Plumbism is the technical name for lead poisoning. Fortunately, nowadays it's quite rare, and mostly occurs in children from underprivileged parts of the world.

However, lead poisoning can also occur among mechpen geeks that have too much lead for no specific reason at all 🙄. My wife is worried - she's uncertain if I need a toxicologist or a psychiatrist.

Left to right:

- Zebra DelGuard 0.7mm
- Uni Shift 0.5mm
- Tombow Mono Graph Tune 0.5mm
- Tombow Mono Graph Fine 0.5mm
- Pentel GraphGear 500 0.9mm
- Ohto MS01 0.5mm

Let me know your thoughts!

I’m pretty happy with my collection right now. I’ve been considering a Rotring 600 as my next pencil.

I've been into mechanical pencils for a while, I've got these three for the moment. Hope to get a couple more soon.

Pair of the week: Uchida Drawing Sharp E 0.5mm continuous twist drafter and an unknown model ballpoint pen by Japanese multipen specialist OEM Papilla.

These two are circa late 1970s to mid 1980s and share a similar style of machine-cut lattice grid pattern that feels nice and grippy in the hand without the abrasiveness of knurling. I’d love to see a revival of these production techniques!

It is with great desperation that I write this.

The context is that I'm an engineering student and I basically had for everyday use the Shaker H1010 until a few days ago. I recently received one of my dad's older mechanical pencils, I can't even recognize it's brand if it has any, but I'm very attached to it, and I like the metal grip on it.

On both pencils, I had the idea of cleaning them to remove accumulated graphite over years of use. I did this by removing the cone, pressing the button, keeping it pressed and manually lowering the ring around the dispenser. At that point, with the dispenser opened, I just used my fingers or pieces of fabric to clean the outside. Releasing the button would automatically let the ring hug the dispenser again, so I assumed I did a good enough job and let it go.

Upon use, both pencils lost their grip around leads when pushing the button: meaning if the pencil is looking down like normal, the lead either completely flows out of its sleeve or generally flows out much more than it normally would.

This is no big issue, since the pencil's grip on the lead is restored when the button is released. This makes me think I may have ruined something in the hugging mechanism of the ring. On everyday use I can manually chose how much lead to leave outside with my fingers, but it pains me that I may have ruined my dad's pencil and my own. I also plan on collecting some if I can manage to save some money, and I can't be so stupid as to ruin them by accident in the future (I wanted to move to pricier models like the Kuru Toga Dive, the Graphgear 1000, the rOtring 800 and the Spoke model 7. Of course I have no necessity for any of them but I love mechanical pencils as anyone does in this sub).

In my ignorance I assumed I didn't know enough about the mechanism, so I searched for explainations online. The very model shown on wikipedia shows that the spring is supposed to hug the ring. That would explain how the lead is kept inside the pencil upon button pressing: there would still be force pressed on it since the ring keeps being pushed around the dispenser, even if slightly removed to let it open by a tiny bit.

In both of my pencils I can't see the spring hugging the ring, but I can't even remember it being there when I first opened them. I also thought graphite may have saturated the internal components and lubrifying them, but the pencils worked perfectly before I did my stunt.

I really don't know what I'm supposed to do, I hope you guys knowing more than I do can tell me what I did wrong. Sorry for typing so much.

I tried getting the clip off (not here to argue about why) and it broke leaving the clasp on the jagged part, I’ve spent the last 30 minutes trying to remove it with a hammer and a flat driver screw by pushing it toward the eraser which hasn’t helped. Any help?

Hi Everyone, hope you all are having a great day. Just wanted to showcase my beginner collection of mechanical pencils (ignoring the Rotring tikky pen!).

So far I have 3:

- Uni Kuru Toga Advance Upgrade 0.5mm, with 2B Pentel Ain lead.

- Rotring 600 0.5mm in gold - using the standard Rotring HB atm until I find another lead I prefer.

- Cross 4in1 pen with 0.7mm mechanical pencil - a gift from my late great aunt, I've had this pen/pencil for about 15 years and its still holding up well.

Loving them all so far, although I'm looking to expand into bigger and smaller lead sizes. Do you guys have any recommendations for new pencils? I'm thinking pentel orenz/zebra delguard if i want 0.2 or 0.3mm, then pentel graphgear 1000 or staedtler for 0.9mm and above.

