Pencil ?

[Smudger]

I buy .5mm plastic propelling pencils in French supermarkets - pack of 5 for about €1. Bright colours so you can see them on the bench/shavings. Or if I'm feeling really poncy I use my Rotring one. The Parker and Watermans stainless steel jobbies are kept indoors for doing drawings (like the Rotring)...

Oh bugger. I've just realised there's a propelling pencil slope...

 

[SBJ]

..... you have odd ears if they can only accommodate a certain lead type.
Experience moulds you're ears to hold any type of pencil, pen etc.

I have trained my left ear to accept anything in the range b to 4h, everything else falls off. My right ear is for small power tools.

 

[Doctor]

With a pencil sharpener

Yebbut the lead's usually broken inside the wooden bit. No wonder you have to buy 100 at a time :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Each time one goes up my extraction system, I think bollocks there goes 0.9p.

 

[greggy]

this is what i use. home made

5.5mm lead and sharpener in the top :lol: :lol:

 

[BradNaylor]

Cheapo pencils! No, no, no, has anyone successfully sharpened one of those bad boys? Me niether.

They're so cheap I just reach for a new one when they go blunt.

I've usually lost them before then though. I must have bought 500 pencils in the last year, yet when I had a major tidy up in the workshop after Christmas I found about three.

Where do they all go?

 

[Benchwayze]

Bugger me!

I just buy packs of pencils from Asda. 20 pencils for 17p.

Why would anyone want to buy a fancy propelling pencil for woodwork?

You're all mad!

What's fancy about this? It's about 30 years old, I didn't buy it for woodwork, but with the point extended like this, it's just the ticket for getting between dovetails and pins to mark up. No pressure required as with a marking knife, and I don't need to use a lamp to cast a shadow in the line so I can see the mark. For anything else, if this isn't to hand I gotta carpenter's pencil wot don't roll off the bench!

John

 

[Benchwayze]

Benchwayze

Drawing. It is a historical system used up until the end of the 20th Century to design things. Believe it or not people actually used to place a piece of paper on a large flat board called a drawing board and then draw on that paper using a T square, set square, scale rules and a box of instruments such as compass and dividers.

I keep trying with CAD but have not got the time to invest to master it so get frustrated and turn to my drawing board. I Keep saying I will learn but who knows when. Once I have drawn said design I remove it from the drawing board and scan it to pdf.

You can all laugh (very loudly) if you want. If you laugh loud enough it may encourage me to learn to use the Google sketch up that has sat on my desktop for nearly 2 years.

Hi PAC... Please... I was being facetious. I wasn't thinking about sketch-up, as I wouldn't have a clue. The only drawing I do, is sitting in the countryside, sketching, and on the odd occasion I sit down with pencil and pad and literally sketch ideas, in perspective, for things I might want to make. I made a drawing board of poplar once, like the ones I used at school, but I never could get on with them!

I'm sorry if I seemed to be taking the proverbial. I wasn't.

Cheers.
John

 

[Benchwayze]

Cheapo pencils! No, no, no, has anyone successfully sharpened one of those bad boys? Me niether.

They're so cheap I just reach for a new one when they go blunt.

I've usually lost them before then though. I must have bought 500 pencils in the last year, yet when I had a major tidy up in the workshop after Christmas I found about three.

Where do they all go?

Back to Asda?

I know the feeling Brad. That happens to me with glue brushes! :lol:

John

 

[big soft moose]

Bugger me!

I just buy packs of pencils from Asda. 20 pencils for 17p.

Why would anyone want to buy a fancy propelling pencil for woodwork?

You're all mad!

i'm with you there brad - tho i get mine in staples - pack of 50 pencils for 99p - cut them all in half and sharpen both ends (being slightly better quality they sharpen fine).

i definitely wouldnt use an expensive pencil in the shop - for a start it would get lost and if it didnt it would get wrecked the first time i used it to stir my tea.

 

[Mike.C]

Cheapo pencils! No, no, no, has anyone successfully sharpened one of those bad boys? Me niether.

