Who Was Ephraim S. Johnson?

[rhr]

Yes, the nozzle is just the smooth cone, which screws onto the ribbed area, and the whole unit twists to move the lead out. To move the lead in, you retract the push rod, and then push the lead back in by pressing it against a hard surface. It's a propel-but-no-repel mechanism, not that you'd need to repel the lead. You'd just retract the whole pencil mechanism, nozzle and lead and all.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

[jonveley]

The trick is that the lead stays in only by friction, which means you need to have the correct size lead. Before lead size was more or less standardized to .046 inches (about 1.1mm) by Charles Keeran's Ever Sharp (later the Wahl Eversharp), lead sizes were chaotic. Pendemonium has some good information concerning Victorian lead sizes, but it can be a real challenge finding replacement lead to fit Victorians.