This is only slightly pencil related, and I thought twice about posting it. Still:
1) Thoreau made pencils.
2) Some of these surveys still have pencil marks on them. And who doesn’t enjoy a good chart of a woodlot?
3) Why not?
[Image, P. Used with permission.]
(Continued from Part 1.)
4) I’ve read about your extensive bullet pencil collection, with considerable jealousy. What attracts you to this type of pencil, and how did you build your collection?
First off, it’s the compact quality. I love having a tight little drawing tool in the front pocket at all times, and I’m here to tell ya, these little sonofabitches have saved my butt many a time…on airplanes, in meetings, in a pinch, wherever. I always keep one in the front, left pocket of my 501s.
I’ve kind of given up on erasers of any sort in these little guys, as the kind you’d score from a junk store or estate sale are old, old relics and the erasers are dried way up and dead. Rock hard, usually. So, there’s this certain model that didn’t come with an eraser, and just had a plastic tipped end. I collect these ferociously, with a good 20 or so hoarded away. Now, the classic type with the erasers, shit, I’ve got a couple hundred of those bad boys.
What I love about them the most, is how banal they were back in the day. Simple, cheap advertising tools given away at local businesses. Feed-n-seed joints, car lots, insurance agents, what have you. Just crappy little promo items that packed a real wallop. I’ve got a couple old salesman sample sets. Old and beat up, and a look into what it was like to have a guy sit down and say, “Here’s what we can do for your company.” So good.
I’ve built my collection junkin’ across America—scouring the dirtiest of estate sales, garage sales, junk stores, antique malls and the occasional eBay lot. You can score them in the Midwest pretty regularly, across the rustbelt and great plains. Farmers used these things. I guess a lot of them are collector’s items. I could care less. I use the things, and never pay more than eight bucks or so for them.
5) Despite the return of the famous Blackwing, pencils in America seem to be on the decline today. Models are canceled, and most companies have moved their production out of the USA. Can you comment on the current pencil offerings available in the United States in 2011?
I’m no authority on this stuff, so I’ll tread lightly here. I know this much, it’s harder and harder to make an American Made promo pencil. And, with good imprint applications that aren’t stock type crap. I was lucky enough to get a monster order in just before Christmas and man, love these things. Hex pencils, people!
6) The Field Notes pencil is downright gorgeous. With its round shape, lack of paint and green eraser, it’s obvious that a lot of thought went into it. Can you tell us a little about the design process and what made you choose its current form?
Like all Field Notes products, we started with the direction that the thing had to be natural at all costs. Finding the source with the green eraser was a happy accident. Plus, the cedar wood just smells so nice. Those things take a beating, just like our memo books! I have a pile of them all beat to shit, still kickin’ after a couple years on the scene. Those pencils WILL NOT disappoint.
7) Are there any upcoming pencil accouterments from DDC and/or Field Notes to which Comrades might look forward? Pencil clips? Bullet pencils? Brown sharpeners with black Futura print on them?
After an exhaustive search for the perfect pencil sharpener from existing sources, we gave up on that shit and started drawing up plans with a couple Midwestern Tool & Die manufacturers to craft the ultimate hand held sharpener unit. We’re still at the point of initial CAD drawings, blade strength options and ballistic grade metal sourcing. If we can pull these little buggers off, man, they are going to rule. Just you wait. They’ll be something to marvel at. And, get the job done for the ages!
We’ve got some leather stuff coming down the pipe for Field Notes made right here in Portland by our friends at Tanner Goods. Very, very excited about this project. And yes, there’s Futura Bold on these new items. You can take that one to the bank.
MANY MANY thanks to Aaron for helping to spread writing/noting/drawing joy, the world over!
[Images, A.D. Used with permission.]
Mr. Aaron Draplin, of Field Notes and design fame, was kind enough to do an interview with Pencil Revolution. Below is Part 1 (of 2) of his answers to some very pencil-specific questions.
1) Pencils are strongly represented in the DDC “longhand” series, and the Field Notes pencil seems to follow the eponymous notebooks in adventures all over the planet. What do you like about pencils so much?
There’s just something simple and soothing about them. I mean, I don’t want to get too existential about bonded lead or anything, but, hell, there’s just so much possibility in each one! It freaks me out. That little pencil…the tool aspect…is this little gateway to a million ideas. I think about that kind of stuff with each one I crack into. In a world where things are more and more compacted, complicated, sped up and digitized, a regular old wood pencil is always there for you. Never needing to be recharged, you know?
The more I think about it, the more pencils—on some weird level—represent “complete freedom.” Freedom from digital ubiquity and predictability. There something cool about how you feel human when using a pencil. That feeling goes away the back to guys shaping rocks into cutting tools and stuff, I’d reckon. Or, maybe only in my head!
