A pen works too for mathematics or writing or whatever— just cross out mistakes. That won’t work for drawing, however.
My daughter does a lot of drawing in pencil. I give her a Blackwing set every Christmas. They are pretty amazing.
Does she like colored pencils or just their traditional lead offerings?
Yes - but only if those words are in crossword and acrostic puzzles. Real writing is done in pen or on the computer. The latter being better because my handwriting is so bad sometimes I can’t read it.
I gotta say… that blurb about “simple pleasures of an analog experience” reads like it was written by some Gen-Z doofus who never had to actually deal with records or film cameras. I also think it’s funny that these types always want vinyl LPs; I never see “retro cassette tapes” or anything like that.
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with those old-timey things, but they’re not better. And pencils/pens are sort of a weird one for that anyway; pens have been around forever as well.
She draws in traditional lead. I’ve recently tried my hand at colored pencil. That’s why I got the long point sharpener above. Here’s my first attempt at drawing my cat. I reasonably happy with it, though I overworked it.
Got an idea - sending a PM.
Lovely drawing, and cat, by the way.
Unless you make very few errors, crossing out mistakes is likely to lead to an illegible page full of scribbles.
The erasers are a nice touch, too.
I actually been using one quite a bit and as recently as this past Thanksgiving weekend but it was just to mark guidelines for calligraphy pen & ink practice …which it does really nicely!
It is just weird. In my 50 years of golf, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a re-sharpened golf pencil, or one that is shorter than its original length. At some point, I assumed that they were sharpened and re-used, but decades ago I just concluded that they are intended to be tossed at the end of each round.
I’ve been mildly curious, but have never really looked into it - but I’ve never seen a hint of a golf pencil re-sharpener. Given how wildly popular golf threads are around here, don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer!
10 degrees out today. My sticks are put away until March.
I bought a replica of the sharpener on the right of the preview window in your link, it was called “The Little Shaver” and once I’d practised a bit it worked quite well. However it takes a lot longer than the simpler sharpeners with a blade in a metal or plastic frame that you stick the pencil in and rotate one or the other, or both if you’re really in a hurry. My current sharpener is made by Staedtler - it sharpens regular diameter and the thicker “primary school” pencils. A nice feature is that the blades are removable for resharpening as required.
My Little Shaver is now a paperweight/conversation piece.
If you are limiting this to the traditional wood pencil with graphite core, then no, I mostly use those for woodworking projects, or playing games of Pictionary. However, I have a Pilot mechanical pencil that I bought back when I started university, took notes with it through my undergrad and post-grad courses, and am still using the same pencil almost 40 years later. Mind you, I had to buy a second one about 25 years ago and scavenge parts from it to keep the first one going , but as Terry Pratchett once said, it’s still my grandfather’s axe.
Damn!
This thread is reminding me about some Mitsubishi wooden pencils with 4B lead sitting in my Amazon shopping (it’s a bit soft a lead for writing the Great American Novel, yet an excellent softness for general annotations in various printed matter; one must bear in mind that there aren’t industry standards for lead softness, much less proportions of clay to graphite and such…rough guidelines, perhaps, but every brand of lead is a bit different).
Sharpen? With a Mobius + Ruppert brass sharpener, of course! What else?
@Lucas_Jackson , very nice cat drawing!
Pencils, erasers, and eraser shields. Yes I use them. I can’t talk about pencils without talking about the other two. They go hand in hand.
In my pocket every day is this mechanical pencil, Pentel 0.5mm HB lead.
The cap protects the point, since it’s in my pocket, and the cap also helps keep me from stabbing my leg. A good thing.
The absolute best erasers IME are the Staedtler Mars plastic ones. They cleanly pick up the pencil writing without abrading the paper. Gotta have a good eraser. I use both of these.
Finally, in my college days (applied mathematics major) I also carried an eraser shield in my backpack. If you have to go back to correct a superscript or subscript, the eraser shield was invaluable. I still have one in my desk.
Folk in this thread might be interested in this book. Quite a good read IMO.
I love the physical act of writing and do so whenever possible. I use both pencils and fountain pens for this.
Pencils are for on the spot notes, annotating music, first drafts, and the like.
Tombow makes the best writing and drafting pencil, in my opinion. I use gum erasers and a few other kinds, and my sharpener is a Kum, previously mentioned. Almost all writing materials I use are made in Japan or Germany, which seem to have retained a need for excellence the US has abandoned.
I have an eraser shield and other manual drafting tools from when I drew up the blueprints for the house we built 30 years ago. Still use them from time to time.
My husband, who builds things, always has pencils in his pocket, usually carpenter pencils.
I use a pen for signing things and the grocery list. A pencil for everything else (basically note-taking at meetings), but that’s not all that much and one pencil can last years.
Indeed I do, but not stick pencils, mechanical pencils. My everyday pencils are Pentel Graphgear 500 mechanical pencils with 0.7mm graphite, use HB, 2HB, and red. Almost all of my daily work as an estimator/project manager is done with pencil, unless I’m marking up drawings that require colors (other than red) to stand out. Also still use a Pentel P205 with 0.9mm graphite for some specialized purposes. If I have to use a pen, it’s always going to be Pilot Precise V5 with extra-fine tip.
As I was looking at sites about pens, pencils and paper (I swear I’m not gonna buy anything, I swear!) I found this site summarizing the various models of the greatest mechanical pencil ever made - the Kuru Toga.
This pencil has a couple advantages. It spins the lead as you write, so the point is always uniform and not chisel shaped. There’s a good quality, replaceable eraser. And it has a sliding metal tip that pulls back as the lead is consumed. You have to click out lead less often because the sleeve automagically reveals more lead until it becomes fully retracted. The sleeve also retracts for,carrying, meaning it won’t poke holes in pockets or bend from rattling around in a bag.
Whoa, those look nice. Top of my mechanical pencil hunt list for sure.
I wound up going to two large pen shows this year. There’s a ton of manufacturers and distributors but also flea market type bins & heaps to dig through. I’ll bet there are a bunch of preowned Kuru Togas to find out there.