This is from Eliot at Drifting Whims:

I attached a pic of my pencil keeper in the garage. Of the “beat-em-up” varietal, I am particularly fond of the ones that write with almost a waxy feeling from the “graphite” being so cheap. Like the Empire Gold Seal #2 shown below. It can write on anything and show up really well, even cast iron or dark Mahogany. It leaves a mirror finish to it’s markings, so that they reflect the shop light really well so I can see where I am cutting or grinding. But I would never do anything of great importance with them.

Although adept at cleaning my mistakes, my favorite attribute of the pencil is it’s ability to scribe my thoughts at any angle. I am heading to the couch for some doodling while I lay back and watch a movie. No fountain instrument would last more than a sentence where we are going.

Engineering the pencil for the flybox:

I drilled a small hole in the metal banding through which I threaded a twist tie. It creates a firm loop that allows the pencil to hang from a substantial fly like the Stonefly nymph it is currently attached to. When I open the fly box while standing in knee deep water I am not afraid of losing my journalling companion.

[Text and images, D.W. Used with permission.]

This comes from Comrade Ashley:
Just sent you two pics of four newly acquired pencil sharpeners:

Iris $3.49
Prismacolor Oval sharpener $2.59
Maped Dual Hole Sharpener $0.88
Dahle Chubby Sharpener $2.99

These are available at Dick Blick, as well as Mister Art. All of them are worth knowing about, if not owning.

I think everyone is familiar with the Iris sharpener (black ‘Zippo’ lighter shape). I like it the least, as the blade is already messed up from sharpening one colored pencil. A piece of this pencil broke off in the top part of the sharpener, inside the door, but above the actual blade, where I cannot get it out. Instead it rattles around inside. The shavings receptacle is really not very big, either.

The Prismacolor Oval has a great, comfortable shape, and it sharpens well. But the rubberized plastic of the casing makes it a bit hard to open one handed.

With its ink bottle sillhouette, the Dahle Chubby is the cutest. It is easy to use, but doesn’t produce a really sharp point. However, I do appreciate the size of its (see through) shavings receptacle.

My favorite is the Maped Dual Hole (on sale at Dick Blick for 88 cents!). Alas, it has no frills, no shavings receptacle or streamline shape. But it sharpens extremely well, very quickly and with little waste. It is easy to see exactly how much you’ve sharpened. The metal casing has a nice heft, as well.

viva la Revolucion!

Ashley

(Update: “I should clarify my comment on the Chubby sharpener. It does produce a sharp point, but it is a SHORT, sharp point. I personally prefer long points.”)

[Images and text, A.M. Used with permission.]

(The new Leatherman e301.)

Sharpening a pencil can be the best or the worst part of pencilship, depending largely on one’s preferred method of pointing the pencil. Raven writes in about sharpening by straight blade:

“In the midst of this long discussion of pencil sharpeners, let us not forget the humble pocket knife. I was taught to sharpen pencils with a knife as a small girl, and I’ve never looked back. True, you have to keep the knife sharp, and figure out what to do with the shavings, and make other arrangements when you fly — but look at the advantages: 1. You probably already have one, or can pick one up from your local hardware store. No hunting around on the net for the perfect instrument or the perfect supplier. 2. Some manual skill is required, but the skill is easily learned. 3. It’s completely silent. 4. It impresses the heck out of people when you quietly and in an off-hand manner begin sharpening your pencil with a knife. I have not explored the potential for deflecting a boring or toxic conversation, but give me time….”

Is anyone else a fan of the blade?

[Image, J.G.]

A recent article on Parent Center is about how to raise a child who loves to write. Of course, pencils are featured:

Experiment with writing tools
Let her try all different types of writing implements — crayons, chalk, pens, pencils, paints. Keep in mind that she may have an easier time using “fat” crayons or pens than skinny pencils. Even dough and modeling clay are writing tools — you can roll them out and form rope letters (this helps develop her motor skills as well). Keep these supplies in a drawer she can reach easily.

Experiment with surfaces
For starters, white paper is a must. Big pads of newsprint are inexpensive, and children love having a big surface to fill in. But don’t forget about chalkboards, sidewalks, and dry erase boards. If you’re concerned about the mess, set up a kid-size table outside or in a section of your kitchen or playroom where the splatter won’t matter. And buy water-soluble markers and erasable pens for easy cleanup.

Read the rest of the artcle here.