I like feeling one with the paper. Like this odd sense of “get it down now, or it’ll be forever gone” fills my head and hands, and I just go to work. Impermanent. Graphite can be erased. Imperfect. My hands screw up all the time. Interesting. The lines vary and never come out quite like you expected them to. I hope I’m making sense, readers!
2) What are some of your favorite pencils? Vintage, current, perhaps a great individual find? What do you look for in a pencil?
Basically, anything that’s natural wood, and, hexagonal! Now, for the readers, who are undoubtedly “masters of the genre,” this might sound a little vague. Basically, anything that feels good in the hand. I usually go after softer leads. Just so I can sketch and keep shit freed up. Also, if the thing is “Made in the U.S.A.” that always send a little jolt up the wrist. And finally, there’s just something incredible about an old pencil that’s seen 60 years whip by. Never, ever throw out an old pencil. Respect yer elders, citizens!
To try and get brand-specific, I had a good run with a pack of pencils by Papermate called “American Naturals.” Unfinished wood, made in the States and hexagonal. Good feel to those little guys. Still using the last one of the litter.
3) What is your preferred way to sharpen a pencil? Blade-type-manual-sharpener, crank model, Bowie knife?
Forever, I’ve simply used my pocket knife to keep things sharp. I like the little pile of shavings it makes! I grew up with a wall mount Berol that hung over the stairs down to our basement. So there was this sense of floating when you’d lean around the wall, and hang on the pencil sharpener while sharpening. I haven’t thought of that one in a long time. Awesome. That’s what I remember.
In my junkin’ over the years, I’ve amassed a healthy collection of vintage pencil sharpeners. In fact, that’s one of the first things I look for when I enter an estate sale garage or basement workshop. And shit, I just pry that thing right off the wall and put it in my pile. Rescued! Even if I don’t use it, it’ll go to a buddy who needs one. The idea of some half-ass estate sale worker tearing it off and throwing it out just makes me sick to my stomach. So I always grab them!
Stay tuned this week for the second half of the interview, and MEGA thanks to Aaron for agreeing to do this!
[Images, A.D. Used with permission.]
Two weeks ago, Dan, Mr. PJ and I made pencil boxes. Which is to say, I gave dimensional suggestions, handed stuff to Dan while he worked the table saw, and then I helped glue. Awesome fun. These are sized for eraser-topped, American-style pencils. In my experience, most boxes are too short. The wood is reclaimed oak, and it’s beautiful. Mine has rusty nail holes in one side, and I think that I got the best one because of that.
(The pencils fit; they’re just propped up for the photo.)
We’re trying to convince Mr. PJ to make them and sell them on Etsy, since such a pencil box is not only rustically attractive, but will also last one’s natural life! If these make a debut, you’ll certainly hear it here first!
More photos to come. Mine’s full of carpenter’s pencils and assorted pencil gear.
Maybe. Dan and I were at a, ahem, local watering hole in December for his birthday. At the rooftop bar overlooking Baltimore (literally the highest spot in Charm City) on a snowy night, Dan wondering if the magnesium of a KUM wedge was soft enough to cut. Yes, it is, he found. But we dared not light a fire on the newly polished wood on which our dripping Buds rested at the bar. We drank coffee in the snow and forgot about it.
Last week, Dan shaved one down, lit it, and the flame bore straight through the work table. In addition to giving a pencil fine points, a magnesium sharpener, it seems, can work as a fire starter. What’s more: if you have no knife but do (for whatever reason) have a screwdriver, you can shave the magnesium with the sharpener’s own blade, in a bizarre act of pencil-gear-self-destruction.
We need to do a more thorough How-To about pencil sharpener fire starting, and soon. Maybe our first video?
Needless to say, don’t try this at home. Dan and are both old Eagle Scouts with fire experience and, hell, he’s a professional fireman!
Last week, Mr. PJ gave me a lovely orange carpenter pencil, seen here with Dan’s broken-in yellow model. I have to admit that I had to bum a knife to sharpen mine (I didn’t have one on me) and that the square point you see is the best that I could do. (And please pardon the bad photos — my hands were a little shaky.)
While there are certainly Comrades for whom getting to use a carpenter pencil in its proper context is nothing new or exciting, that’s not the case for me. I seldom ever get to work with my hands, personally, that this exercise was a lovely foray into an activity to which I’d certainly like to devote more time, if possible.
My friend Dan and I made a trip through the ice to visit his Dad one evening last week. Mr. PJ is a contractor who owns his own business, and he really likes pencils. There’s a cup full of carpenter pencils in the back of the photo below.
This sharpener was quickly spotted by me in his kitchen, where I’d been a hundred times before. I believe he said that it belonged to his grandfather. Mr. PJ is my own father’s age (born in 1949); so that sharpener must be pretty old.
The top has a hinge, and the shavings are collected in a drawer at the bottom. All metal. The knob that would, today, be plastic is wooden.
