Surprisingly good pencil from an unexpected source

December 24, 2022

Well sometime serendipity strikes and thus this is one .. I was shopping for hand tools when this show up on the Carpentry / Construction Tools section

No , not the Zebra , the other one , from Tajima Tools of Japan it's a 1.3mm mechanical pencil , clearly OEM by Pentel after their Graphgear 500 but the Mfr clearly had input and made pretty interesting and useful changes to the original pen

First off it retain the single piece lead pipe / section but shorten both the section part by about half a CM and also the lead pipe , and the overall pencil length is shorten to approximate more like our regular ballpoint instead of that of a standard wooden pencil, making tool bench / field usage more comfortable and hand control better even with gloves on, the lead claw / clutch part is now ABS instead of brass , the click button part had a nice detail touch , only the black end-cap can be pull off to facilitate refilling leads the milky part on the photo is actually transparent letting one to just shake and check if there is still reserve lead inside

It's a pretty decent tool but it's actually very good as a EDC mechanical pencil too , and best part - you cannot had a Graphgear ( any model ) in 1.3mm , Pentel just do not offer one but you can had this

December 28, 2022

On 12/24/2022 at 3:14 PM, Mech-for-i said:

Well sometime serendipity strikes and thus this is one .. I was shopping for hand tools when this show up on the Carpentry / Construction Tools section

No , not the Zebra , the other one , from Tajima Tools of Japan it's a 1.3mm mechanical pencil , clearly OEM by Pentel after their Graphgear 500 but the Mfr clearly had input and made pretty interesting and useful changes to the original pen

First off it retain the single piece lead pipe / section but shorten both the section part by about half a CM and also the lead pipe , and the overall pencil length is shorten to approximate more like our regular ballpoint instead of that of a standard wooden pencil, making tool bench / field usage more comfortable and hand control better even with gloves on, the lead claw / clutch part is now ABS instead of brass , the click button part had a nice detail touch , only the black end-cap can be pull off to facilitate refilling leads the milky part on the photo is actually transparent letting one to just shake and check if there is still reserve lead inside

It's a pretty decent tool but it's actually very good as a EDC mechanical pencil too , and best part - you cannot had a Graphgear ( any model ) in 1.3mm , Pentel just do not offer one but you can had this

Thank you for introducing us to a very interesting writing instrument.

I found Tajima's website and am attaching the link. You can see that Tajima is a pure building supply manufacturer.

The word "sumitsuke" (墨付け) used in the product name Sumitsuke Sharp is an old Japanese construction term meaning the process of marking building materials based on blueprints.

Originally, sumi ink was used for this purpose, so the product name suggests that Sumitsuke Sharp is a sturdy writing instrument that produces dark line drawings.

I am very interested to know what it actually is.

Sumitsuke Wikipedia（Open the page in your browser, not in the Wikipedia app, as it is only in Japanese).

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/墨付け

Tajima's website. You can go to the writing materials page here.

https://jpn.tajimatool.co.jp/

Pencil page. There seem to be variations of pencils.

I am also interested in the refillable lead. Tap on an item to see details.

https://jpn.tajimatool.co.jp/series/257

Edited December 29, 2022 by Number99
Added description.