Return Quantech

Summer and blog holiday is over. Back to reality.

I hope you all have had a good start to 2019, and that it will be a good year for us all.

So, just a few bits and pieces to kick off 2019 with.

If you are looking for something new(ish) to read you might want to check out Pen Museum blog. It's a good read.

My best holiday photo. Took it with my phone camera so it turned out pretty good. An oi was just sitting there on the track, ignoring us humans... hopefully no one ate him.

I used to buy a holiday pencil every holiday, but haven't done so for quite a while. I think I should start again, so here's the last holiday mechanical pencil I purchased. The BIC Quantech. I got it a few years ago, whilst visiting the Continent of Kangaroos.

Kangaroo?

BIC might be mostly known for economical and lower value office supplies, so in their range the Quantech is a premium offer. Its not bad. Silver metallic look good quality plastic body with chrome metal pocket clip and metal grip.

I really quite like the metal grip. It is a criss-cross pattern, like a light knurling. It always seems to catch the light.

It doesn't work quite as well as it looks

3mm retractable lead sleeve, 0.7mm lead, push top ratchet mechanism, small eraser with clear cover. Made in China. That's all standard stuff,  but BIC really have done a good job on the visual styling of this mechanical pencil.

I'm not sure of the Qunatech's current status. It might be discontinued.

BIC AI Mechanical Pencil Review

BIC AI Mechanical Pencil Review

To be honest I normally associate the BIC brand with reliable, value for money, economy price range products, including their mechanical pencils. I was a little surprised to recently see a new (at least to me) model of BIC mechanical pencil in a local store and both its price tag and appearance were a step above the norm for BIC. I decided to take a chance and buy it.

First then the visual appearance. To my eyes the BIC AI mechanical pencil is dominated by a large almost oversize looking chrome pocket clip. It really does stand out against the dark blue and black body. I won’t say that the AI is a beautiful or classic looking mechanical pencil but it is eye-catching, and not in an eyesore sort of way.

In the hand the AI is relatively lightweight as expected. The balance is noticeably slightly top heavy, although that top heavy feeling is not totally backed up by the position of the centre of balance measurement. The AI mechanical pencil has a rubber grip zone. The rubber grip has a slightly bulbous contour and a smooth surface apart from one grooved line running through it. The rubber material is quite hard and only of limited grippy-ness factor. Basically it’s one of those rubber grips that don’t rate highly with me. At just over 11mm (7/16th inch) diameter the grip is on the wider side of town and it’s bulbous contour isn’t really to my personal liking.

I have previously mentioned the large pocket clip, which is chrome plated plastic. It is not sprung, but quite stiff and reliable.
My AI mechanical pencil is 0.7mm lead size, and was supplied with a spare container of BIC lead refills.

There is a small eraser beneath the top button, and you pull the eraser out to access the lead refill magazine which doesn’t hold a large number of refills.

Now then, onto the main feature of the AI mechanical pencil – it’s lead advance mechanism. It is a push top ratchet advance mechanism with the addition of a shaker, and it is also an auto-advancer. Let’s take these one at a time. Firstly as an ordinary push top ratchet mechanism it feels a good positive mechanism, with a positive click and a rather long activation stroke.

Ten clicks will get you about 8mm of 0.7mm lead. The shaker mechanism works well, and seems about the right sensitivity – you don’t have to shake it too hard but equally it isn’t too sensitive to inadvertent movements. One problem I did have though is feeding new leads. On several occasions when an old stick of lead had worn out a new one just would not feed through from the lead magazine and I had to resort to sticking one in through the spout, so to speak. Other times though new leads would feed from the magazine. Perhaps some minor difference in lead diameter, or some contour on the end of a particular stick of lead causes it to catch and not feed through…who knows?

Lastly then we come to the auto-advance feature of the AI. Now I have previously reviewed a few auto-advance mechanical pencils and generally been on the unimpressed side of the fence. So then, trying to keep a positive frame of mind, what about the BIC AI mechanical pencil?

Firstly then the tip or lead sleeve is a short conical plastic sleeve and it is not retractable. Just to be clear though, you can retract the lead back inside the pencil. When writing with this pencil and the lead wears down enough to trigger the auto-advance feature you don’t really notice it. Sometimes the line you write is definitely lighter than normal, sometimes you can notice some drag-through effect as you cross back over an existing line on the paper but overall it’s pretty good. Whilst mechanical pencil nuts might notice these things I’m not sure the general public would, or would care if they did. Like all auto-advancers I know, this one works best with frequent removal from the paper. Lifting the lead on and off the paper allows the auto-advance to activate so drawing long lines or writing long connected cursive script can cause some problems.