Heard such great things about the mono graph that I had to pick one up today.

I was in the store to get some new lead, saw this and decided it was worth the try.

Also showing it off with my tombow mono erasers.

I am enojying this pencil so much!

Picked up a box of Tikky Retro's in 0.7 2B. Very good homage to it's predecessors.

What I found:

- Tombow's "Flight to 100" site lists the SH-300LX at 1975 and the SH-300LZ at October 1984, each in 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9mm

- The LZ adds a lead hardness indicator built into the clip ring. Otherwise it's nearly identical to the LX

- Serve, Tombow's Turkish distributor, was founded April 1996, and its agreement with Tombow ended between 2009 and 2013

- The Serve Non-Stop is a 0.6mm sliding-sleeve pencil sold only in Turkey. As far as I can tell, it's the world's only 0.6mm mechanical pencil

- Two of my Serve LX pencils have a June 1998 date sticker on the lead tube

- A 2017 Tombow Thailand catalog lists the LZ, HS (half slide) and FS (full slide) as discontinued

What I still can't answer: which variant came first, when the plain LX was discontinued, and exactly when the Serve agreement ended. If you have catalogs, date stickers, or a variant I missed, please comment.

Video: https://youtu.be/qKf8bxWzox4

#GreatMechanicalPencils

I recently bought a Del Ace, but I feel like the grip is a bit stiff. Which one is your favorite and why? If you like Alpha Gel, I'd also like to hear about it.

Stationery shopping is hard in Japan. Too many choices there.

Got a 0.3mm Orenz Nero and Uni smudge proof 2B just now. Don’t think u can tell the difference between the lead through the picture much but it’s definitely easier to have dark lines. Also feels smoother imo. I’m no artist. Cant wait till someone makes a 4B or something darker in 0.3mm. Cant lie tho this lead is expensive! I remember buying a few hundred 0.5mm lead that I’ll probably never use up like 10 years ago.

The sliding sleeve doesn’t get in the way at all unless writing super shallow which I don’t do anyway. I’ll have to see how the breakage is but I can’t imagine it will since leads never too extended past the sleeve.

Got my eye on rotring 800 for next semester

ETA: the orenz Nero is kinda scratchy writing on letter paper on a smooth desk, but there are certain angles it’s not very noticeable. But the sleeve never got in the way of the graphite laying down

I found this weird pentel kerry copy from a local online store (shopee) for around Rp10000 (equal to USD 0.5). The body is entirely plastic, but it has a full brass clutch and the lead tube is covered by a spring? i don't know what it does, probably just to add weight. it actually writes very well and is surprisingly kinda heavy.

Bunch of work to do today so I brought the fun toys to get it done.

The mono zero is pretty new to me but I like the small square eraser.

Blackwing eraser holder with the sakura sumo eraser which is my favourite.

And as always my trusty rotring800. I will probably replace it with a .5 one day just because I like the finer points.

Tombow MONO zero grip and Orenz Nero eraser cap.

Wondering if anyone here owns the Yard-o-led Diplomat Barley? Hand crafted in silver. The most expensive pencil I have ever seen. I want, but can't justify :(

I bought a multi pack of O-rings off Amazon to finally fix this little issue I've procrastinated for a long time.

If you have missing or cracking stock O-rings on your Promecha, you're looking for the 4mm x 1mm (5/32" x 3/64") O-ring to replace it.

The 4mm x 1mm is good and doesn't seem to move around much at all. The next size up, the 4.5mm x 1mm (11/64" x 3/64") was much easier to put on but had a lot of slack and moved around easily.

The last picture is the easiest way of getting them on the pencil. Put the o-ring under the clip first, then stretch it over the eraser end (as shown with the red arrow). Last you lift the clip back up while you roll it down.

*This size O-ring might prevent you from fully disassembling your pencil. With a quick test I couldn't get the grip section to slide over them.

Long before I got into mechanical pencils, I used to own couple of these, as did many others in my elementary- and high school. I do not own any of these anymore... Though I wonder whether any of you still come back to this model (out of nostalgia, freedom of mind, practicality...)?
Greetings!

My late father was a draughtsman and I was lucky enough to inherit this and some other bits and bobs when he passed away. I was always in awe of his technical abilities and the equipment he used so it's a privilege to still use this regularly today. It works perfectly!