This bears reposting, since we such a young site, with so few readers when we posted it as our second post. And we could all use some peace after the holidays — and especially after the Stabby pencil holder from a few days ago;)

At iSerenity. Sounds and images to bring that pencilicious peaceful state of mind that we all seek.

Thanks to Michael for the link!

[Image, iSerenity.]

We here at Pencil Revolution are not snobs. There is no price requisite for the pencils we use, etc.

“My name’s Ashley, and I love cheap pencils!

I am wondering if anyone else has this same predelection or habit. I hesitate to call it a ‘vice’ :) I find it such a thrill to discover that a nondescript, ‘no name,’ overlooked pencil, languishing on my daughter’s closet floor, is also a good one. After doing a bit of sleuthing, I found that this particular pencil is part of a 24 count pack at Target, selling for 97 cents. It is a humble number two, with a gloppy paint job. I doubt that its wood casing comes from Cal Cedar (the wood looks like pine) , or is FSC certified. But it writes smoothly and softly, sharpens well, has a decent darkness, and a nice eraser. Best of all, it cost roughly four cents!! Now, I love my Palominos, but a bargain is a bargain!

Suffice it to say that cheap pencil hunting is my new pastime. I don’t want cheap at any cost; that is, I want remarkable quality for the low cost. I will not rejoice over atrocious pencils. But to all those out there at the Revolution who share my enthusiasm, hurry to Target, with just a dollar in your pocket!”

[Text and images, A.M. Used with kind permission.]

Our Comrade Loudstyle writes about his new-found love for pencils:

“I have always used pencils (who hasn’t?) but the reviews on Pencil Revolution alerted me to their finer details. I realized I had a couple decent pencils around the house and I tried out some others to see what all the fuss was about. I soon became pretty well addicted…

….Keith Haring Doubles from Acme Writing Tools. I received a nice metal tin containing a dozen of these fine pencils for Christmas several years ago. They feature the colorful and energetic artwork of Keith Haring. For the longest time I shied away from using them often because they looked too nice to sharpen away. I finally got over that silliness and now use them regularly.”

Read about the rest of some favorite pencils at Loudstyle.

[Image and text, Loudstyle. Used with kind permission.]

Happy Holidays to all of our Comrades and People of the Revolution! Thanks for reading and participating and making this blog all it is!

Philofaxy writes about mechanical pencils and the love and comradery we feel for our mechanical Brothers and Sisters, not to mention our inky Cousins:

“Some days, I worry about world peace. Some days, I worry about my family. Most days, though, I worry about what writing implement I should carry in the lone pen loop in my Filofax. To date, I’ve been using a nondescript, black-barreled Uni-Ball (blue ink). But, as I’ve noted before, ink carries with it a price: the price of permanence. A choice made in ink cannot be undone. A choice made in pencil, however, is inscribed only in dust. And we know how permanent dust is. (It blows in the wind.)

I’m a man of impermanence, not permanence. So I’ve switched to pencil. The problem with the usual wooden pencil, though, is twofold: (1) You have to have access to a sharpener at all times; and (2) it doesn’t stay in a typical planner pen loop, because it is a cylinder of uniform diameter. Problem No. 2 is probably decisive; Problem No. 1, however, is no small matter. In combination, they left me with no choice for general planner usage: mechanical pencils. The folks at Pencil Revolution have assured me that mechanical pencils are not necessarily evil. (They say that, but I note a conspicuous lack of mechanical pencil porn on the site.)”

Read the rest of the post here.

[Text, Philofaxy. Image, J.G.]

We do not make a habit of politically-charged posts, but we certainly will not shy away when politics involved pencils and pencil gear:

“A student at Waterloo Primary School in Ashton under Lyne dismantled a pencil sharpener and used the blade as a weapon, slashing another student across the neck. The school’s response? Nothing short of unbelievable.

The attacker was suspended for two days and is now back in school.

Police, who were notified two days later, have spoken to the young attacker and his parents.

Headteacher David Willis has now banned all pencil sharpeners.

They have banned pencil sharpeners. Banned pencil sharpeners. One more time - they banned pencil sharpeners.

The problem here was not the pencil sharpener. It was the wannabe Jack the Ripper who manipulated an ordinary tool to craft a weapon. Would the absence of a pencil sharpener have prevented this kid from his meticulously planned assault? Do they think that a kid who figures out how to use a pencil sharpener as a weapon will have any difficulty in using another tool in a similar fashion?”

Read the rest of the article here.

