# Never lose a pencil again



## Droogs (1 Aug 2022)

saw this on the tube today


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## Ttrees (1 Aug 2022)

I've only learned how to use a pencil parer in the last few years.
Now I can use cheap pencils and not have the tips break off.
Maybe it was just me twisting them pencils wit me wonky fingies...

Doesn't seem to work the same for carpenters ones unfortunately..maybe needs a sharpen, kinda different design of those so couldn't compare my test.

How do you hold your sharpener?


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## Lorenzl (1 Aug 2022)

I like the way he said cut the sides to the exact height of the hole and when he put the plywood in there was at least 2mm gap!


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## Droogs (1 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> I've only learned how to use a pencil parer in the last few years.
> Now I can use cheap pencils and not have the tips break off.
> Maybe it was just me twisting them pencils wit me wonky fingies...
> 
> ...


clamped to a shelf, just like in school


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## Ttrees (1 Aug 2022)

What I find works for me might also be preferred with electrified or pedal power.
Just wondering if anyone else might have found doing the same works for them?

Tom


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## Kittyhawk (1 Aug 2022)

I like to use the type of pencil, don't know what they're called, but the type you load up with leads and click the end to extend the lead. You have a choice from H through to 3B and from 0.5mm to 0.8mm. They are always sharp, cheap, and most have a pocket clip so they don't roll around when you lay them down.


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## mikej460 (1 Aug 2022)

I've got one of these on every machine or working area. They work really well








Self Adhesive Single Metal Pen Holder - Pencil Clip Grip Storage 5055497046920 | eBay


Stainless Steel Holder.



www.ebay.co.uk


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## robgul (1 Aug 2022)

I have a pair of very useful pencil storage facility - they're called ears  - just tuck the pencil behind one or the other. Simples.


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## Ttrees (1 Aug 2022)

I thought my comment might stir some suggestions, but seems not.
Next time you're sharpening a cheapie with your standard parer,
(try finding a bad one in the pack)
See if pointing the pencil upwards works better than not.

Tom


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## TRITON (2 Aug 2022)

I got a new pencil with my track saw  

I didnt automatically work out it was a pencil and a holder and spent a few minutes clicking it and turning it, wondering how the lead came out. I thought it was faulty til i pulled on the end and revelation  
Seems an ideal bit of kit, built in sharpener, and you clip the holder onto something so its always there when you need it.

A bit pricey as pencils go, but it was free so no complaints..


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## alan895 (2 Aug 2022)

Kittyhawk said:


> I like to use the type of pencil, don't know what they're called, but the type you load up with leads and click the end to extend the lead. You have a choice from H through to 3B and from 0.5mm to 0.8mm. They are always sharp, cheap, and most have a pocket clip so they don't roll around when you lay them down.


Yes I find mechanical pencils to be the most useful, a lot people appear to overlook them for some reason.


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## Rodpr (2 Aug 2022)

I have taken to drilling pencil sized holes wherever there is a space around my workshop (sides of shelves, tool stands etc.) and put a pencil in nearest empty hole when I find one lying around. I have various propelling pencils and carpenters pencils but I find that quantity wins over quality!


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## stuart little (2 Aug 2022)

robgul said:


> I have a pair of very useful pencil storage facility - they're called ears  - just tuck the pencil behind one or the other. Simples.


But not so compatible with glasses.


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## stuart little (2 Aug 2022)

A lot of faffing about in my opinion, what's wrong with a bench drawer? I keep a glass wine cooler on my bench with an assortment of pencils & pens, (it was an unwanted raffle prize) it's relatively heavy enough not to be easily knocked over.


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## Yojevol (2 Aug 2022)

stuart little said:


> But not so compatible with glasses.


And/or hearing aids (and in my case)


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## Richard_C (2 Aug 2022)

Rodpr said:


> find that quantity wins over quality!



Indeed.

