Thread: How many pencils do you need?

It's a pencil sharpener!!!

I paid about 50 cents for mine. Go to an art and drafting supplies place. There's one behind the QVB.

Originally Posted by silentC

It's a pencil sharpener!!!

I paid about 50 cents for mine. Go to an art and drafting supplies place. There's one behind the QVB.

Phillistines!!!

A 50cent pencil sharpener is alright, as long as you have 50 cent pencils! (and don't sharpen them very often).

This is a very strange discussion(!), but in the good old days, when draftsmen were men (not persons), they used pencils a LOT, and one of those 50 cent sharpeners would be blunt within a fortnight or less.

I still have a couple of those too...although unlike dud chisels, they can't be used for opening paint tins (or anything else that I've thought of) so I really should throw them away.

To those of us for whom drafting is still a craft, sharpening a pencil correctly is akin to sharpening any other tool (only without the swooshing sound, because they don't make shavings when you use them).

Cheers,

P - (clinging to the past like a sad, tired old man)

Originally Posted by silentC

Go to an art and drafting supplies place. There's one behind the QVB.

I think that's the place I bought the pencil from. Eckerslys I think it's called.

Believe me I looked long and hard for a sharrpener but the only lead sharpener they had was the exey Staedtler.

Ahh, maybe I bought mine at Dymocks then. There is another drafting supplies shop down near Central. It's a bit of a hike. I went there once, so it might have come from there. Or the art shop at Hurstville. Seen any wild geese lately?

Get Midge to send you one of his since they're so useless. He can post it to you with his Christmas card.

Originally Posted by silentC

Ahh, maybe I bought mine at Dymocks then. There is another drafting supplies shop down near Central. It's a bit of a hike. I went there once, so it might have come from there. Or the art shop at Hurstville. Seen any wild geese lately?

Get Midge to send you one of his since they're so useless. He can post it to you with his Christmas card.

Sorry Craig, I'm emotionally attached to even my old sharpeners, and they are so blunt they dont' work at all except on coloured "leads"!

Anyone that sells clutch pencils should have them, including Eckersleys. Maybe Officeworks??

Of course I also have a Swiss army knife on my keyring, (to put a fine chisel point on a sharpened blue lead - perfect for outlining on linen!), if worse came to worst you could learn the craft of sharpening with a pen knife.....although this is taking hand tool use to the extreme I must admit.

Cheers,

P

Midge,
(points to swiss army knife) "That's not a sharpener, this is a sharpener!" Mick says, whipping a 2" wide chisel out of his nailbag and sharpening his carpenter's pencil to a fine pinpoint. Of course, this rarely happens because:
a) aforesaid chisel usually ends up looking like a serated bread knife ten minutes after being sharpened because it's found some hidden fasteners.
b) If I really want a fine line I've got a .5mm propelling pencil in my nailbag (somewhere in there I'm sure)
c) I rarely wear a nailbag nowadays.

However, sharpening a pencil to a really fine point using a sharp knife or chisel really isn't hard at all, used to do it all the time. I only got the old school type pencil sharpener a few weeks ago as part of my current attempt to tidy and organise the shed.

Mick

Ohhh Mick,

I was talking albeit somewhat whistfully about the good old days and drawing on linen or fine tracing paper, and you pop my dream bubble and bring me back to woodwork.

For woodwork, I use a fat old Nikko pen, 'cos I can see the line, and I can cut anywhere and still be in the middle of it!


P

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

Ohhh Mick,

I was talking albeit somewhat whistfully about the good old days and drawing on linen or fine tracing paper, and you pop my dream bubble and bring me back to woodwork.

For woodwork, I use a fat old Nikko pen, 'cos I can see the line, and I can cut anywhere and still be in the middle of it!


P

Textas are better!! AT LEAST 6 mm wide so it is easy see and cut to.

I mainly use a biro these days.

Visited the folks in Cairns years ago, found a sharpener (black in colour, only a couple of bucks from memory) for the clutch pencil leads in a well stocked stationery shop there, no idea of the name or where exactly it was; maybe Mick could establish a Clutch Pencil Sharpener distributorship and do mail order to whomever wants 'em !

What a sad lot you all are, a thread examinining the virtues of esoteric stationery items, fair dinkum....

Now, where did I put my natty click pencil eraser... :confused:


Cheers........Sean the stationary

Where did you pack of nancy girls learn to draw?

We were taught to rotate the pencil to maintain the correct line width and if you really needed to resharpen or change line width you used a small piece of emery paper to create the correct chisel point.

BTW This was only 20 years ago, not pre-ice age as you may imagine. We even practised such amasing things as free hand drawing/sketching - hard to believe it these days, the kids can't draw without $k's worth of PC & CAD.

Well I'm only going to use mine to draw a line on bits of wood.

I use CAD to draw up a project.

Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

However, sharpening a pencil to a really fine point using a sharp knife or chisel really isn't hard at all, used to do it all the time. I only got the old school type pencil sharpener a few weeks ago as part of my current attempt to tidy and organise the shed.

Mick

Where'd you get it Mick, I want one bad I also want the electric version that's activated when you insert the pencil...

HH.

Belt sander does the job too!

Originally Posted by Markw

We were taught to rotate the pencil to maintain the correct line width and if you really needed to resharpen or change line width you used a small piece of emery paper to create the correct chisel point..

Spot on! Except that rotating a chisel point can get a bit ugly - hence the need for a few deft twirls in the sharpener!


P