[Image, J.G.]

“Frank Lloyd Wright pays homage to the pencil - the humble tool that’s made the fortunes of countless writers, artists, architects and designers.”

Thanks to Mari for the link! Check out her blog here.

For a long time I lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in Central California. It’s damp up there, cold, and gray most of the year. My house was heated by a environmentally-correct woodstove. In the mountains, because of the weather, after a while, you get a little book-ish. Down the highway about 10 miles or so, in the city of Santa Cruz, well, there was an art supply store called Palace Arts. This store carried Blackfeet Indian Pencils. Now I grant you that I have always been a pencil freak. It’s just now, with your wonderful site, I can come out of the closet about it. I have always loved pencils. Some of my favorites have been, over time, the Venus Goddess, the old yellow Mongol #1, Black Warrior #1, and the Tombow Mono B. The Blackwing, of course, cannot be mentioned in the same sentence with any other pencil. It is the high chieftain of all pencils. Somewhere, however, between the Blackwing and the Tombow Mono B, there is a place for the Blackfeet Indian #2. A person who understood me really well once gave me a gross of Mongol #1 pencils for Christmas one year. I was happy for months.

The Blackfeet Indian is almost impossible to buy now, but I remember a time when I could go to Palace Arts in Santa Cruz and buy them by the dozen. They are beautiful: simple hardwood, lots of grain, very simply varnished. The eraser worked like a Pink Pearl, and although you could get them with a gold ferrule, my favorite version is the one with the black ferrule. It looked so minimally beautiful, matching the simple black print on the pencil body. The gold ferrule, to my eye, was a little too flashy, a little too Hollywood. I loved the black. The lead was magnificent. It was never gritty. The line was an impressive black. It did not smear. It held a point pretty well, and what’s even more impressive, I never had a Blackfeet Indian pencil turn into one of those nightmare pencils that break when you sharpen them, and the lead never fell out of the wood after sharpening, either. The lead in these pencils also would last. I bear down when I write and I can use up a Faber Castell Grip 2001 in a couple days. Not so with the Blackfeet Indian pencil. The weight of this pencil was also wonderful, not too heavy, not too light. Some newer pencils, well it feels like the wood is really dried out to the point of where the pencil lends no weight to the writing job. You have to bear down to get a line, some. The Blackfeet, well, it is equal to the task of writing.

I am an internet ranter. When it became clear to me that it was going to be hard to get more Blackfeet pencils through stores, I began to beg them from my pals on the net. A dear friend in Minnesota found that she had a whole box of them, and she sent them to me. She doesn’t use pencils. I have given single pencils from my stash as special gifts to dear friends. Some of them upon receiving these pencils, look at me a little strangely. But I always smile at them and say: there is a poem, or a story, or a drawing, in that pencil, waiting to come out for you. Then the odd look melts into a grin, usually. I only have about a half dozen of these pencils left. I have been looking for suitable substitutes. Consequently I have an embarrassing number of pencils in my house, of which only the General Cedar #2 and the Pacific Music Papers “Magic Writer” come anywhere near the Blackfeet Indian Pencil. The General #2 is a little gritty for my taste, although the aesthetics of the pencil itself are magnificent. The “Magic Writer” has a good lead, except it wears down too fast. Ideally, my pencil would LOOK like the General Cedar, and behave like the Tombow Mono B or 2B. Right now I am writing with a Staedtler 4B lead in a red Koh-i-Noor Lead holder. It’s a little thick for me, but at least the line is black. I bought some TriConderoga pencils, and while I like those, I am not in love.

Based on what I read on your site, I bought some Palominos and some Forest Choice. I am hoping that one of these will be my new Blackfeet Indian Pencil.

What I want to know is this: why is it that when people make something that actually works, like the Blackwing and the Blackfeet pencil, that automatically it just goes away? For example: for a while, I could get the Noris ErgoSoft HB at Office Depot. Now this pencil is both elegant and functional. It doesn’t sharpen away into a nub in two days. The pencil is also beautiful to behold – it has a real Art Deco paint job. Everything works on this pencil, and it’s 3 bucks a half dozen — Okay, so a little expensive. But Office Depot won’t carry this pencil anymore. Nope. You want to buy a pencil at Office Depot you have to settle for a school pencil. Now I’m not in love with the Dixon Ticonderoga #2, but I love the #1. I’m willing to deal with the yellow paint for the sake of the lead. Can you find a #1 at Office Depot or Staples? No. At Office Depot or Staples, I can buy all the cheap Pentech atrocities I want. But no Noris, No Ticonderoga #1. For Dixon #1, I have to go to a store across town. For Noris Ergosoft, I have to buy online – General Cedar and Black Warrior #1 I can only get on line, too. To get Mitsubishi or Tombow pencils (and Japanese woodcase pencils are EXCELLENT) I have to drive downtown to Kinokuniya bookstore in Los Angeles. I can get the Faber-Castell GRIP 2001 in stores, but not the excellent Faber-Castell 9000 (and it is, to my way of thinking, a much better pencil).