When I refitted my kitchen a few years back I was assembling units in the garage then fitting them so had an indoor and outdoor pencil. On day 2 I 'lost' one and by the end of the day reckoned I had spent a disporoprtionate amount of time looking for pencils generally. So next day I bought 2 boxes of 12, put them everywhere I was working and I still do. I suspect I still have 20 of the 24. No special equipment (or ears, I wear specs) required.

_Drifitng a little off topic, one of the early quick warm ups we used on training courses was to get a group to shout out uses for a pencil and put them on a flipchart. You could easily get over 50 of increasing creativity. There are the obvious ones but then you get into listening for vibrations, rollers to move things on, weapon, unblocking holes, lubrication (graphite), holding doors open, kindling for fire, kebab stick, on and on and on. The objective wasn't to find uses for a pencil but to get people comfortable in the group. But, hey you can use pencils for all sorts......_


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## MorrisWoodman12 (2 Aug 2022)

Don't want to be a party pooper but if he's the sort of guy losing his pencils will he ever put them back in the draw? I must admit I do think the idea of using that otherwise wasted space is great and very ingenious. I'll have to investigate my machine tools.


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## Yojevol (2 Aug 2022)

Reminds me of my very first lesson in the school woodwork shop, aged 11.
It was how to sharpen a pencil using a chisel. H&S was uppermost in his mind long before the infamous legislation arrived. 
He said that the best way was to use the rotary sharpener mounted on his desk, but with all these sharp tools available, sooner or later, you'll be tempted to use one for pencil sharpening. So this is how to do it. 
Rest the pencil on the fleshy bit between your thumb and first finger with the point pointing away from you. Grip the top end of the pencil with your thumb and finger. Now sharpen using your chisel.
It was good advice. Never cut towards any part of your body. 
Brian


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## ajs (2 Aug 2022)

alan895 said:


> Yes I find mechanical pencils to be the most useful, a lot people appear to overlook them for some reason.


In my experience the 0.5mm and 0.7mm sizes popular for writing are too fragile and wear too quickly for workshop use. I moved to 0.9mm mechanical pencils and 2mm clutch pencils (which act like wooden pencils in use) a few years back and never looked back. And a couple of water soluble Chinagraphs for marking things other than wood.


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## bertterbo (2 Aug 2022)

My Table saw has a pencil storage device. Well, it has two actually. (mitre gauge grooves  )


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## Droogs (2 Aug 2022)

I have a couple of Rotrings in .5 & .7mm but can only use the .5 in any of my incra rules


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## mikej460 (2 Aug 2022)

No, he'll put each one behind his ear, go and work somewhere else, use it and leave it there.


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## rafezetter (2 Aug 2022)

TRITON said:


> I got a new pencil with my track saw
> 
> I didnt automatically work out it was a pencil and a holder and spent a few minutes clicking it and turning it, wondering how the lead came out. I thought it was faulty til i pulled on the end and revelation
> Seems an ideal bit of kit, built in sharpener, and you clip the holder onto something so its always there when you need it.
> ...


These pencils have a more wallet friendly version as well with all the same features, and also can be bought with coloured wax leads for dark timbers.


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## Cooper (3 Aug 2022)

This thread reminds me of when I was a woodwork teacher in Brixton in the 70s and 80s, when lots of the children had big Afro's. I remember one lad used to push the pencil he was using into his hair. We always knew if we couldn't find a pencil that Norman would have pushed it too far into his hair. (We always counted all the tools and equipment at the end of lessons)
Happy days
Martin


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## cmoops2 (3 Aug 2022)

MorrisWoodman12 said:


> Don't want to be a party pooper but if he's the sort of guy losing his pencils will he ever put them back in the draw? I must admit I do think the idea of using that otherwise wasted space is great and very ingenious. I'll have to investigate my machine tools.


Definitely off topic but I must ask what a 'DRAW' is ? If you mean one of those slidy in & out wooden things with a knob handle etc, I've always known them as DRAWERS (a descriptor that apppears in furniture books that go back hundreds of years) ...


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## MorrisWoodman12 (4 Aug 2022)

cmoops2 said:


> Definitely off topic but I must ask what a 'DRAW' is ? If you mean one of those slidy in & out wooden things with a knob handle etc, I've always known them as DRAWERS (a descriptor that apppears in furniture books that go back hundreds of years) ...


