I always just assumed they were for different size pencils or some crap and I always wondered why they seemed to suck so bad.

/mindblown

Do any boingboingers have a favorite mechanical mencil?

A Papermate Widemate 0.5mm HB for grey leads, a Uni Mitsubishi 0.7mm for non-photo blue, and a Draft/Matic 0.3mm DM03 for fine lines.

When I’m filling large areas, I use a Faber-Castell Graphite Pure and a paper blender, which is essentially a pencil-shaped hunk of graphite wrapped in plastic. I leave sharpening for colored pencils.

That said, I’m also a student and I can’t pass on the convenience of mechanical pencils (damn you Sharpie Liquid Pencil and all your failure!). I’m currently using a Pentel e-sharp 0.5 and it is by far the best mechanical pencil I’ve ever used. Granted, I only ever shop for office supplies at Staples, Office Max, and the like, so I’m not the most exposed to pencil diversity.

Points for enthusiasm, but I think Clive is just misusing the sharpener and the “features” he’s discovered are consequences of blades positioned to sharpen two differntly-sized pencils.

http://www.swissarmy.com/MultiTools/Pages/Product.aspx?category=sportsandleisure&product=53201&

My mother brought me up sharpening pencils with a knife, and I’m never satisfied with a point that’s been in a circular sharpener.

I started writing again just so I could put these pencils to paper and smell the wood when they needed sharpening. It’s a revelation – I feel like I’ve reconnected a little with some part of the physical world I didn’t know I’d lost.

Btw- I was just thinking today that I wish I had a kick-ass pencil sharpener!

Mind –> Blown

http://www.amazon.com/Commercial-Desktop-Electric-Pencil-Sharpener/dp/B001TQCERG

$7 is an impulse buy level. “More disposable income than sense” begins at a much higher level. I bet you’ve spent more than $7 on a meal this week.

For those concerned with expense, the same KUM pencil sharpener is available without the Palomino logo, and it’s red rather than orange. The Palomino version strikes me as much cooler, but you can pick up the red one for $4.20 on line.

I absolutely agree with the poster who made the comment about writing with a dulled lead. Pencils are to mechanical pencils what fountain pens are to ballpoints: they offer character and beauty of line where the others offer convenience. When I’m drawing, I keep the point really sharp. However, sometimes I write with a pencil until the point almost disappears, turning it this way and that, seeking out that invisible sharp edge of a minuscule facet, enjoying the personality of the clay and graphite as they leave their commingled trail behind.

There’s something fundamental and honest about a wood pencil: if you can see it, you know you can depend on it to deliver. Not so with a mechanical pencil which, if out of lead, will respond to none of your cleverness or entreaties; whereas a pencil that’s completely dull can be revived with the earnest ministrations of one’s thumbnail. Of course, when I tire of my efforts to eke out the last few sharp-edged facets of a dulling point, I reach for my two-stage Palimino/KUM and the adventure begins anew.