I was overjoyed today to find 2mm pencil leads which will fit my extremely sexy Dixon Ticonderoga automatic pencils. The leads are Staedler Mars Lumograph 2mm HB leads, and a dozen come in a long white plastic box with blue plastic sliding covers.
Also included is a cylidrical black plastic thingamajiggy, 25 mm long and 6 mm in diameter. One end is closed with some longitudinal ridges. The other end is open, large enough that one of the leads can fit in with quite a bit of wiggle room, and penetrate about 16 mm.
Elbow grease. It’s free but doesn’t work well for sharpening a new lead, just for pointing up a lead that had grown dull. They are trying to encourage you to buy a proper pointer, which is a joy to use.
Actually, is there a slot for the waste lead to fall through? The pointers like that had a slot and you could see the blade through it.
They fit into the top of the Staedler lead holder to indicate the hardness of the lead, black is, as I recall, HB but I may be misaken, it’s been a few years.
bbbill has it! I clean forgot about color coding your leadholders because I used a different brand of holder the doohickeys didn’t fit.
Pull out the pushbutton on the end of your holder. Replace it with the doohickey. Remember the color or look at the lead weight printed on the end of the doohickey.
bbbill has it! I clean forgot about color coding your leadholders because I used a different brand of holder the doohickeys didn’t fit.
Pull out the pushbutton on the end of your holder. Replace it with the doohickey. Remember the color or look at the lead weight printed on the end of the doohickey.
IIRC, some brands had a pointer built in, but yours doesn’t sound like it does.
Ah, excellent! That makes sense. I did take a look at the lead holders next to the lead, and I think I know what you’re talking about.
And yes, I’m quite sure the doohickey doesn’t have a blade.
My extremely sexy Dixon Ticonderoga mechanical pencils do have a sharpener built into the cap, but I only have two of them. I got one, fell head over heels in love with it, ran out and bought another, and haven’t been able to find one since.
However, now that I know I can get the lead (o, rapturous joy!) I can use these things until they crack up (they’re just cheap plastic) and buy a lead holder or two and a pointer and still enjoy the mechanicalness, the unbreakably thick lead, and the wicked sharp point about which I have grown so passionate.