I stand corrected. A brain f&%/ on my part.


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## Richard_C (4 Aug 2022)

If you are interested in pencils and are passing nearby, there is the Derwent pencil museum in Keswick.

Until I went there and found out lots of stuff about how and where they are made, I had thought they all came from Pennsylvania USA where locals spent hours drilling small holes down dowel rods. But no.


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## Limey Lurker (4 Aug 2022)

What are these 'Chester Draws' that are so often advertised for sale or free, on recycling sites?


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## stuart little (4 Aug 2022)

Limey Lurker said:


> What are these 'Chester Draws' that are so often advertised for sale or free, on recycling sites?


There was a young lady from Chester who managed to lose her draws! --- I know it's rubbish!


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## Ttrees (4 Aug 2022)

Richard_C said:


> If you are interested in pencils and are passing nearby, there is the Derwent pencil museum in Keswick.
> 
> Until I went there and found out lots of stuff about how and where they are made, I had thought they all came from Pennsylvania USA where locals spent hours drilling small holes down dowel rods. But no.


Not sure how much interest most folks might have about pencil making,
I know @D_W has made his own, so might as well post a recent highland woodworker episode.


Still curious to see if anyone will try sharpening some cheapie pencils 
aiming them towards the sky rather than holding the pencil horizontally.

Works for me so far, should it be the same for others, might save one a few bob.


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## D_W (4 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> Not sure how much interest most folks might have about pencil making,
> I know @D_W has made his own, so might as well post a recent highland woodworker episode.




I haven't tried the vertical sharpening, but got drawn into pencil making by noticing how nice blackwing pencils are. 

Someone pointed me to a pencil book not much later and I read about half of it, but have shelved things for now until I get something that can fire pencil leads. I was also making them one at a time out of cedar, and I think even in the earliest days, thoreau and others realized that they could make some small machines and make them in batches and saw them apart rather than making one at a time. 

making a pencil in half an hour sounds really stupid until someone who makes pens tells you how dumb it is. 



Ignore funny looking pawns. i was trying to see if I could turn pawn shaped pieces quickly only using a skew.


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## baldkev (5 Aug 2022)

rafezetter said:


> These pencils have a more wallet friendly version as well with all the same features, and also can be bought with coloured wax leads for dark timbers.


Ive got the tracer version, takes 3mm leads / wax, pencil sharpener built in to holder. Its reasonably good, works well.... and durable
About 8 quid on ebay


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## baldkev (5 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> but have shelved things for now until I get something that can fire pencil leads


As in make your own leads? I guess if you are making a pencil, you might as well go the whole hog!


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## D_W (5 Aug 2022)

baldkev said:


> As in make your own leads? I guess if you are making a pencil, you might as well go the whole hog!



That's right. The history was interesting - from wonderful pure mined lead to that becoming shorter in supply and two individuals at the same time realizing they could add clay to the lead, fire it and then I don't know if they did or someone else did later, soak the fired leads in wax to achieve smoothness while writing. 

the blackwing pencils are enormously expensive, but there is a feel to them that no drafting lead has. If you're making the pencil, some part of the lead channel is glue, so the leads don't have to be perfect - and they weren't in original pencils. 

I did find out why pencils aren't octagonal when I started making them - the way we grip them, if they are hexagonal, the flats end up on fingertips. If they are octagonal, our fingers end up sort of on flats but also on ridges. The draw to making them by hand octagonally is that it's easy - flatness of stock matches the pencil thickess, saw and then plane to a square and then remove top corners of the square until there are 8 visually equal sides. 

but the pencils feel terrible. 