Sometimes all of this drives me to use a Pentel .9 mechanical pencil, but that does not make my soul happy. I write for a living. I want REAL pencils.

Thank you, I feel better now.

(Many thanks to Humdog for a great contribution!)

[Text, Humdog, used with very kind permission. Image, J.G.]

Kevin Kelly famously writes about his favorite pencil, the Derwent 3B:

“A pencil can generate megabytes of text, needs no batteries, and has no user manual. It is comfortable to hold, it smells good, and it is relaxing to turn around in your hand as you try to think of the right words. Pencils don’t need ink; all they need is a sharpener. They are warm and friendly; they have souls.”

Thanks, Kevin!

[See Why pencils? (i).]

In an article from 2003 entitled “No more pencils in high-tech world? Think again,” John Schmid of the International Herald Tribune writes about our favorite tool:

“The world’s oldest word-processing and graphics system has no memory and no spell checker. It needs constant maintenance and cannot be upgraded; it could not be more analog and less compatible.

And folks keep using it.

For over four centuries, the classic wooden pencil has defied obsolescence — a feat that generations of laptops and palm devices cannot match. Even in the aftermath of the great technology bust, worldwide output of basic black-lead pencils has continued to grow and now reaches an estimated 15 billion a year.

‘Twenty years ago, I really worried about what will happen with the wood-cased pencil,’ said Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell, the chief executive of Faber-Castell, the world’s biggest and oldest maker of pencils.

‘Yet I still believe in handheld writing,” said the count, the scion of an aristocratic family that has run the closely held Bavarian company since 1761. “If I had listened to my advisers 20 years ago, who talked back then about computer-aided writing and whatever else, I would be bankrupt’….

….In terms of raw numbers, the pencil is mightier than the PC, whose estimated 140 million in sales last year is dwarfed by pencils’ billion. Production of black-lead pencils across Europe rose 12 percent in 2001 from 2000, according to the most recent figures from the European Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association. In developing countries, demand has grown even faster, Meller said.

And in the $220 million United States market for black-lead pencils, sales have held steady or risen, according to the A.C. Nielsen agency. A torrent of cheap, unbranded Chinese imports, which have tripled since 1996 to $30 million last year, led to anti-dumping duties against Chinese companies starting in the mid-’90s.”

It is a very well-written article which is definitely worth reading, especially considering that the Faber-Castell 9000 turns 100 years old this year — an even which will surely not go unnoticed at Pencil Revolution. We’re at work on a story about this centenary milestone for the near future! Read the rest of the article at the IHT archive.

[Image, Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell, CEO of Faber-Castell, copyright, F-C.]

As many of the People already are, no doubt, aware today kicks off the National Novel Writing Month for 2005. What is NaNoWriMo? In short:

“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.”

Check out Libby Copeland’s article in The Washington Post for more information.

We are wondering if anyone in the Revolution is participating this year, and if said brave writers might be interested in sharing with the People their work, or bits of it, on PencilRevolution.com? If so, please leave a note or email us (see right) directly to discuss.

But first off, who’s writing in pencil?

I love pencils. I give them to most of my friends, family, colleagues and really just anyone I like at all. Some people don’t use them, citing imperfections of pencils in general, such as the fact that they can be erased, that they need to be sharpened, that they don’t fit in your pocket, etc. These are certainly legitimate concerns. There are times when I use ink instead of pencil, for a few things. I know, graphite is a higher calling, but what can you do?

While pencils are a gift from the universe, there are some things that I’d personally like to see done with pencils in general, specific kinds of pencils and certain manufacturers. I have a feeling that I’m not the only one, so I’d ask that the People share here what they’d like to have changed about or added to the pencil world.

