As my dad grew teeth on these pencils, as did I - the clay that binds
the graphite within ages. As it gets old, the pencils tend to crack
the leads. Drop one and just maybe never get a point on it again.

Moisture - keeps them going. Not water, just 30-50%.

Martin

On 11/26/2015 10:01 AM, Leon wrote:
On 11/26/2015 9:19 AM, Jack wrote:
On 11/25/2015 1:37 PM, krw wrote:
On Wed, 25 Nov 2015 09:21:12 -0500, Jack wrote:

On 11/22/2015 12:32 PM, Leon wrote:

I still use a regular pencil with wooden pencil in the shop, I don't
want to misplace a decent pencil. ;~)

Buy a good apron to hold your pencil. I recommend a Rockler
cabinetmakers Mechanical Pencil for around 10 bucks. It comes with a
box
of thick and strong 2mm lead, and a sharpener. Really nice for the
shop.

I buy 10/$1 .7mm or .9mm mechanical pencils and scatter so many around
the house there is always at least one within sight. ;-)

That's what most everyone does I suspect. Standard pencils are hard to
keep sharp, hard to keep a point on w/o breaking. I've only had the
Rockler for a month or so and it is great. I've tried lots of different
pencils, including mechanical ones, for the shop, and this is a winner I
think. It feels really substantial in your hand, has cross hatching
where your finger grips it. The lead is think and the point stays pointy
longer than other pencils. That sort of stuff that makes it nice. I've
read that the tip breaks easily if dropped, but it sure doesn't feel
like it would.



I would probably switch out to one of my drafting pencils but my wood
supplier gives me wooden pencils, these are actually great pencils that
last a long time. Apparently there is such a demand for those free
pencils that they now sell them. I have 37 unsharpened and have only
used about 4 in the past 3~5 years. The leads don't break on these
wooden pencils. ;~)
IMHO if you can't sharpen a pencil you cant get a fine enough point for
certain marks, .7mm is not fine enough for me much of the time.