I read later (always like to experiement first and then read - you get much more out of the reading if you'd stupid like I am, when you are preloaded with a little bit of experience and see something that would either be helpful or confirming. At any rate, I read later that pencils work octagonal at first. and before that, instead of being halves, they were more like a long box with a cap. 

there are other things to overcome warping that I later solved by stabilizing wood after the fact with paraffin in mineral spirits - *after* the halves are glued. 

paraffin dissolves in the mineral spirits (not sure what you guys call that - just petroleum distillates a little heavier than white spirit) and then can be soaked in the wood, and then as the mineral spirits dry, the wax is left, impeding moisture movement in the wood. 

the amount that incense cedar warps even when it's sawn straight is pretty spectacular!

But short story long, I would like to make the leads to make a writing feel that is hard to match in smoothness and ease -drafting leads don't do it. They're a little dry and hard, probably for a functional reason. 

micronized graphite is very easy to find, so the need in the old days to tumble it for a long period of time into a fine powder is no longer there. four or five dollars of micronized graphite will probably make 50 or 100 leads that are then basically fired like a ceramic pot.


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## Jacob (7 Aug 2022)

alan895 said:


> Yes I find mechanical pencils to be the most useful, a lot people appear to overlook them for some reason.


I tried to use them until I discovered that ordinary pencils are much more convenient, much cheaper and more practical in a workshop environment.
One exception is when it's handy to have a mechanical pencil through a hole in a lath, e.g. for the purpose of drawing a circle.
Buy different brands for different grades - then they are conveniently colour coded.
Have them all over the place as "The Workshop Hack" suggests.
Are we going to have a pencil sharpening thread?


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## thetyreman (7 Aug 2022)

I put all my pencils in a sliding lid box so they're all in one place, they're always in the same drawer so I know where to find them.


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## Ttrees (8 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> I used them a lot until I discovered that ordinary pencils are much more convenient, much cheaper and more practical in a workshop environment.
> One exception is when it's handy to have a mechanical pencil through a hole in a lath, e.g. for the purpose of drawing a circle.
> Buy different brands for different grades - then they are conveniently colour coded.
> Have them all over the place as "The Workshop Hack" suggests.
> Are we going to have a pencil sharpening thread?


I've become warmer to those retractable pencils now I've figured out I like to keep my lines on the work rather than removing the pencil/knife mark.
Certainly a personal thing.
The price is pretty much the same if you can find'em in the pound shop.
may even be cheaper!

Jack Forsberg has a very interesting video regarding the use of normal pencils
for that job, but I cannot find it on that toxic to learning, non referable instagram site.
Simple idea of having a single bevel instead of a coned end,
so the outside of the line always remains the same, regardless of wear.
Surprised that this isn't more prolific, as it makes sense.

Found it, hopefully it'll work


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## Jacob (8 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> Simple idea of having a single bevel instead of a coned end,
> so the outside of the line always remains the same, regardless of wear.
> Surprised that this isn't more prolific, as it makes sense.


Because the usual way of achieving the same end is to turn/twist a pencil as you draw straight lines against an edge, to equalise wear and keep the cone centralised. It's standard practice and one of the first things you'd learn as an architectural student, after pencil sharpening!
Architectural drawing implements, including mechanical pencils, just not sturdy enough for the work bench but "the importance of proper layout with geometry" is something which all woodworkers would learn in the old days: basically the layout of "the rod" for starters, but a lot of more complicated stuff, as can be seen in all the old text books on joinery and building.


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## Ttrees (8 Aug 2022)

Jacob said:


> Because the usual way of achieving the same end is to turn/twist a pencil as you draw straight lines against an edge, to equalise wear and keep the cone centralised. It's standard practice and one of the first things you'd learn as an architectural student, after pencil sharpening!
> Architectural drawing implements, including mechanical pencils, just not sturdy enough for the work bench but "the importance of proper layout with geometry" is something which all woodworkers would learn in the old days: basically the layout of "the rod" for starters, but a lot of more complicated stuff, as can be seen in all the old text books on joinery and building.


Clearly you didn't watch Jack's video Jacob.


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## Stevekane (8 Aug 2022)

We have a big desk type pencil sharpener which is a pleasure to use, gives a wickedly sharp point if you let it and gets used by us frequently,,my trouble is losing my glasses!
Steve.


