mechanical pencil Archives - Page 7 of 9

Rotring rapid PRO 0.5

4 Comments / Mechanical pencils, Rotring / 2 October 2015 / mechanical pencil, rapid PRO 0.5, Rotring, sliding sleeve

During my hunt for the perfect sliding sleeve pencil I came across the Rotring rapid PRO 0.5. I’m looking for a sliding sleeve that slides back easily enough so that I can keep writing while the lead is worn down – without having to advance the lead all the time.

I bought the rapid PRO for £18.95 (~$29; €26) from Pilotfishpens on eBay. It usually sells for about £25 in the UK.

A well reviewed pencil

Having bought it because of its sliding sleeve I was aware of and have read reviews of the pencils, but every blog post or review pays attention to very different details, so if you are interested in this pencil please look at the other reviews (see list at the bottom of this blog post), they might contain more of the information you might be after – oh, well infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

Rotring

As far as Rotring mechanical pencils go, this is a fairly new model. It has been released many years after Sanford / Newell Rubbermaid took over. You can find more of my thought about how Rotring changed since Sanford / Newell Rubbermaid took this company over in my blog post about the Rotring Newton.

Looks – stunningly beautiful

I read Dave’s review and I have also seen reviews of other Rotring pencils with a similar surface, but I didn’t expect such a good looking pencil! The finish, matt but also reflective, is absolutely beautiful. I tried to capture it using HDR, a technique Lexikaliker has used many times on his blog, but the photo doesn’t show the real beauty of this pen in any way.

Other observations

The knurled grip area is metal, but the knurling is so fine, dust and small particles will stick to it. Nice looking, good to grip, but not easy to clean.

The lead it comes with is (for my taste) ridiculously soft. I like harder leads. This one is nice and dark, but gets worn down very fast.

The red ring is plastic, so the colour wouldn’t come off, as is common on Rotring Tikkys. Most parts are metal, but some parts, like the red ring and the screw threads, as well as the mechanism holding the sliding sleeve, are plastic. I wonder whether the pen will one day fail because of some cheap plastic parts, as was the case with my Rotring Newton, which didn’t last long at all

Sliding sleeve

The sliding sleeve, the main reason why I bought this pencil was a disappointment. You need even more force to slide this sleeve than you need to slide the sleeve of the Caran d’Ache 844, the worst performing sliding sleeve in a previous comparison. This renders one of the main advantages of a sliding sleeve, not having to forward the lead all the time, useless.

I really love the look of this pencil, so in the end I made a minor modification to make this pencil work for me (more about this in another blog post). The diagram shown here, comparing the force needed to slide the sleeve of different pencils, does however represent an off the shelf, unmodified Rotring rapid PRO 0.5.

Force needed to slide the sleeve. Excuse the image quality, I took the photo with my mp3 player.

Conclusion

A beautiful pencil. Not cheap, but also not one of the really expensive ones. I love the look. The sliding sleeve is too stiff for my taste, but can be adjusted if you don’t mind voiding your warranty. I hope it will last a long time and won’t fail because of some of the plastic components used.

As usual, please open images in a new tab for a high resolution version.

Price: September 2015.

Exchange rates: October 2015.

More about sliding sleeves in this blog post about their disappearance and this blog post about the Color Eno.

More reviews of the Rotring rapid PRO at

The notebook is handmade by Shangching. It’s not the first time you can see it in a blog post on Bleistift. I should really write a blog post about this notebook.

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Zebra DelGuard

4 Comments / Mechanical pencils / 19 September 2015 / DelGuard, Made in Japan, mechanical pencil, Zebra

I realise that the blog post about the force needed for the sliding sleeve of different mechanical pencils was not very popular, so please bear with me for a similar blog post, before I get back to more traditional blog posts.

In January this year I bought the Zebra DelGuard mechanical pencil in 0.5mm. You might have come across it on Lexikaliker, where it was mentioned in October 2014. I bought mine from Japan, through Amazon Marketplace where it was sold as the Delgado pencil, instead of DelGuard, based on the Katakana spelling of the pencil’s Japanese name.

I paid £5, but I noticed that it is now available for £4.26, including free delivery.

Two different mechanisms

This mechanical pencil’s ‘specialty’ are two different mechanisms that help prevent the leads from breaking.

If there is too much axial pen force, i.e. pressure is applied to the lead towards the centre of the pen, the lead will retract, i.e. it is cushioned, somehow similar to the Faber-Castell TK_Fine Vario L.

If there is too much normal pen force, i.e. pressure is applied to the side of the lead, a protective guard will extend to protect the lead from breaking. This guard can obviously only extend a certain amount, so it is possible to break an excessively long lead, more about this later.

Axial vs Normal Pen Force (open in new Tab for details)

Not working as advertised?