We actually had a very fantastically pencilicious evening, complete with woodworking, fire and beer buried in snow. We made pencil boxes from reclaimed oak and discovered a survivalist aspect of KUM wedge sharpeners. More posts to come!
Edit: Mr. PJ tells me this:
Hey, John, glad your evening like mine was fun. The photo’s of my grandparents’ hand-cranked, which I first saw in my grandparents’ home in the old sun parlour. It had several bookcases my granddad had built. The sharpener was secured to the top of one case — which sadly fell apart during a move for my grandmother years ago. So I salvaged the sharpener with my grandmother’s permission. Thus the old sharpener enjoys its high place on the files. This oldie was also used by my granddad in his studies while attending drawing classes. I am sure it sharpened many a pencil used in his architectural drawings. I still use it, though it’s not secured. I enjoy the fact that it still works so well. pjkelley
I’m not going to steal any of Patrick’s wonderful images but will, instead, let his great post and photos speak for themselves. Read on here!
Mark sent us a video of his trip to Africa this fall, on EcoJot’s Kinderkits mission. I really like EcoJot books largely because they’re well-made and a pleasure to use. But you’re also buying something both green and socially conscious. You’re getting a great book, and you’re helping to do, well, Good. You can’t beat that.
In the spirit of the holidays and of Hemingway (a pencil champion!), we present A Visit from Saint Nicholas, In The Ernest Hemingway Manner, by James Thurber.
“It was the night before Christmas. The house was very quiet. No creatures were stirring in the house. There weren’t even any mice stirring. The stockings had been hung carefully by the chimney. The children hoped that Saint Nicholas would come and fill them.
The children were in their beds. Their beds were in the room next to ours. Mamma and I were in our beds. Mamma wore a kerchief. I had my cap on. I could hear the children moving. We didn’t move. We wanted the children to think we were asleep.”
(Read more.)
Coming up with new versions of this poem of your own is a favorite holiday pastime. I finished my Raven’s Wing Field Notes book yesterday, with my own version in native Baltimorese. But it’s way too foul-mouthed to post here.
Happy Holidays to all!! We’ll be back after the holiday with a look at a pencil-friendly selection of planners/organizers, a review of the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener and even an interview with the legendary Pencil Hero Aaron Draplin (of Field Notes!) in the New Year.
Best and warmest wishes to you and to yours, for the best holidays yet.
A nice Quorum of Comrades got the answer correct and had their names written on little papers (with a Faber-Castell 9000, as it were). The names were drawn from a black Jansport this morning by my better half, and we have a winner!
The show ran during the previous decade on a national American network, possibly in other countries. It’s set in a small town. The character in question is usually found with flannel, a ball cap and a pencil. He will give you coffee if you ask for it. He is curmudgeonly and enjoys stick-shifts. He is a good guy and seems to hate razors.
Who is the character (his name)?
Luke Danes from “Gilmore Girls” (played by Scott Patterson)! Also, on a personal note, I’m glad I’m not the only one who knows so much about Stars Hallow or, ahem, owns all seven seasons on DVD.
Our winner has been contacted: Mimi Ng!
R. Buckminster Fuller is famous the world over for his geodesic dome designs and for his unrelenting questioning that makes him sound more like a philosopher than anything else. When he summed up his search for what one might call “truth,” he uses the metaphor of the pencil.
“Buckminster Fuller never gave up his searh to find ‘Nature’s pencil.’ Like so many geniuses, he was constantly searching for the essence of how things worked best. And when he found such solutions in Nature, he applied them to his projects. Thus, we have his most famous invention – the geodesic dome – modeled after structures found in Nature.
Still, the question continues to be in the quest. Fuller and many others constantly seek the next evolution of ideas, and the really cleaver people always look to Nature first. Were all humans to do that, we would realize that there are enough resources to go around, and what we need to do is be very careful in using exactly enough. Not too much and not too little.
Nature’s pencil is such a sustainable model. She writes and draws with a precision and exactness that humans have difficulty understanding or modeling. Still, people like Bucky and many of today’s great minds continue to search because they know that the search is as important as reaching the goal.” (More.)
This resonates with me, personally, since one of my grad schools was where Professor Fuller taught and worked from 1959 to 1970. He’s still a legend around those parts.
As promised, here is the pencil trivia question for the RAD & HUNGRY Colombia pack give away. This contest is open to anyone with a mailing address, the world over (with thanks to R&H). I was very tempted to include something from literature as the trivia question. But. Well. I can’t resist a good television character with a love of pencils and flannel.
Clues:
The show ran during the previous decade on a national American network, possibly in other countries. It’s set in a small town. The character in question is usually found with flannel, a ball cap and a pencil. He will give you coffee if you ask for it. He is curmudgeonly and enjoys stick-shifts. He is a good guy and seems to hate razors.