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## mikej460 (8 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> I've become warmer to those retractable pencils now I've figured out I like to keep my lines on the work rather than removing the pencil/knife mark.
> Certainly a personal thing.
> The price is pretty much the same if you can find'em in the pound shop.
> may even be cheaper!
> ...



interesting overview and interesting accent - is he related to Loyd Grossman then?


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## rafezetter (9 Aug 2022)

D_W said:


> That's right. The history was interesting - from wonderful pure mined lead to that becoming shorter in supply and two individuals at the same time realizing they could add clay to the lead, fire it and then I don't know if they did or someone else did later, soak the fired leads in wax to achieve smoothness while writing.
> 
> the blackwing pencils are enormously expensive, but there is a feel to them that no drafting lead has. If you're making the pencil, some part of the lead channel is glue, so the leads don't have to be perfect - and they weren't in original pencils.
> 
> ...




My bold - an interesting concept D_W, doing first then reading means you're much less likely to fall into the trap of preceonceptions from another persons POV about a thing. Some might argue "why re-invent th wheel", but then if you're trying to make for yourself a commercially made object and you do it they way they tell you without finding out what "feels good for you", you might as well just go and buy it.


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## D_W (9 Aug 2022)

rafezetter said:


> My bold - an interesting concept D_W, doing first then reading means you're much less likely to fall into the trap of preceonceptions from another persons POV about a thing. Some might argue "why re-invent th wheel", but then if you're trying to make for yourself a commercially made object and you do it they way they tell you without finding out what "feels good for you", you might as well just go and buy it.



It's a rough road before you have skills. I have some skills - like intermediate level. Once you get to that level, you often find out that reasoning and testing your way through things matches what was historically done, but we have an advantage - we know the final product. 

It allows you to go through steps before just accepting this or that can't be done. 

the reading after is interesting because it will illustrate some things - like how fast the developers of pencil making, including thoreau, went to gang making pencils. Or a discussion of just how valuable pencils were because they allowed someone to write with one hand on the trail or out on job whereas, if you're riding a horse and documenting what you see, how do you bust out an inkwell and write? I don't recall reading about price, but they must've been pretty expensive early on as there were tons of frauds making pencils with false tip of good graphite and the rest of the pencil was junk.


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## Jacob (9 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> Clearly you didn't watch Jack's video Jacob.


No sorry! Did he say anything interesting?

PS watched it now. No he didn't.
Pencil leads and mechanical pencils are just not up to the job on the workbench. The best compass is just the old school type holding a pencil, or variations thereof. Or a pointed scribe


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## Ttrees (9 Aug 2022)

So how do you equalise wear whilst using the school compass?
Have you got a string wrapped around the pencil and hold it with your teeth
so you can rotate the pencil whilst you are swinging the compass around?


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## Jacob (9 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> So how do you equalise wear whilst using the school compass?
> Have you got a string wrapped around the pencil and hold it with your teeth
> so you can rotate the pencil whilst you are swinging the compass around?


You sharpen it as necessary. It doesn't do to over think these things!


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## Ttrees (9 Aug 2022)

That's why I use a pencil parer for my panel gauge, but it is a rough tool by comparison having a variable thickness line, no bother if you have calipers and a flat bench to
show up the difference.


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## Jacob (9 Aug 2022)

Ttrees said:


> That's why I use a pencil parer for my panel gauge, but it is a rough tool by comparison having a variable thickness line, no bother if you have calipers and a flat bench to
> show up the difference.


I don't have a panel gauge - anything bigger than my ordinary gauges I'd mark out with a scriber point (actually an old pub dart) with a tape measure and/or 12" square, then join the marks with a straightedge, pencil, knife or scribed.


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## Ttrees (9 Aug 2022)

Great tool and goes hand in hand with a flat bench, so you can quickly plane down to the line without thinking about it.


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## Amateur (11 Oct 2022)

I only have one pencil.
It cost 30p.
I have never ever lost it misplaced it or had it stolen.
Having a GPS tracking system embedded within the pensil only cost four hundred quid.
Worth every penny.


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