The question was, “Rubber grips on mechanical pencils?”, with voting choices
Love ‘em = 60 votes (32%)
Hate ‘em = 78 votes (41%)
I’m neutral = 49 votes (26%)

We all know I’m not really a fan of rubber grips. I’m not surprised at the above results from readers of this blog, but from the number of pencils with rubber grips I suspect manufacturers believe, and their sales reflect, that the majority of the public prefer rubber grips. Any pencil can be made “better and more ergonomic” by adding some rubber to it. Well, that seems to be one theory anyway.