pencil talk | pencil reviews and discussion
exploring the art and science of pencils since 2005
While we’ve previously seen furniture and other objects made from pencils, the products are usually more on the conceptual side.
With 1600 removable and usable pencils, the £1200 pencil bench from Boex 3D Creative Solutions in the UK might almost be useable. It certainly defines “quirky”.
Let’s start 2008 with some colour. International Arrivals of Boulder, Colorado has released an attention grabbing set of carpenter pencils in green, yellow, purple, blue, orange and red. And this isn’t just the pencil’s paint to which we’re referring – these pencils contain the corresponding coloured leads!
Made in Taiwan, the pencils are simply labeled “carpenter pencils”, and the package states: “Sharpen pencils with carpenter pencil sharpener or with utility knife.”
Though unusual, they are not the first in this category – Rexel Cumberland / Derwent in the U.K. have released artist oriented colour pencils in carpenter pencil format.
With a Gerber pocket knife, I set about sharpening this pencil. This proved to be quite challenging – which isn’t expected. It has some sort of tough, rough wood. An included photo shows the results. Two other artist-oriented carpenter pencils – a Derwent, and a General – were easily sharpened, while the International Arrival (blue) was pure trouble.
The final verdict: Nice as wide colour leads might be, they don’t make up for this being a pencil that can’t be sharpened with standard tools. Not recommended.
A few end of year notes – after four months of the blog being at www.penciltalk.org, redirection from pencils.smoky.ca will be turned off. Please update any old bookmarks or links that you might have.
If there is anything you’d like to see featured at pencil talk, or if you’d like to say hello (other than via a comment), feel free to send me an email.
If the webserver logs are telling the truth, there are now hundreds of visits per day, from many corners of the globe. Welcome to everyone! The graphic above gives a small picture of the year’s activity.
In 2008, we’ll continue exploring pencils and related stationery: our topics will include books on pencils, clutch pencils, drafting pencils, chalk pencils, charcoal pencils, vintage pencils, a comprehensive look at the Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil, and much more.
Happy New Year!
Though it wasn’t planned, pencil talk seems to have taken a brief winter break.
We’ll be back next week.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone.
While I thought the letter pencil grades (“HB”, etc.) were standard, I came across this lament about the end of the barely known EE grade.
The web’s best site for researching issues like this is the always entertaining and informative Leadholder.com, which has many vintage drafting equipment catalogs online.
It seems that in the 1930s, Staedtler’s line ended in 3B, ExB, ExExB.
By the 1950s, the line had extended to 3B, 4B, 5B, 6B, ExB, ExExB.
It is as if these grades had relative meanings. I take the “Ex” to be “Extra”.
In the 1970s or eighties, the grades had become EB and EE. I know of a store that still has an old Staedtler display which shows these grades.
And finally, sometime between that time and the present, EB and EE disappeared, with 7B and 8B appearing.
The trail would appear to run cold – except that Staedtler is a huge global corporation. After my posts on the pencils of New Zealand and Australia, I found myself checking Staedtler’s many national sites, and noticed that they aren’t all just translations or localizations of the same content.
And there it was on the site of Staedtler Thailand – the Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100, still produced in grade EE.
So if you’re looking for this pencil, it’s not yet extinct – though it is on the endangered pencil list. Quickly testing it out, I can find no difference between it and the 8B. Something might be revealed by longer term use. It also doesn’t say where it’s made – most likely it’s origin is in Thailand.
Using pencils for writing, note taking, flowcharts, and diagrams, I’ve rarely explored their softest grades, those beyond 4B.
Though pencil making details are trade secrets, it is known that graphite and clay are the main ingredients in a pencil’s lead. There are also waxes and binding agents in pencils. At least one pencil has used rendered bovine fat! The ratio of the graphite and clay is what determines the pencil’s darkness and softness, with more graphite meaning darker and softer.
I thought I’d take a look at the softer Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100 pencils, specifically the 5B, 6B, 7B, and 8B.
The first observation is that the pencil cores get progressively larger. I’m not sure where in the line this starts (possibly 3B or 4B), but the 8B has a core of about 4mm in diameter, double that of a regular pencil core. This does result in heavier pencils, and a scale confirms this.
The second observation is also about the lead’s appearance. As well as being black, graphite has a shiny luminescence. And the 5B and 6B are indeed very shiny – but the 7B and 8B have only a slight shine, and border on being matte.
For writing and drawing, my expectation was that pencils get progressively softer in this range, with the softness and sharpening requirements being the tradeoff required for the rich lines drawn. This expectation was wrong – the pencils reach maximum softness at 6B, with 7B and 8B being much scratchier.
The finish of the lines is consistent with the appearance of the pencils – the 5B and 6B lay down shiny lines, while the 7B and 8B leave matte lines.
One expectation is correct – each pencil grade increment does create a darker line.
My conclusion is that the Staedtler 7B and 8B pencils have significantly different formulations – and not just incremental variations in their graphite-to-clay ratios.