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Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils [video]

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Re: Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils [video]

#3

Post by Freak_NL »

jkellermann wrote: post #2

My first try to post in HackerNews, hoping this fits the spirit. I was amazed to see the features of these pencil pens. Are these pencils common where you live? Here in Germany, they are known, but rather seldomly used...

Nah, mechanical pencils are a niche, and those Japanese ones are a niche within a niche here in the Netherlands too. In Japan they are common, mainly due to the writing system that is very well suited to mechanical pencils, so they are common in schools.

I use the Uni Kuru Toga in its fancy aluminium variant for both Dutch (mostly random notes and DIY measurements) and Japanese (I'm Dutch, but proficient in Japanese). For writing kanji, the self-rotating core just can't be beat. The line thickness remains a very neat 0.3mm with 0.5mm pencil lead due to the cone at the writing end staying, well, a cone.

Fortunately, these pencils can be ordered worldwide these days via various resellers. In Japan you get the luxury of just being able to walk into a 文房具屋 (a stationary shop) and buy one starting from ¥500 or so.

Re: Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils [video]

#4

Post by _aavaa_ »

jkellermann wrote: post #2

My first try to post in HackerNews, hoping this fits the spirit. I was amazed to see the features of these pencil pens. Are these pencils common where you live? Here in Germany, they are known, but rather seldomly used...

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Overengineered certainly fits the bill, but boy do I love mine (Pentel Orenz).

At 0.2mm it’s great for a math, especially with the number of super and subscripts I find myself ending up with.

The redesigned clutch on the one pencil is a Kevin good idea I wish all pencils have. Being able to write till the last 0.5mm of lead instead of wasting 10mm.

10mm doesn’t sound like a lot, but standard lead is only 60mm long, so we’re talking about wasting 16% of the lead. It gets even worse if it happens to break into shorter pieces.

Re: Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils [video]

#5

Post by juanci_to »

jkellermann wrote: post #2

My first try to post in HackerNews, hoping this fits the spirit. I was amazed to see the features of these pencil pens. Are these pencils common where you live? Here in Germany, they are known, but rather seldomly used...

I grew up using a lot of mechanical pencils, but I was too reckless and the cheap ones I used broke easily.

Now I just use a standard #2 pencil.

Re: Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils [video]

#6

Post by contingencies »

Here in China I realised if you want more than 4 colors or so, multicolour pens are also Japanese imports only. But they're too fat to be useful, IMHO. It's also hard to source ballpoint pens in non red-blue-black colours, for no apparent reason. I guess I'm oddball for liking colour contrast in my notes. The nicest pen I ever bought was machined out of Laotian tropical hardwood but it was a traditional calligraphic pen with the nib and ink management issues. For modern writing implements... you can't beat a fullscreen terminal, vim and a Cherry (German design, China fabrication I guess). https://www.cherry-world.com/

Re: Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils [video]

#8

Post by a9h74j »

contingencies wrote: post #6

Here in China I realised if you want more than 4 colors or so, multicolour pens are also Japanese imports only. But they're too fat to be useful, IMHO. It's also hard to source ballpoint pens in non red-blue-black colours, for no apparent reason. I guess I'm oddball for liking colour contrast in my notes. The nicest pen I ever bought was machined out of Laotian tropical hardwood but it was a traditional calligraphic…

> I guess I'm oddball for liking colour contrast in my notes.

I just started taking notes to learn a new programming language. Writing the code with a red pen and my own notes in blue makes for a fantastic contrast.

Re: Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils [video]

#9

Post by vr46 »

Freak_NL wrote: post #3
jkellermann wrote: post #2

My first try to post in HackerNews, hoping this fits the spirit. I was amazed to see the features of these pencil pens. Are these pencils common where you live? Here in Germany, they are known, but rather seldomly used...

Nah, mechanical pencils are a niche, and those Japanese ones are a niche within a niche here in the Netherlands too. In Japan they are common, mainly due to the writing system that is very well suited to mechanical pencils, so they are common in schools. I use the Uni Kuru Toga in its fancy aluminium variant for both Dutch (mostly random notes and DIY measurements) and Japanese (I'm Dutch, but proficient in Japanese)…

The Kuru Toga is so versatile, I have three with different lead. But I do want to investigate these others :D About thirty years ago, I had a Faber-Castell where the lead sleeve retracted and automatically dispensed new lead so finally I will be able to get a similar replacement. It’s not always Japan!
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