The lead sleeve (tip) does have some small amount of bend or wobble it. Those of you who demand precision, then stay away. Personally I can live with it for normal writing purposes but I did note sometimes my line was not quite exactly where I intended. This was exacerbated when using auto-advance because you don’t really have an easily visible lead tip to place on the paper. As always I would suggest you use the auto-advance feature only as a back-up. Use the push top button or shaker to routinely advance lead, and let the auto-advancer kick in only temporarily.

Having said all that above, the BIC AI auto-advance has one feature that took me by surprise. No plunging. Now I don’t know if this is a new and improved mechanism that has eliminated the dreaded plunging, or somehow my particular pencil was immune to it, but it made a huge difference to me. I hate it when auto-advancers plunge. You are writing away and suddenly the pencil seems to plunge forward into the paper, or the tip slowly disappears back up inside the pencil. Grrrrrrr! Well, my AI had none of that. It was a very pleasant surprise, and I take my hat off to BIC and the factory in China that makes this mechanical pencil.

At the beginning of this post I wrote, “I decided to take a chance and buy it" (BIC AI). Well, because of the workable auto-advance mechanism it was worth it, lady luck was smiling on me that day.

• Best Points – An auto-advance mechanism that is actually acceptable.
• Not So Good Points – I’m sure they could do better with the grip.
• Price Range – Low.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 144mm, diameter 11mm at widest part of grip. Balance point about 75mm up from the tip.

BIC Rondo Mechanical Pencil

BIC Rondo Mechanical Pencil (or Ballograf Rondo Mechanical Pencil)

Now here’s a rather unusual sight on the packaging of a mechanical pencil.

Well, my apologies to those of you from Nordic climes, because that may not be an unusual sight for you, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I’m pretty sure it is for the rest of us. So then, the packaging in front view.

Made in Sweden eh? Well obviously Ballograf springs to mind. Founded in 1945, Ballograf was bought by BIC in 1959, but then in 2004 was purchased from BIC by the GM of Ballograf and a partner. The Ballograf website states they make over 4 million pens and pencils per annum with a staff of thirty. Great stuff. It’s good to see small regional manufacturers still thriving in the face of the international juggernauts, and being competitive enough to supply a company like BIC.

You will see this pencil on the web as the BIC Rondo, but also as the BIC Ballograf Rondo mechanical pencil and Ballograf Rondo mechanical pencil. Actually on the Ballograf website there is a Rondo and a Rondo Plus. The difference between these two appears to be that the Rondo has bright nickel plating whilst the Rondo plus has frosty chromium plating, so I think that means my BIC Rondo is actually a Rondo Plus.

Plain rubberised body – rather reminiscent of the TUL mechanical pencil. From side on the pocket clip is quite stylish. The black eraser also looks good.

The lead sleeve is a fixed metal pipe. It is unusually thick for a pipe sleeve, but I guess that makes it slightly less stabby and considerably more resistant to damage if the pencil is accidentally dropped onto a hard floor. Mine is 0.5mm lead but 0.7mm is also available.

The lead advance mechanism is a standard push top ratchet. The eraser is removable, and lead refills are fed in through the top as usual.

The BIC Boy logo.

NOTE
This BIC Rondo mechanical pencil was supplied to me by Euroffice, an office supplies specialist in the UK, in exchange for putting it on this blog and an acknowledgement.

Number 2 Pencils, HB, 0.5, Scantron Bubble OMR Tests and all that kind of stuff

#2 Pencils, HB, 0.5, Scantron Bubble OMR Tests and all that stuff.

What is a Number 2 pencil?
Does 0.5 equal HB?
Does #2 = HB?
Is HB mechanical pencil the same as No 2 pencil?
Can I use a HB mechanical pencil on an OMR Bubble Scantron test?
No 2 Mechanical Pencil = 0.5 HB

I get a fair few hits from people searching with terms like those above. Then there are the emails from the parents of weeping children – “My daughter had one of those fill in the bubble tests at school today and she used a mechanical pencil, but they were supposed to use a #2 pencil, and now she’s terrified the machine isn't going to read her paper properly and she’s going to fail. She’s been crying ever since she got home from school.” Well hopefully this posting will let you dry those tears and sleep easy.

