Can be both! A rigorous test of strength and a harmless pastime!
Sort of like knife-throwing at a live target, or escaping from a straitjacket underwater.
This came across my feed today…
I…will…have that!
Smooth, forceful action responds to firm stroke with efficacious results.
I mostly use #1s or #2s, but in real paper it doesn’t matter much. I brought lots of pencils, but they were just the normal ones I use. I have lots of pencils on the end table by the couch where I do the puzzles, and I pick the right one for the surface. The pencil for the Sunday puzzle in the magazine is different from ones good on newsprint.
At my age they are also a mental acuity test. But the real test are English cryptic crosswords. I figure as long as I can do those (or most of those, some answers involve obscure English towns and folklore) I’m okay.
So I have to ask, having listened to the NPR Sunday Puzzle this past Sunday, the contestant on the show told almost exactly the same story, though it also involved his wife assisting, were you perchance the one on the Sunday Puzzle?
Real men sharpen their vintage woodcase pencils using the same clasp knife that they use to skin game and perform minor self-surgery. Pencil sharpening devices are for dainty draftsmen and ‘men’ who drink fruit juice cocktails.
Also, a well-sharpened pencil makes a dandy improvised stiletto that will pass right through any TSA checkpoint or courthouse metal detector without notice. Try stabbing someone with a Sharpie or one of those gel-ink Uniball pencils the masses like and see how far that gets you. I mean, don’t actually go out and stab someone…unless they are really annoying you like that coworker who is constantly whistling the refrain to “Hungry Like The Wolf”, in which case they are practically begging for an improvised tracheotomy.
I had a point when I began this but it has dulled like the pencil Stephen King used to write The Tommyknockers in a single cocaine-and-Jack-fueled long weekend.
Stranger
By the way, apparently this goes without saying because it does not seem to have been mentioned, but after you are completely finished drawing (or writing) you can spray the work with graphite fixative and then it will not smear.
Nope. But I learned the technique from watching a top contestant at the contest I went to in 1986 at NYU, so it much be fairly common.
Agree with that…I think it’s just one of those things crossword people arrive at independently for the lolz/added challenge. I know I did similar “enhancements” to the game, but whether an idea a friend came up with? Or just fooling around? No man can say!
Or, in the case of Voyager, just a bonus trick to spice things up that one may have seen someone else do.
I say at the grave risk of being way OT.
Was about to buy a few boxes of 4B and 6B Mistubishi wood pencils…a surprisingly frugal little stocking stuffer from me to me…and then something cascaded in my head.
Why not use carpenter pencils, you know, for regular stuff?
One of the reasons I like my usual 2mm lead holders is the octagonal shape.
The carpenter pencil turns it up to 11. Not used or even seen one since I was in short pants, but, sure enough, the usual suspects make them. Staedtler makes a 2H that’s a bargain for a certain quantity.
This might be a game changer for me: a pencil which never rolls away, which can be easily sharpened (draw even between that and the 2mm clutch pencils), and, probably important, doesn’t cost between twenty and thirty bucks each, so one isn’t as inclined to scrutinize its presence when used out and about the town.
I know different companies make those, but I know Staedtler’s graphite…I think I have some of their “10B” lead somewhere around here, probably a foot in front of me at my desk…but a few years using their other graphites in 2mm (as a plain annotater/note-taker, not a draughtsman nor any kind of plastic artist)…I’ll just go with those.
I use a mechanical pencil regularly for work. The one I use is an Alvin Draft/Matic (the 9mm variety). The company that made them seems to have gone though some sort of closure/resurrection cycle so they’re back in production, but slightly different from before. I like the aggressive knurling at the end for grippiness. The one I use has lasted me about 7 years so far.
A little while ago Adam Savage posted a YouTube video lamenting some changes to his favored mechanical pencil, a disposable Paper Mate variety.
He did a couple follow up videos to that as well. It’s interesting to hear what he likes in a pencil.
Gripping story thus far - let us know when the sequel is coming up so I can pencil in some reading time.
Huh.
This little Mistubishi Uni is not a bad lead holder/clutch pencil at all!
It’s also like five bucks from the 'Zon. (That’s cheap, compared to other lead holders…but this one doesn’t feel or behave cheap at all…yeah, it’s plasticky…but then again, it was cheap and it works fine!)
Yeah, it’s a traditional clutch pencil in 2mm, meaning it doesn’t “click to advance” like a mechanical pencil, but that’s the kind I’m used to and prefer.
It is designed for smaller hands, but I can’t see any flaws with the design, other than slight design preferences. No, doesn’t have a little pointer in the end where “normal” pencils might have an eraser…those can be convenient in a pinch, but I always have a dedicated pointer in my satchel anyway. Or at least would have a different model with me with one of those little pointers built-in. Which of course would work for any 2mm lead. Meh, the little built-in pointers work OK…certainly good enough for giving a quick point. Hell, one could use a pocket knife.
As well as a stick eraser, of course, which I would have with me, natch. TBH, I don’t like erasers on my pencils…carrry my own!
Think it came loaded with HB…we’ll soon change that! As in stat, right now!
This is all true, but if I were to jot a reminder like you describe in a handy notebook, I would find that note a few days later and say, “Oh yeah, I was supposed to meet everyone for a beer after work on Monday!”
In other words, unlike the notebook, my phone gives me reminders.
P.S. As for the OP, I frequently use mechanical pencils with a stick eraser (plus a larger eraser) to do engineering calculations.
Oh…I’m running low on B-grade. But yeah, Staedtler B in this…much better.
Yeah, I didn’t think it were possible to find a semi-decent lead holder for like five bucks…no…it’s not really a pleasant tool to use, even compared to bog-standard Staedtler Mars 780s, which I enjoy still…but it’s more than adequate.
This modern world! Logistics! Science! Industry! Technology!
And if the 'Zon gets around to delivering the second model I ordered with red graphite/clay…I’ve had such bad luck with colored 2mm pencil leads…but FML, I’m sure it’s going to be an HB lead, which I just can’t use. Well…can’t win them all.
Probably keep the other pencil, though, and go to an art store and try to find a 4B in red…would be handy.
Serious question for serious nerds.
Has anyone had any luck with colored graphite/clay 2mm leads?
Every one I’ve tried has been waxy and completely unacceptable.
Now, it’s clear it’s not the 2mm format. One has Prismacolors and other pro-grade colored pencils encased in wooden form…which are also typically 2mm.
Any recommendations?
In my case, not a visual artist at all, but I read and annotate a bunch and wouldn’t mind acquiring some 4B leads in red or perhaps some other colors. The local Blick’s art store is not having any of that.
Thick, dense, tactile sensation when marking up a page…haven’t found that yet in 2mm leads. Not in colors other than basic black, you know.
/* Ugh…change my mind about the Mitsubishi Uni 2mm lead holder…this is not a writing implement! Bear in mind I’m comparing against low-end Staedtler 780s and various Koh-i-noors…ugh…I still don’t like it. No comparison! Super light weight, plasticky, and…well…they’re cheap but I’d rather go me some regular Mistubishis in 4B and 6B…ugh…disappointing.
It actually rattles on my desk whenever I move my arm a fraction.*/
Colored pencil lead feels waxy because it is literally made using paraffin wax (or a solidified oli) as the binder.
Stranger
Well, that would explain it!
TY.
I use #2 pencils for basically everything except documents that need to be signed in ink. I need them to be perfectly sharp, and get kind of obsessive about that. Mechanical pencils are a tool of Satan.
You ever considered a softer lead?
So what sharpener do you favor?
Wouldn’t know. I use 2mm lead holders, and haven’t used a mechanical pencil in ages.