I’m a Pentel man but the one pictured doesn’t look very comfy. I’d want something closer to #6.
Pentel used to be my pencil of choice, too. You’d probably want something more like the e-Sharp. The one pictured is really more of a precision work one. Drafting, art. Less for long-form writing.
Yeah that looks about right.
Or the twist erase
Rotring rapid pro 0.7mm
What’s your opinion on the rotring tikky? I’m personally a big fan of the 0.5 tikky
Tikky II got me through my entire education.
Two. My experience with mechanical pencils is that they’re often unreliable and a waste of time. I hate having to reload my pencil, I hate when it breaks if you accidentally make the tip longer than it should be, I hate when you accidentally put one more in the pencil and it gets clogged, I hate having to carry refills all the time…
Just hand over the regular pencil and a decent sharpener.
Plus a good ol Dixon Ticonderoga can write on stuff other than paper. About the only time I use a pencil is when doing carpentry and mechanical ones just snap.
When I was doing roofing the pica dry mechanical pencils made things so much better. Sure a pencil works good on wood, but what about when I have to mark gray sheet metal? You need something that comes with different colors.
That’s what sharpies are for
Bonus points for #2 being #2
If you feel they are unreliable, it may just be that you aren’t using good ones. I use 3 on a regular basis (for Japanese) and never have issues with feeding or lead breaking; I also only have to refill it every few weeks.
Same, an actual good quality, properly made and assembled mechanical pencil will just keep going and going, and if you treat it well, you never need to replace it.
Kinda like a decent quality safety razor.
All you gotta do is treat it right and replace the razors/graphite, nets out to saving money after probably a month or two of decent use.
I’ve had the same mechanical pencil for ten years. It’s comfortable, reliable, easy to reload, but if I had to choose one for the rest of my life, I’d still go with the traditional wood/graphite pencil. It’s cheap, it’s everywhere, it’s durable, and not a great loss if you lose it.
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I got one because I was intrigued by its lead rotation, but I found that it really didn’t rotate the lead enough while I wrote. I kept having to rotate the barrel manually to keep a thin line like I do for every other mechanical pencil, and then would get annoyed every time the clip came around to brush my hand. I’ve been wondering if I’m doing something wrong, or if Japanese just uses more shorter strokes. Do you also like it when writing English?
On the topic of sharpeners, those battery powered pressure sharpeners are satisfying as fuck. They’re shit and invariably snap the nib, but they’re the sharpening equivalent of shoving a Q-tip in your ear and having a good rake about.
Or if you’re all about the procrastination, spending a few minutes every lesson at the classroom sharpener like this one brings back the nostalgia:
The pull out drawer for shavings is top tier.
Nothing beats these though:
Just gotta use them over the waste basket.
Since I switched to using 0.9 mm, I almost never break a lead unless I drop it onto a hard floor; it even holds up to some aggressive tapping. Consequently, I hardly ever have to refill. I also never worry about the point snapping or stabbing when tossed loose into a bag, or keeping a sharpener on hand.
It also always ends mid-word/stroke, and you start etching the paper with the metal end. Very annoying.
Unreliable? I have two Staedtler Mars Micro pens I bought a good 20 years ago and they both work perfectly.
Back at my school in the 90’s you just bought a 10 pack of the cheap black Bic mechanical pencils for like $3 (pic #5) and you were set for the year if you didn’t lose too many. They never really broke and you didn’t have to refill them if you didn’t want to. They also never clogged and if you weren’t an idiot you didn’t try to use too much lead length to where it would break off.
They were simple and easy and always sharp.
“Decent sharpener” aka box cutters.
Number 2 is the only one that can write effectively on wood. I may not build a lot, but when I have tried to use a mechanical pencil for marking wood, it was a total fail.
No pencils. Let the record stand, cross off mistakes with a single strikethrough like a gentleman.
5
Ticonderoga #2, an absolute classic.
Anyone who uses #7 by choice is a freak
I find myself inordinately amused by the unsolicited vitriol of your comment. Sounds like you have a lot to unpack with that particular model.
Thank you.
Despite not having tried any of them I guess I’ll pick #1 since it’s the most robust looking one.
Currently I use one from Bic which works well enough.
1s are hella sturdy and awesome. I love em as mechanical pencils
1
I’ve also used 4 and 8 which are both decent.
#2 is classic. #5 has never let me down. But ive never understood how people use #7: shitty wobbly tip
I have been using 3 for the last 6 or so years. I also like 1 and 4. Can’t go wrong with 2.
I’ll take the good ole #2 pencil. Just enough tech and no more.
2
Tossup between 2 and 5. Forever locked in competition with their strengths and weaknesses perfectly inverted to each other. I used to use 5 for lineart and then shade with 2.
