I like the Noris shavings from KUM’s Masterpiece [1]I guess officially it should be ‘KUM’s The Masterpiece’ so much, I took them out of the waste bin to take a photo. 
References
| ↑1 | I guess officially it should be ‘KUM’s The Masterpiece’ |
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I have mentioned the Lego erasers in two previous posts: The first Lego erasers where made by Senator in Germany. When they moved production to China the erasers got much more expensive, rising from €1.49 for two to £7.95 for four [1]They were more very expensive in the UK, I’m not sure about the situation in other countries. They got cheaper now (£2.99 for four), but the Chinese made Lego erasers are still more expensive than the German made ones were – unless you get lucky, like I did, and get them on offer. In my case it was on offer because the supermarket wants to get rid of their stock. I paid £1.49 (~$2.22; €2.06) for a pack of four.
The version I got is being sold as part of the Lego Movie franchise – but as far as I can tell there’s no difference between the normal Lego erasers and the Logo Movie erasers, except the colours.
To compare the erasers I used Banditapple 3G paper and a Simbalion pencil. Performance wise the Lego Movie erasers are pretty good. You might have read in previous blog posts that I prefer dust free erasers. The Lego erasers performed as well as or even a bit better than a Mono dust free eraser (a dust free eraser, but not one of the best dust free erasers).
This eraser has much stronger sprue and flow marks than the Senator eraser did. Unfortunately I can’t take a comparison photo as I have given my Senator erasers away (I think to Hen from Rad and Hungry).
For the price I have paid these are excellent erasers. Performance for a not dust free eraser is excellent.
Prices: April 2010, January 2012, February 2015
Exchange rates: March 2015
References
| ↑1 | They were more very expensive in the UK, I’m not sure about the situation in other countries |
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Lego erasers (again) Read More »
Introduction
Here’s my first follow up post about the Noris colour, the coloured pencil made using Wopex material, which has been mentioned in a previous blog post. I bought my set of six Noris colour for £2.49 (~$3.76; €3.46) on eBay. There are also sets with 12 and with 24 pencils available.
As explained earlier I have been looking for a coloured pencil, one that is suitable for writing, for quite a while now. The Noris colour is one of the best pencils for this purpose I have seen so far.
The test
Now this is not a scientific exploration of how fast the lead will wear down, I have neither equipment nor experience, but just to give you some rough idea what I did:
Before
All pencils, the Noris colour, the Eberhard Faber 1410 and the Noris club 144, had an initial line thickness of 0.1 mm – 0.3 mm (vertical / horizontal variation).
After
The point of the Noris colour wore down the least. After one line of writing the line variation was 0.3 mm – 0.5 mm.
The point of the Eberhard Faber 1410 wore down the most. After one line of writing the line variation was 0.5 mm – 0.6 mm.
The point wear of the Noris club 144 was in the middle. After one line of writing the line variation was 0.3 mm – 0.6 mm.
Conclusion
The Noris colour performed best. Subjectively the point felt better than what the numbers suggest, but then the Noris is also the pencil that left the lightest mark. The Eberhard Faber 1410which wore down fastest left the strongest marks on paper.
Despite the light marks the Noris colour is in my opinion the best pencil for writing or marking. It is also easy to erase.
Price Noris colour: February 2015.
I bought the Brunnen notepad in August 2011 in McPaper, Schweinfurt (Germany) for €1.19 (~$1.29; £0.86).
I bought the Noris Club pencil in 2008 from Woolworths went they into administration. I don’t remember the price.
I bought the Eberhard Faber pencils in 2010. More information about them can be found in this blog post.
Exchange rates: March 2015.
References
| ↑1 | They’re actually supposed to the the surface you scratch with the pencils, not the pencils themselves. I guess I should either start a Kickstarter (think potato salad) to try to get my hand on a pencil hardness tester or try to build my own one. |
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Noris colour wear and tear Read More »
Happy Birthday Mars plastic eraser!
You’ve helped us out of our misery for 50 years.
To celebrate this occasion there’s an anniversary edition
To the next 50 years!
I’d like to thank Mr Schindler from Staedtler for sending me the free samples that can be seen in the picture.
You can read more about the wedge sharpener in this blog post and more about the the stick version of the Mars plastic in this blog post.
I’ve started my search for good coloured pencils, i.e. coloured pencils that are suitable for writing, many years before I started this blog. Eventually, my dissatisfaction with coloured pencils led me to coloured leads for mechanical pencils – though marginally better than coloured pencils coloured leads aren’t great either and the only hard ones I found so far are so poor you can’t enjoy writing with them either.
…but then Lexikaliker gave me new hope with his article about the Paperworld 2015 and his confirmation that you can use the new Wopex coloured pencil, the Noris colour, for writing. An extruded lead might have very different properties – maybe….
…maybe this is it. Maybe this is the holy grail of colour pencils!
Two days ago, on Tuesday, I ordered a pack of six Noris colour from eBay and they have arrived this morning, two days later. It really has been a great stationery week for me. Earlier this week I got a package from California and this morning I got one from Canada as well as the Noris colour mentioned earlier. So many things to try out.
I hope my journey of many years to find a nice coloured pencil, suitable for writing has come to an end. I will report soon.