BIC Matic Classic Mechanical Pencil Review

BIC Matic Classic Mechanical Pencil Review

At the time of writing this, the BIC Matic was the last ever pencil reviewed on Pencil Revolution. In one of those pencil coincidences that seem to strike me, around about that time (mid 2006) I was thinking how I should stop mucking about and do a review of the BIC Matic, seeing how it was a pencil that I used quite a lot. Well, the Pencil Revolution review put that thought on hold, until now that is. Let me explain my use of the BIC Matic. In the good old days at my work if you went to the stationery supplies cupboard for a mechanical pencil you were treated to a Pentel P205, 7 or 9. Fantastic. But you know, expense budgets always seem to get tightened, and so Pentel became the much less satisfactory Sakura 125, and then the BIC Matic Classic. So, my pencil cup at work has plenty of BIC Matics in it, and somehow they migrate to my pencil cup at home. It just sort of happens; I’m not deliberately stealing them. Maybe it’s some kind of natural dispersal mechanism? Anyway, all said and done, I use the BIC Matic quite frequently and BIC are a super-power in the field of writing instruments so it’s rather remiss of me to have not done this review earlier on.

A few retailers seem to market this pencil as part of the BIC 10km series, i.e. the ballpoint pen or pencil will write a line 10km long. Some also categorise the BIC Matic as disposable. For example, from one online retailer, “This 10K disposable mechanical pencil contains three 0.7mm leads & will write for 10 kilometres”. I don’t really like the concept of disposable mechanical pencils, it just seems gratuitously wasteful to me. Without any real evidence to base this on, I don’t think BIC exactly discourage the disposable concept - after all it keeps sales ticking over. I must admit to being continually amazed at the number of people in my workplace who believe this pencil is disposable and non-refillable. Despite my office going through boxloads of these pencils, apparently I am the only person who has ever asked for lead refills, and they had to be bought in as a special order item.

The transparent main body of the pencil is hexagonal, presumably in imitation of woodcase pencils. The black front section is round in cross-section and tapers to a short fixed lead sleeve.“Pencil #2” is printed on the pocket clip and on packaging to help push the idea that this is a standard pencil. A wooden #2, just made from plastic. The pocket clip is a rather cheap attachment which always seems likely to break but then generally does seem to last the distance. It is at best, acceptable, as a pocket clip. The eraser is a waste. Well, it does sort of erase, but not very well, and it ends up looking grubby. It appears to be one of those PVC-free type compounds. For me, its only purpose is plugging the hole to the lead chamber. Rather unusually this pencil comes loaded with three 90mm long leads. BIC claim “Each pencil contains 3 full-length HB #2 leads, which outlasts normal wood-cased pencils! This pencil is never dull and never needs sharpening.” Most of us would struggle to find 90mm leads but there’s no problem refilling it with normal 60mm leads. I only ever see the 0.7mm lead version, but apparently there is a 0.5mm version as well. As you would expect the lead mechanism is a push top ratchet, ten clicks will get you a whopping 13mm of 0.7mm lead. Strangely though there is some variability – I said 13mm but it varies anywhere from 10 to 14mm. That’s with the same pencil. Most unusual.Photo: 90mm and 60mm leads

The ones in my part of the world seem to all have “Mexico” moulded into the pocket clip, but according to the review on Pencil Revolution they are made in several other countries.

There’s not really much more I want to say about this mechanical pencil, so maybe I should re-categorise this as a mini-review or something. Clearly the BIC Matic Classic is a pure commodity item, priced to compete for and win all those office supplies contracts. As such, you can’t really expect too much from it, but on the other hand it is a BIC so you do expect it to actually do a pretty good job. Overall then, for the price that your boss paid, BIC gave value for money. My only gripe with this pencil is that after a while the lead mechanism starts to lose its grip. By that I mean if you push down reasonably firmly the lead starts to slide back up into the body. This can sometimes become so pronounced that the pencil becomes unusable.

Amongst other things, the BICworld website has this to say about the BIC Matic Classic

#1 Selling Mechanical Pencil in the US

This product is available in:Europe, Near and Middle East, North America, Central America, Oceania, South America, Africa and Asia
(Hmmm, where’s missing?)

• Best Points – Well, it doesn’t cost your boss much to buy a boxful.
• Not So Good Points – The lead sliding back inside under pressure.
• Price Range – Economy.

Dimensions – Length 150mm, width 8mm across the hexagon flats. Balance point about 75mm up from the tip.