Johnny writes about childhood pencils in MungBeing magazine:

“When I first arrived at Kindergarten, we all had little boxes that we put onto the top shelf of our cubbies, standing on five-year-old tiptoes. In my little blue box that day was a Faber-Castell GOLIATH - a thick, red pencil with soft-feeling lead and a nice pink eraser on the end. Of all the goodies in my blue box - scissors, paste, a ruler, etc. - I was most excited about my big pencil. There were boxes and boxes of markers and wax crayons at the pre-school and even more at home that my parents provided for my brothers and I.. But one pencil, only one. And so grown-up looking! I had just turned five and suddenly felt immensely important that I had been given a single pencil that would allow me to do so much. My introduction to pencils was thus to a quality German pencil, and the rest of my childhood pencilship was tainted by this….

….But I think that what people love about pencils is not necessarily something akin to childhood innocence. I don’t think it’s possible to recover the naivety of the sandbox, nor is it desirable to do so. The responsibility that comes with knowing what we know that we did not know as children - whether we know it from education or worldly experience - is not something that we can shirk off just by using pencils or any other magical tools. The reason pencils resonate with adults is that they remind us of the sense of wonder that we had as children. Only, as adults, this wonder is armed with some degree of practical wisdom in that pencils put us into a position of wonder that is coupled with power and freedom. We look at the world differently when we remember being kids, and we have the freedom to explore our world that we might not have had as school children with homework and parents and curfews. Most importantly, we have the power through what we already know to look in the right places for what we still wonder about as adults.”

Read the rest of the article here.

[Image, J.G.]

We have Faber-Castell’s GRIP 2001 for a nicely-made, comfortably grib-able pencil. There is also the Staedtler Egosoft, which is covered in sticky stuff. Not as popular is the Dixon Ticonderogo Tri-Write, which is a triangular-shaped version of the popular yellow Dixon.

I was talking online with a good friend of mine last night about why the Ticonderago is called such. On visiting the company webpage to find where they give Fort Ticonderago as an explanation, I found something that kept me up a little last night.

Dixon has a new pencil that they are billing as “The World’s Most Comfortable Pencil” — the Tri-Conderoga! Dixon gives its features:

* Larger, more control
* Cushy ‘Soft-Touch’ finish
* Triangular-shaped

And it’s made of delicious Incense Cedar, too. As soon as I can find some, I’ll put up a review. I’m really excited about this pencil. The pen world is getting the Pilot G2 Mini, and we get a sleek new Dixon!

If I may wax personal, I want to admit being more than a little upset to learn that a certain pencil I previously enjoyed is made of rainforest wood, not Incense Cedar. I know, this should make no difference. It was hard to sharpen and had no smell before I knew what it was made of, too, and I ignored it. I think I’m upset that it’s maker flaunts it as a great quality pencil (and charges a lot for it) but then won’t pony up and make it out of cedar. There are probably even reasons for this, like a $3 a pencil price tag result, etc. I won’t pretend that I know much about wood or about what works best for what.

But it’s weird that something so small can shake my faith in a pencil. It’s like when you have a pencil you love but then realize that it’s core smears all over or that you have a near-perfect pencil that comes with a terrible eraser that ruins the whole affair. Or, worse, that you have a pencil you love above all others but cannot obtain anywhere.

Is there some implicit search for the perfect pencil, or do we just get jolted when we learn that our favorites could use some evolving? Or do we delude ourselves into thinking we’ve already perched on the perfect pencil and then find out that there’s a glaring design flaw, upon which we get shaken up again?

With the start of the various holiday seasons, we see countless pencils with pumpkins, ghosts, and goblins all around. Some have giant erasers, fuzzy tops or sparkly paint. But what are the People to do when we want a festive pencil that does not write like a black rock and smell like dirty old wood? With Halloween and the winter holidays almost upon us, what are we to write with?

Fear not! There are some respectable pencil manufacturers who can rescue us junky holiday pencils! Just to name a few:

Musgrave Pencil Company has several holiday-themed lines, including Halloween.

Dixon makes reward pencils, including some for Halloween. You can never go wrong with Dixon.

And Californian Republic makes holiday-themed pencils in their Spangle line which are available through the Pencil World Creativity Store. You can even score a free set of Halloween pencils with the purchase of Palomino artist pencils (which are great pencils) for a limited time.

As a friend of ours pointed out, pencils would make a healthy alternative to candy for handing out to trick-or-treaters, while promoting education and children’s creativity at the same time.

And for us grown-ups, they are a nice way to celebrate the holidays we still love.

[Image CalRep.]