Whats Your Choice Of Mechanical Pencil?

[inkstainedruth]

 

Until recently my only exposure to leadholders, after decades of mechanical pencils, was a Worther Shorty, which I don't like (mostly because the standard lead is 7B, which is much too dark for me).

 

I recently bought a Staedtler Mars leadholder and the barrel sharpener to see what the fuss was about. And by golly you're right. It's wonderful to hold and the point you can get on it is so sharp it's almost evil.

 

I've never heard of a Berol Turquoise before, and of course now I'm curious.

 

It's very similar to what you have -- just a different brand. I think there's a couple of other brands kicking around as well. They all take the same size leads, AFAIK.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[motsamicaux]

I routinely alternate between a Pentel 5 and a Pentel P205. I've had them for something like 15 to 20 years.

[flatline]

I love lead holders. I tend to only use them at my desk where I keep the sharpener, but they're very satisfying to use.

 

If I had to choose between lead holders and mechanical pencils, I'd go with the mechanical pencils in a heartbeat, but fortunately I don't have to make that choice.

 

My favorite lead holders are the Staedtler Mars Technico (780?), the Sanford Turquoise, and the Rotring 300. If I had known my favorite lead holders would also be my cheapest lead holders, I could have saved myself some money.

 

--flatline

[pyotrkot]

Hi everyone,

 

Fountain pens and mechanical pencils have fascinated me since seeing the first of each years ago. Since then I acquired several mechanical pencils (usually inexpensive, but a few premium ones too). My father used to say I had champagne tastes and a beer budget ;-)

 

I have a black and chrome, Pilot Vanishing Point Pencil model H-1005 that I plan to sell in the Classifieds forum here. It was used occasionally and had been in the pen drawer for years.

 

Last week I took it out and loaded some Pentel 0.5 mm B grade lead for a flawless performance. Nowadays; however, my preference runs to 0.2 mm & 0.3 mm leads. Hence my decision to sell this pencil that someone else may enjoy and appreciate the truly rare treasure it is.

 

Your collective guidance as to pricing would be very helpful. I would like to request a reasonable amount to promote a quick sale.

 

Looking forward to your suggestions,

K

[temptar]

It really depends on what I am doing but I like the Uni Kuru Togas and have several, and I have a few Uni Shalakus knocking around the place too. I have a pair of Graphgear 1000s in 0.3 and 0.7 (mostly because I have many different 0.5s lying around the place) and a pair of Grapher 500s, same diameter. I like them Graphgear a lot for drawing. I also have a few Staedler Mars and and by the looks of things, just one Faber Castell. Someone posted a silver F-C leadholder, I think in this thread, and now I covet that. Mostly I default to using 0.5s but I have some 0.3s and 0.7 for drawing purposes and I am looking at a few lead holders. I haven't really worked out how to manage the many boxes of spare lead that I have.

 

There's another odd Pilot in one of my drawing cases which I picked up in a shop in Paris but have not seen online. I really like that too.

[Miaxina]

I usually use an syringe shaped mechanical pencil I picked at daiso. It's plastic and the tip tends to crack when it's dropped so this is my second one, but it writes very well. I also use a mechanical pencil that's.. shaped like a normal pencil. I have a kurutoga which I've not yet opened. I usually buy few packs of 2B 0.5mm lead from daiso which lasts a very long time, and are very good. I can't use the traditional pencils though - I need the pencil point sharp all the time but I can't sharp a pencil well unless I use one of those rotating-machine-like-sharpner, which does not give very sharp points.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Miaxina

[MYU]

 

 

That's a lovely pencil. I used to have an H-3003 actually, and there were things I really liked about it. The metal grip, because Pilot uses stainless steel, wasn't so bad at all. I have problems wearing the chrome or nickel plating off grips. My Pentel Graphgear 1000 lost the plating on the grip section and on parts of the body. They simply wore off. I also wore the nickel off my Staedtler pencils and leadholder grips. With the stainless steel grips, I don't seem to have this problem at all. That aside, I didn't like how the mechanism puts out such long lead stubs. Basically it wasn't the most efficient with lead, and that drove me crazy. Pilot pencils such as the S3, Dr. Grip G-spec, Symmetry, Super Grip, G2, and others have very short lead stubs. They use most of the leads. Even the Pilot Del Ful, which is another Pilot double knock pencil, puts out very short lead stubs. My Pilot H-3003 pencil being 0.3 mm, this was kind of significant because it would waste so much lead, and 0.3 mm leads are expensive. I would take the used lead stubs out of my H-3003 and put them in my Pilot Airblanc pencil to finish them off. With the Airblanc, I could finish up half of the lead stub before finally having to get rid of it.

 

Speaking of lead stubs... I found a pencil that helps solve that problem, by putting the clutch all the way at the writing tip.