They're so cheap I just reach for a new one when they go blunt.

I've usually lost them before then though. I must have bought 500 pencils in the last year, yet when I had a major tidy up in the workshop after Christmas I found about three.

Where do they all go?

They are stolen by the same little people who nick your socks from the washing machines or tumble driers :lol:

Cheers

Mike

 

[jimi43]

I favour a Staedtler clutch pencil as the thicker lead is more durable

Ed

Brilliant pencil! I broke the side off where the sharpener goes in on mine and have glued it temporarily back but need another one. Any ideas?

It is probably easier to buy a new one on eBay!

Jim

 

[Benchwayze]

I favour a Staedtler clutch pencil as the thicker lead is more durable

Ed

Brilliant pencil! I broke the side off where the sharpener goes in on mine and have glued it temporarily back but need another one. Any ideas?

It is probably easier to buy a new one on eBay!

Jim

Jim...

On this page there is a special sharpener for these leads and the 2mm too.


I have one and they work a treat.

No harm in looking.
http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Clutch-Pencils.html

Regards John

 

[Mr Ed]

I bought my clutch pencil when I went to University to study Architecture, 20 years ago. It costs about £7 now, so lets say it was a fiver back then. I work that out at 25p a year, plus a similar small cost for leads. In my view thats not expensive and its better to use than your cheap crap pencils.

Ed

 

[jimi43]

Thanks John.....I think I will try that.

The problem is not the sharpener per se...it is the plastic barrel around the top that holds the existing metal sharpener.

Just thinking about it again for a moment I may have the solution. I think I have some shrinkwrap somewhere around and that would be idea. The plastic was glued back with plastic glue but if I put the pencil in my pocket I forget and it breaks off again. It just needs reinforcing.

I am a bit attached to this actual pencil as my dear Mum bought it for me more years ago than I care to remember....I think it must be at least 30 odd years old.

I also have a beautiful silver propelling pencil that has all the colours in it that slides up. I have seen them in steel but not in silver. It is fine to look at but use is sadly not as good as the leads tend to slide back in again!

Jim

 

[Harbo]

At work we were supplied with Rotring Jikky and Pental 205 ones (0.5mm I think but No. worn off?).

Had them for over 30 years and still going strong!

Rod

 

[Benchwayze]

I had one of those silver pencils with the moving colours inside. In my case, on the barrel, there was the shape of a glamourous female in see-through plastic, that filled up with pink.. well you get the idea!

Some beggar on the minesweeper I was on stole it!, 'cos it never left my locker unless I was using it!

I use the Faber-Castell pencils for sketching, (when Grand-daughter' hasn't collared them!) I have a few with diffeent grades of lead of course. Saves messing about when the muse strikes!

John

 

[PAC1]

Benchwayze

No need to apologise. If folks on this site and I cannot take the micky out of my outdated work practices who can. I am not in the least offended

 

[jimi43]

THat's strange John...I also use the Faber Castell ones in tins...I got a whole bunch one day at a bootfair...bloke was selling complete sets of graphite tech ones and watercolour ones for a fiver a tin so I bought what he had.

My kids also nick mine...there isn't one set that is complete now.

Great pencils though and for sketching the colours are great too.

Jim

 

[Benchwayze]

Benchwayze

No need to apologise. If folks on this site and I cannot take the micky out of my outdated work practices who can. I am not in the least offended

Thanks Pete! ...
Sorted.. :lol:

John

 

[Benchwayze]

THat's strange John...I also use the Faber Castell ones in tins...I got a whole bunch one day at a bootfair...bloke was selling complete sets of graphite tech ones and watercolour ones for a fiver a tin so I bought what he had.

My kids also nick mine...there isn't one set that is complete now.

Great pencils though and for sketching the colours are great too.

Jim

I use mostly black Jim just for info sketches, but I should imagine the colourd leads are just as fine. But you got a bargain it seems...

Kids... are they any different anywhere? They break your arms when they are small and your heart when they grow up!

This is a good thread. Three pages because someone wanted a pencil! :lol: :lol: :lol:

John