Who is the character (his name)?
The contest will close at 11:59pm Eastern US Standard Time on this Wednesday, December 8th. To enter, please use the CONTACT FORM (CLICK) to send your name, email address and your one guess. All correct Comrades will have their names written down and put into a black backpack. One person who is not me will draw one paper, and the winner will be announced Thursday. Hen at RAD & HUNGRY is kind enough to handle the shipping of this awesome and exciting pack!
Good luck!
From everyone’s favorite pencil tome, The Pencil (by Professor Petroski). Pencils are:
“…a metaphorical bridge that can carry from mind to paper the lines of a daring real bridge, which can cause jaws to drop, or the words of a daring new philosophy, which can cause eyebrows to arch.”
Please see also, from the archives:
Why Pencils? (i)
Why Pencils? (ii)
We pencil aficionados are usually at least moderately aware that Henry David Thoreau contributed to American pencil manufacturing in significant ways and that this is somewhat funny, considering how much he often loathed material culture as being too much trouble. But we might not all know about the details. For instance, did you know that Thoreau actually invented a machine to ground graphite finer than other pencil manufacturers? Now you do!
With apologies for what might seem, at first, to be a moderately chauvinistic post about the lost art of being a “man,” I have read two very interesting articles from the companion blog to the book The Art of Manliness (or did the book come first?). First, there is The Manly Tradition of the Pocket Notebook, which features our favorite writing implement. This post has gone around the writing blogosphere for a few weeks now, but this particular passage hits close to home for an Eagle Scout:
The Boy Scout
“In one of the pockets there should be a lot of bachelor buttons, the sort that you do not have to sew on to your clothes, but which fasten with a snap, something like glove buttons. There should be a pocket made in your shirt or vest to fit your notebook, and a part of it stitched up to hold a pencil and a toothbrush….No camper, be he hunter, fisherman, scout, naturalist, explorer, prospector, soldier or lumberman, should go into the woods without a notebook and hard lead pencil. Remember that notes made with a hard pencil will last longer than those made with ink, and be readable as long as the paper lasts.
Every scientist and every surveyor knows this and it is only tenderfeet, who use a soft pencil and fountain pen for making field notes, because an upset canoe will blur all ink marks and the constant rubbing of the pages of the book will smudge all soft pencil marks.
Therefore, have a pocket especially made, so that your notebook, pencil and fountain pen, if you insist upon including it—will fit snugly with no chance of dropping out.” -The American Boys’ Handybook of Camp-lore and Woodcraft, By Daniel Carter Beard, 1920
This week, they published a piece on The Pocket Notebooks of 20 Famous Men. I did not see any mention of Thomas Edison’s custom-made pocket pencils, but I was very happy to learn about Mark Twain’s custom notebooks, about which I knew exactly nothing. We have reviews of two pocket notebooks (Field Notes being one) in the works on Pencil Revolution and wonder what kinds of pocket notebooks work especially well with pencils.
Professor Henry Petroski is the author of the monumental The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance and Vesic Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University. He was kind enough to submit to a short email interview about pencils, which we post here for the benefit of all Comrades the world over:
PR: Do you use pencils frequently? If so, what do you usually use them for?
HP: I use pencils all the time. I do not feel full dressed if I do not have a pencil in my pocket. I use pencils for writing notes and reminders to myself, for underlining and making annotations in books, for editing manuscripts, and for virtually all writing that does not explicitly require a pen.
PR: What is your favorite pencil, or some of your favorite models, types or manufacturers?
HP: The pencil I carry with me is a Pentel, Model P205, using 0.5 mm lead. This mechanical pencil has a well-balanced feel, not unlike that of a good-size wood-cased pencil. Because it does not have to be sharpened and carries a good supply of lead in its barrel, I am always ready to write, no matter where I find myself. I like the thinness of the lead and the fact that I do not need a sharpener. When working at my desk, I usually have a variety of soft-lead wood-cased pencils handy. I have no particular favorite—any quality pencil will do. But I do not like to write with inferior pencils—those with scratchy lead or poor quality finishes.
PR: Given its rich history – of which you are certainly the expert – what do you think the future of the pencil will be?
HP: The future of the pencil will be much like its past. It will remain a basic writing implement. I am always encouraged when I check into a nice hotel and find a high-quality pencil rather than a cheap ball-point pen placed beside a notepad. I have also attended many meetings where pencils rather than pens have been provided.
PR: Do you have any words of wisdom for budding pencil enthusiasts?
HP: Look carefully at the pencils you encounter. The best made ones are examples of quality manufacturing that approaches fine craftsmanship. Just because something is mass produced does not mean that it does not have high aesthetic values.
Many thanks go out to Professor Petroski, and we renew the urge for anyone who loves the pencil to check out his very fine volume on our favorite implement of expression.