Sniff..
I guess I’m a glass half empty guy. One of my Wopex in 2H broke today. A glass half full guy would probably rejoice, now being in possession of two pencils instead of one.
I used it to open one of the fire doors at work using the pencil. Something I am sure I did with other (wooden) pencils in the past. They survived, my Wopex didn’t.
I guess the fact that it the Wopex is hard to sharpen made me subconsciously assume that it would have a high fracture strength.
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 »
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.
After Pencil Revolution’s Wopex post and the following discussion on how to sharpen a Wopex: a photo of a Deli 0668 sharpened Wopex.
For many months now I have hardly ever sharpened my Wopeces with anything other than a Deli 0668. For that purpose I have one Deli 0668 at home and one in the office. The 0668’s angle of 20° is more suitable for the Wopex than the more acute angle of ~17°-18° the Deli 0635 will produce.
One warning though, the hardness of the Wopex can make the auto-stop fail. If you notice that the sharpener doesn’t stop, release the pencil holder (back to it’s original position) to avoid more of the pencil being fed further towards the burr cylinder. To finish the sharpening process just keep turning the handle until there is no more resistance .
How to sharpen a Wopex Read More »
Long time readers might remember my blog post about the Reynolds 432 and the Nataraj 621, both of which look pretty much like a Staedtler Tradition. There are also countless Staedtler Noris copies – previously I’ve mentioned the Fox Essentials. Recently, I’ve come across a quite cheeky copy of the Noris, when one of my students was using it in class. I call it a cheeky copy, because it features a red cap, just like the original Noris …but the copied pencil’s cap is rather ugly in compared to the original.
A few weeks later I also finally got my hand on a Noris eco. I planned to get one from Cult Pens when I order from them again, but then I saw the Noris eco in WH Smith, where they sell for 85p (~$1.40; €1.05) each. I also had a look at my local Ryman, but they didn’t sell them there, even though they sell them in their official eBay outlet [1]It’s difficult to find there, though – they spell Staedtler wrong, even though they do sometimes get the spelling right, e.g. for the Staedtler Traditional [sic] pencil..
The lovely Noris eco is now my daily pen in my diary’s loop.
One thing I noticed: the green colour of the Noris eco seems virtually identical to the Wopex in 2H.
While the Noris has a more complicated pattern [2]The six sides of the hexagonal Noris are painted like this:
black, yellow (thin black strip) yellow, black, yellow (thin black strip) yellow., the Noris eco has a simpler pattern [3]The six sides of the Noris eco are painted like this:
black, green, black, green, black, green.. I assume this is because it’s not so easy to extrude a thin black strip precisely over a corner.
Now, if the Noris eco is just a green Wopex with black strips and if there are fake Noris (plural: Norises?) anyway, why not make your own (fake?) version from a yellow Wopex?
To increase my chances of getting acceptable looking black strips on the pencil I decided to cover the areas not to be painted with a tape.
I then used a permanent marker to paint the Wopex. As you can see it all went belly up. Somehow the tape didn’t stick well and the lines from the black marker were not very straight …so I didn’t bother to do the thin strips carefully either. If you want to try it and are successful: Try to do the red cap using nail polish. Pencil Revolution has further instructions.
Price and exchange rates: January 2014
I’d like to thank Kamil Musial for showing me the “Stationery” Staedtler Noris copy.
References
| ↑1 | It’s difficult to find there, though – they spell Staedtler wrong, even though they do sometimes get the spelling right, e.g. for the Staedtler Traditional [sic] pencil. |
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| ↑2 | The six sides of the hexagonal Noris are painted like this: black, yellow (thin black strip) yellow, black, yellow (thin black strip) yellow. |
| ↑3 | The six sides of the Noris eco are painted like this: black, green, black, green, black, green. |
Handicraft with Bleistift IV – epic fail Read More »