Where are they?

If they migrated to my shop...

Chuck Nickerson

they have resolutely remained hidden.

More likely is that mine joined yours for a holiday, hopefully not an extended one.

Dog Ate Them

Re: Where are they?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

9mm! no wonder your dovetails look a bit gapy

Re: Where are they?

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

Bill, the word is not "gappy". I prefer to call them "relaxed fit". T.

I was looking for a decimal point too!

Stuck to magnets

John K Jordan

I stick pencils of all types to magnets at point of use. Some of the better mechanical pencils have steel clips but for those with plastic and other pencils and sharpies I wrap a short piece of soft iron wire around them. Magnets with countersunk holes can be fastened to wood where needed.

JKJ

My recent pencil score

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Found this dandy in a Koh-I-Noor store in Prague. I expect it to become my favored marking tool. It is a 0.5mm and the store had "leads" (that should be "graphites") that ranged from 2B to 12H. The soft 2B leads seem to mark nicely on wood. Even though fine, it still can produce "relaxed fit" dovetails, I am sure. Of course the 9mm will break less often.

Re: My recent pencil score

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

Nice. But just remember which side of the pencil line to stay on and you'll have piston fit every time.

Re: My recent pencil score

Dick Coers

Biggest problem with that style pencil, hitting the shop floor! I was a draftsman when these things came to the United States. Light years about mechanical pencils and lead pointers. But if they fell, you had little pieces of lead or a bent tip.

Re: I was looking for a decimal point too!

Keith Newton

That reminds me of an old carpenter I worked with about 30 years ago. He used a carpenters pencil the wide way, so he could see the mark, which was about 9mm wide, so even if he cut his line it was give or take 1/8".

Re: My recent pencil score

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

I have some of each! As an Engineer, I started with the old lead holder and pointing sharpener, then 9mm and 5mm mechanical pens. I have all these in my shop desk.

However I have a good electric pencil sharpener and usually prefer to use pencils when a marking knife is not called for.

A few years ago when attending the Indiana covered bridge festival flea markets and yard sales I ran into a yard sale that had boxes of new pencils (apparently with an address for a Church that had either closed or moved). I purchased several boxes of these #2 pencils. Each box had 200 or more pencils.

I have a large old coffee can with a hundred or so of these sharpened, along with some silver, red and other colored pencils. I have several sharpened pencils near all my equipment and use them once or twice and toss them on my desk for resharpening. After furnishing all my grandchildren all the pencils they wanted I still have lifetimes left!

That is a really nice one Bill

John in NM

I'm a real sucker for mechanical pencils!

Current favorite is a 0.7mm Japanese one that rotates the graphite as you write.

I also like plain old Ticonderogas for the shop. When one of my dad's offices closed up we got a few of the best pencil sharpeners - the self feeding kind that grips the pencil and pushes it in to the grinder nice and square.

Bulk wood pencils, be careful

Gary Smyth

How do you screw up a pencil? Well two things, you don’t use a soft wood like cedar and you don’t center the graphite. Who knows the hardness regardless of any markings? Big box office supply stores and at least one Sam’s Club have inexpensive bulk pencils. Some are round and some hexagonal, most are "pencil yellow". No matter, my experience is they promote zero confidence. As the clerk in the store told me – “Well, they write don’t they”. True, but I hate sharpening a sharpened pencil with the point still partially covered in rough wood.

Same sharpener keeping pressure as close to the same, handheld.

Bulk

Name brand



Stick with cedar wrapped and name brands.

I'd say you need a better sharpener

Dick Coers

Even the name brand pencils look rougher than they should be.

Re: I'd say you need a better sharpener

John K Jordan

Could the pencil sharpener need sharpening?

Re: Bulk wood pencils, be careful

Joseph Mulherin

I buy #2 yellow pencils(Momentum Brand) at Walmart, use a Boston Champion sharpener. Always a good clean sharp point which last for a long while. Keep several at hand, then sharpen again when needed.

You're correct, but perhaps you missed my intent

Gary Smyth

The pics were just a "heads up". It's not the sharpener unless it's the carbon based one turning the handle. That sharpener from which the pictures were taken is a forty plus year old Boston. No special care was taken to form a point. It may indeed new cutters, but that doesn't forgive hard(er)wood wraps and off center leads. The points generated from it are perfectly satisfactory for the large majority of work. For the critical applications alternatives are available to me.

Re: Bulk wood pencils, be careful

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

I have always considered Cedar pencils to be the best! I have a electric automatic sharpener, picked up at an auction. I think it replacement cost would be $25 ~ $40. I have some pencils that are cedar, some others in a white wood. All of the pencils I have sharpened have extremely smooth area's where the sharpener removed the wood, the lead is very sharp pointed and centered with no wood on the last 1/8" or so. Most of my pencils are from bulk, several are advertising pencils, all sharpen perfectly!

I am surprised.....

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

....at the number of you all that use a traditional pencil. Their disadvantage is that they need to be sharpened, generally just as you need to use them. I use a Pentel P205 mechanical 0.9 mm for coarse marking and a 0.5 for accurate marking. I have never damaged one to where it did not work. Their advantage is that they are always sharp.

Their only disadvantage is the HB leads are harder than optimum. The 2B leads I found in Prague will solve that problem.

Re: I am surprised.....

John in NM

Sharpening is easy - if the sharpener is not handy there is always a sharp chisel handy. Nothin toit.

Art suppliers used to carry a selection of lead hardness even in 0.5mm sizes. Due to being drafting tools primarily, its usually easier to find the harder lead in those small sizes but 2B should be readily available (6B probably not!). HB is #2 for anyone who's wondering.

One day I suppose traditional drafting tools will disappear completely, perhaps that has happened already.

One day ..

Dick Coers

"One day I suppose traditional drafting tools will disappear completely"

Just like us that know how to use them!

Re: I am surprised.....

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

Well Bill, I have several pencils sharpened at all times. There are probably 3 or 4 at or close to each tool where I use them. After use, I toss them on my desk. When I sit down at the desk to rest (happens too often in the last year or so), I sharpen all the used pencils and return them to the coffee can. I have the pentel's, Koh-i-noor (and sharpener) in the desk drawer, but find the regular pencils more to my liking, I can actually draw a finer line with these than the Pentel's, the Koh-i-noor will draw a finer line if I use a hard lead, but the old wood pencils draw as fine a line as I can see!

Re: I am surprised..... *LINK*

TM Stock

Jet Pens for japanese-sourced leads and pencils in the US...2B 09mm from a couple brands. No coffee at a window table overlooking the Vlatava, but no jet lag, either!

Jet also carries the Tombow Mono 100, a very good shop pencil in 4B. The Mono 100 and Palomino's Blackwing 602 are used here for marking rough and planed stock, notes, and all those quick sketches that students and instructors do to talk through options and issues. We have a handful of Panasonic KP-310 electric pencil sharpeners scattered throughout the shop, and they put a lovely long point on a pencil in a couple seconds, so time to maintain a point is minimized.




Jet Pens