david weaver
Yes on the cylindrical pencils. What started this a couple of years ago was the realization that I'm getting old enough and with enough work-related responsibilities that I needed to start writing a whole lot more out so that I'd be forced to focus on it.

I thought an interesting thing to do would be to go out to ebay and buy a "lot" of old pencils, so I did that. I think the pencils that I got are 30-60 years old, and many of them are round. Wondering what made good writing pencils vs. not led me to the blackwing and now my daughter is getting into art and drawing.

Anyway, long story short, the barrels in square form, I decided to make with the lead relieved from the end a little bit as the scratched groove is best in the middle of the board (not important why - just based on the design of my scratching tool), so stuffing the square barrel on a lathe and turning the corners off is possible - the center is already there. It's the look of the facets on the blackwings that I like - someone made the facets, softened them a little bit and deliberately chose a lacquer that feels really nice, just as they deliberately waxed the graphite after baking to make it feel smoother when writing.

But I will turn some, too, and make some with square house made leads (and round ones if I'm lucky) before this runs its course.