The packaging states that ‘If you advance lead more than 4 times breakage is possible‘. I wonder whether they either explained it wrong or whether I got a dodgy DelGuard, because using my normal writing angle on my DelGuard the lead will also break if the lead has been advanced 4 times. More on the clicks later. Maybe the text should read ‘If you advance lead 4 or more times’? Maybe other DelGuard users can comment on this.

Comparison with another mechanical pencil

I compared the pressure that will cause the lead to break to another mechanical pencil. I chose the Kuru Toga, previously mentioned here, thinking that both are from Japan, so there is a higher probability of the leads they come with being similar in terms of softness and strength ^[1]Comparing the breakage point to a pencil with much harder or softer lead would be less exciting.. Both mechanical pencils were tested with the leads they came with using an angle of 45°.

What force is needed to break a lead of what length.

The axis at the bottom shows the lead length in millimetres, with the number of clicks marked as well. You will probably have to enlarge this image to see it well (right click and open in new tab/window). The axis on the left shows the force needed, in Newton, to break the lead.

To put things in context: The highest force needed for moving sliding sleeves was 1 N, but even to break a very long lead you need more than 2 N.

Personally I don’t extend the lead more than 0.5 mm or 1 mm, so I don’t really have problems with lead breakage anyway, but that didn’t prevent me from getting a DelGuard to marvel at the engineering ingenuity that built this pencil.

As you can see, the longer the lead extended on the Kuru Toga (red line) the easier it is to break.

For the DelGuard (blue line) it is virtually impossible to break the lead if it”s extended less than 1.5 mm, because of the guard that will extend. The dotted blue line represents the situation if you count bits of the lead being chipped off as breakage, the solid blue line represents proper breakage.

The warnings that came with the diagram from the Color Eno blog post apply here as well ^[2]Here’s a copy and paste: I have neither the training, nor experience, nor the equipment to take these measurements properly, so you better take these measurements with a pinch of salt, or even … Continue reading.

Leads and millimetres

One click on the DelGuard will advance the lead by ~0.52 mm, less than what you get with the Kuru Toga, where one click will advance the lead by ~ 0.57 mm and certainly less than what you got with many pencils reviewed at Dave’s Mechanical Pencils. The break safe ‘zone’ for the extended lead is therefore everything between 0 mm and 1.6 mm. I usually don’t extend the lead more than 1 mm, so the lead is quite safe, but other people might use their pencils in different ways.

Video

Please have a look at this little video I made to see the DelGuard in action (Watch in YouTube for higher resolution).

If you like this blog post you might also like the blog post about the Noris colour wear and tear.

You can find a review of the DelGuard at The Pen Addict and at That One Pen.

References[+]

References
↑1	Comparing the breakage point to a pencil with much harder or softer lead would be less exciting.
↑2	Here’s a copy and paste: I have neither the training, nor experience, nor the equipment to take these measurements properly, so you better take these measurements with a pinch of salt, or even better with a whole lorryload full of salt.

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Why did the sliding sleeve disappear?

17 Comments / Mechanical pencils / 8 May 2015 / Caran d'Ache 844, mechanical pencil, Orenz, Pentel, Pentel Orenz, sliding sleeve, Staedtler Microfix

Getting to know the sliding sleeve pencils again

Thanks to Lexikaliker whetting my my appetite and with some help from Shangching I got my hands on a Pentel Orenz. I have been using it for a few weeks now and like it very much. A blog post will follow, hopefully, once my time permits.

One of the nice features of the Orenz is the sliding sleeve. You don’t have to keep manually forwarding the lead to be able to keep writing. Instead the sleeve will slide back while you write until there’s no sleeve left. Only then do you have to forward the lead – and the sleeve will slide out again.

You start writing like this... — You start writing like this…

Retractable vs sliding sleeve

Just to clarify, when I write about a sliding sleeve I mean a one that slowly slides back while you write. The other type, a sleeve that is either completely out (for writing) or completely in (for transport) is the type I call a retractable sleeve. I hope these labels are correct, I’m not sure, but this helps to avoid confusing both types. Please let me know if the names I use for the sleeves are wrong.

In the past

The sliding sleeve is nothing new. The Staedtler Microfix ^[1]Available from 1977 until 1988. I used in school could do that. At that time Staedtler sold mechanical pencils with three different types of sleeves: fixed (F models), half slide (HS models) and full slide (S / SL models), but as far as I know the sliding sleeves have disappeared in the late 1980s.

...after a while it looks like that — …after a while it looks like that

Why are they gone?

Unfortunately these types of mechanical pencils are quite rare. I can see the advantage of a fixed sleeve for an engineer who needs his or her pencil to create precise drawings, but these days that kind of work is done on a computer – so why did the sliding sleeve not come back? In my opinion it provides a much better writing experience than a fixed sleeve mechanical pencil.

You can still get mechanical pencils with sliding sleeves. One example is Caran d’Ache’s 844 pencil, mentioned previously, but the 844’s sleeve is quite wide meaning it will prevent full contact of the lead with the paper – the sleeve is in the way when you are writing.

