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Pencil Talk

penciltalk.org

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Re: Pencil Talk

#31

Post by eternityforest »

privong wrote: post #25
eternityforest wrote: post #23

My problem with mechanical pencils is they never seem to do well in my pocket if I'm on the bus running around and such, and I rarely need a pencil at home. Is there any mechanical pencil that's meant to toss around in a bag and survive? Or do people use padded cases?

> Is there any mechanical pencil that's meant to toss around in a bag and survive? I'm not sure exactly what the failure mode is that you're experiencing, but the Rotring 800[0] is retractable. I've gotten a lot of use out of my Rotring 600 but wish I had bought the 800 to be able to retract and protect the lead sleeve. [0] https://www.rotring.com/pens-pencils/pencils/rotring-800/SAP...

The leads tend to break inside the pencil with random cheap stuff

Re: Pencil Talk

#32

Post by bmj »

I dove pretty deeply into wood case pencils for a few years (then I got tired of carrying around a good sharpener). Musgrave [https://musgravepencil.com/collections/the-heritage-collecti...] makes some good pencils, though some folks don't like the pronounced hex shape. Mitsu-bishi and Tombow produce some very nice, affordable pencils, though they can be hard to find at times. Everyone knows about Blackwings, but they were never my cup of tea -- the pencil is longer than the average wood case, and the eraser, for as nifty as it is, isn't that great.

Though I use pencils less these days, my current favorites are the Tombow 2558 in 2B and the Musgrave Greenbelt.

Re: Pencil Talk

#33

Post by goostavos »

criddell wrote: post #19
bookofjoe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.pentel.com/products/sharp-mechanical-drafting-pe...

That's it. It's nice that something so inexpensive can last decades. You can spend a lot more on a mechanical pencil (and I have) but none have won me over. YMMV

If someone could marry the eraser of the Pentel with the auto-rotation mechanics Uni Kuru Toga, I'd have a dream pencil.

The Kuru Togas are just crazy good and only like $8. The only thing that sucks is that their eraser is super tiny and also structural. It's the only thing keeping the lead in, unlike the Pentels, which house their erasers in a metal sleeve.

Re: Pencil Talk

#34

Post by goostavos »

eternityforest wrote: post #23

My problem with mechanical pencils is they never seem to do well in my pocket if I'm on the bus running around and such, and I rarely need a pencil at home. Is there any mechanical pencil that's meant to toss around in a bag and survive? Or do people use padded cases?

I feel like a shill in this thread, but pencils are my jam. I've kept a Kura Toga (with fragile 3mm!) casually tossed in my gym bag for the last few years. Zero problems with it so far.

Re: Pencil Talk

#36

Post by vinodhn »

chrisweekly wrote: post #27
tristor wrote: post #20

For those that don't want to read too much on this blog to find answers, the simple answer is nothing beats a quality mechanical drafting pencil if you're using it for writing and not for art. The Rotring 600, the Pentel Graphgear, and the Pentel Sharp (P205) are all fantastic choices. For art pencils it's hard to beat Staedtler. It's an interesting blog, but after spending way too much of my energy on pencils and pe…

Pentel GraphGear 1000 is phenomenal.

+1 for the GraphGear 1000. Had one for about 8 years before I dropped it and broke the tip. Definitely my favorite pencil. Ordered a replacement off Amazon and hit the jackpot as they sent me a whole box of them rather than just a single one lol. I've now got more than enough GG1000s for my lifetime.

Re: Pencil Talk

#37

Post by Tanoc »

criddell wrote: post #9

I'm a fan of mechanical pencils myself. In school we were issued Pentel P205's and every few years I buy something new to try and always end up returning to my 30 year old P205 pencils.

I have a Pentel PS315 that's older than I am and it's basically the only pencil I've used for the last fifteen years. The 205 and 207 they still make aren't as good as any of the sliding sleeves from the 1970s or 1980s. The mechanism gets caught sometimes, it's much more difficult to get lead from a quarter push, and the eraser caps slide off easily on the new ones. So I just keep using the PS315.

Re: Pencil Talk

#38

Post by jonsen »

vinodhn wrote: post #36
chrisweekly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pentel GraphGear 1000 is phenomenal.

+1 for the GraphGear 1000. Had one for about 8 years before I dropped it and broke the tip. Definitely my favorite pencil. Ordered a replacement off Amazon and hit the jackpot as they sent me a whole box of them rather than just a single one lol. I've now got more than enough GG1000s for my lifetime.

I once needed a special blade for my saw. They only offered a 3-pack so I ordered that, and received 3 3-packs.

I don't know, but I felt that I should report it. Fiddled around for som time on their reporting pages, but absolutely no way to report that kind of error.

Are you in my neighborhood? You can have 3 saw blades for one GG1000 ;-)

Re: Pencil Talk

#39

Post by bee_rider »

eternityforest wrote: post #23

My problem with mechanical pencils is they never seem to do well in my pocket if I'm on the bus running around and such, and I rarely need a pencil at home. Is there any mechanical pencil that's meant to toss around in a bag and survive? Or do people use padded cases?

I use a non-padded box, it is just a little plastic thing. All that you really need to protect them from is getting dropped or pressed up against something (it is also nice to not get poked), so the box just needs to be somewhat rigid. Padding seems excessive.

Re: Pencil Talk

#40

Post by bee_rider »

I’m a fan of Alvin Draftmatics.

Lots of Pentel fans… I dunno, I really like the metal grip.

Apparently this site reflects the real world well, since Alvin was, I think, not popular enough to stay in business and was bought by somebody else… they started up production again, though!

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