This is an interesting idea from Makekind: stamped carpenters’ pencils. Simply sand off the imprint on an unfinished flat pencil, and then stamp away! (These might make good party favors and/or a party activity if your kids love art supplies like my daughter does.)
But, I wonder — as always with these types of pencils — do they get used? Certainly sketching and calligraphy benefit from flat leads. But do folks generally use carpenters’ pencils on a semi-regular basis, to account for their relative ubiquity?
(Image, Makekind.)
I keep a 6B carpenter’s style sketching pencil on my desk to use as the graphite equivalent of a Sharpie, but I’m probably not the norm.
I keep them to mark rough cuts for woodworking. Even sharpened they aren’t good for precise cuts. I use a marking gauge or knife for that. They tend to get used up fast when marking rough surfaces, breaking, and getting lost.
I also have 2 or 3 of different hardnesses for sketching. They can be sharpened to a knife edge and combined with the width can be useful, certainly different from the usual pointed pencil.
Derwent’s Drawing Pencil is a wax based coloured pencil. Originally it was available in black, white and four brown/ochre shades as a round pencil and as flat carpenter style. I did use the flat ones but i haven’t seen them for years now.