You can still buy new old stock (NOS) of the Microfix, but it’s not cheap (If I were to win the lottery this weekend I’d buy the whole set).

Do you know of any nice sliding sleeve mechanical pencils still available?

References[+]

References
↑1	Available from 1977 until 1988.

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Pilot S20, 0.3mm, dark brown

9 Comments / Mechanical pencils, Pilot / 17 February 2015 / 0.3mm, Made in Japan, mechanical pencil, Pilot, S20

How could I resist… I never had much of a chance, did I?

…not with Gunther touting his readers with his beautiful S20, again and again and again.

I gave in…

s20-aluminium — If you click to enlarge you will notice tiny dents that must have occurred during manufacturing

…and bought the S20 in dark brown and in 0.3mm from WAKU1(Japan Store) for £13.52 (~$20.80; €18.20), including postage. I got it twelve days later. A great price, especially when keeping in mind that it costs more than twice as much in the UK (because it is imported) and you will have problems finding the 0.3mm version. I bought from WAKU1 in the past, but more about that in a future blog post.

The wood of the pen is beautiful and reminds me of the ONLINE All Wood Marone.

Pilot is a bit optimistic though, offering an F in their lead grade indicator. Is there an 0.3mm lead in F? When I see F it’s usually for 0.5mm.

Please let me know if you know of a 0.3mm lead in F – I do prefer harder leads, so F would be great, even though I have to say the 0.3mm leads you get with many Faber-Castell pencils are a bit too hard and too light for my taste.

Price and exchange rates: February 2015

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The Tombow Zoom 707 de Luxe

3 Comments / Mechanical pencils, Tombow / 25 May 2014 / Made in Japan, mechanical pencil, Tombow, Zoom 707 de Luxe

I’ve been luck enough to have been chosen by The Pen Company, together with several other bloggers, to receive stationery to try out. Here’s my blog post about the Tombow mechanical pencil they sent me, originally posted on The Pen Company’s blog.

Introduction

Do you remember what you did in 1987?

If you were living in the USA you were lucky enough to be able to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. The UK and Germany got TNG a few years later, in 1990. If you’re more into computers: the Amiga 500 was also released in this year.

..and in the world of pencils 1987 was the year the Tombow Zoom 707 mechanical pencil, designed by Mr Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, was launched in Japan, one year after the ballpoint pen of the same series came out.

Awards

It only took another year before the Zoom 707 was released in Europe – in 1988. Over the next years it won three design award in Germany: the Red Dot Design Award in 1988, the Design Plus Award in 1989 and the Baden-Württemberg International Design Award in 1990.

Despite this pencil being so long on the market I didn’t know about it until recently. I got my Zoom 707 from The Pen Company as part of their programme where they send pens to stationery blogs for review. I even got the de Luxe version, which was launched in 1994. Tombow describes the de Luxe version, which sells for £28.60, around £10 more than the standard version, as being “glossy silver”.

Size comparison: Tombow Mono 100, Tombow Zoom 707 de Luxe, Staedtler Mars micro

Expectations and reality

I’ve got to be honest here, I would have never ordered this pen. The slim design doesn’t look very uncomfortable to me, so I didn’t have particularly high expectation when I started using this pen. To my surprise it was much more comfortable than expected. The rubber grip section of the pen has a diameter of 6.5mm and is not too far off a Tombow pencil’s diameter: the Tombow Mono 100 wood-cased pencil has a diameter of 7.2mm.

The grip is only slightly narrower than a wood-cased pencil

Build quality is excellent, but the red ball at the end of the clip and the rubber at the end of the pen show parting lines, and except the look the pencil behaves very similar to your typical mechanical pencil: with around 10g the weight is similar to other mechanical pencils. One click will advance the by about 0.6mm, which is also pretty standard and it also uses a ratchet mechanism like many other mechanical pencils.

One click will advance the lead by ~0.6mm

The pen comes in a nice presentation tin and with a lifelong warranty. It doesn’t come with instructions, though, and since I’ve used mechanical pencils in that past that have to be refilled through the tip I wasn’t sure how to refill this pen. It’s size and the fact that my careful attempt to remove the push top (I didn’t want to damage the pen) were not successful didn’t help either. The push top can however be removed, to be refilled. My pen came with three leads, but despite is slim design I managed to squeeze eight leads into the pen.

Overall

The Zoom 707 is one of those pens that ages well. Despite being more than 25 years old it doesn’t look old fashioned.

As far as I know this pencil is selling well. I wonder how most people are using this pencil. Its two main attributes, the slim size and the sturdiness (thanks to its metal body), make it a pencil that is probably more suitable than others to be a diary pencil, the kind of pencil you clip to your diary and leave it there to fulfil this specific purpose.

I would like to thank The Pen Company for this pencil and Mrs. Balsewicz from Tombow Europe for the information she has provided about the Zoom 707.

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