This is great. The amount I've learned from threads like this is wonderful. Fountain pens AND chalk. We are so spoiled by the ubiquity of paper and writing tools that we tried to eliminate them with typing on glass.
How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
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Re: How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
#42How do they compare with Faber Castell 9000? (I normally write with these, in HB or 2B hardness)
Re: How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
#43How do they compare with Faber Castell 9000? (I normally write with these, in HB or 2B hardness)
The Blackwing Matte is close to a FC 9000 6B.
Re: How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
#44I'm always very frustrated about this pencils manufacturer as they avoiding using standard softness marking like everybody else (..H,HB,B,2B..etc).
Lead grades vary across the manufacturers. A Faber-Castell or Staedtler 4B is closer to a Japanese 2B. The four Blackwings are closer to Japanese 4B, 2B, B, HB.
Re: How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does a pencil have over a mechanical pencil? Mechanical pencils never need sharpening, infinite supply of lead of various type and and they seem more environmentally friendly (assuming you keep using the same for many years).
In my experience, mechanical pencil tips broke too easily. I've had cheap wooden pencils where it felt that the let was shattered inside which meant the sharpened tip kept falling out. That's how I felt about pretty much every mechanical pencil.
Try the Zebra DelGuard mechanical pencil - they have a sophisticated system protection the lead, with springs and whatnot - even in 0.3 mm version, it is actually quite hard to break the tip of the lead, even intentionally.
Re: How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
#46Maybe it's unique to Japan or to this brand but I'm surprised by how manual the process is. I wonder how much of this is done due to nostalgia/inertia vs economics or the desire for humans in the loop.
I was a private equity analyst in the 90's and we owned Berol - one of the classic American pencil companies. Their classic wood pencils were made the exact same way - batch oriented and quite labor intensive. Their next gen process was a fully automated continuous process co-extruder that extruded a core of hot graphite surrounded by a cellulose/wood mixture. That continuous string of graphite/wood composite was pul…
I was a gradeschool student in the nineties, and I just want to close the loop for you.
All of us young people knew those bendy, half-plastic, scratchy-lead pencils were trash. (The graphite would even break inside the barrel). They were barely fit to play the role of tinkertoys.
I hope the PE firm did something magnanimous with the money it saved.
Re: How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
#47Never tried Blackwing pencils, so can't speak about them. I am going to be very very pedantic here so read on for entertain purposes.... I don't like the unusual shape of blackwing pencils' erasers. They break the symmetry of the entire pencil. However, I like dixon ticonderoga the most since they are a good balance of quality and price. But, I usually use mechanical pencils. And I am very particular about which kind…
I also happen to adore the now defunct Autopoint. Turns out there's a guy even more devoted than us - Jonathan Veley. When the factory in Ohio closed he bought all the remaining stock and now sells a modern version (modern plastics/design but the same otherwise) under the name Legendary Pencil Co. Highly recommend his shop, and he has both a blog and a book called Leadheads . Start here https://www.legendaryleadcompany.com/
Re: How Blackwing Pencils are Made [video]
#48Never tried Blackwing pencils, so can't speak about them. I am going to be very very pedantic here so read on for entertain purposes.... I don't like the unusual shape of blackwing pencils' erasers. They break the symmetry of the entire pencil. However, I like dixon ticonderoga the most since they are a good balance of quality and price. But, I usually use mechanical pencils. And I am very particular about which kind…
I also happen to adore the now defunct Autopoint. Turns out there's a guy even more devoted than us - Jonathan Veley. When the factory in Ohio closed he bought all the remaining stock and now sells a modern version (modern plastics/design but the same otherwise) under the name Legendary Pencil Co. Highly recommend his shop, and he has both a blog and a book called Leadheads . Start here https://www.legendaryleadcompa…
NO WAY!!!!
I had heard rumors somewhere that someone bought the rights and the machines but that’s about it!
I’m surely going to buy a few!
Thank you so much!