Two. My experience with mechanical pencils is that they’re often unreliable and a waste of time. I hate having to reload my pencil, I hate when it breaks if you accidentally make the tip longer than it should be, I hate when you accidentally put one more in the pencil and it gets clogged, I hate having to carry refills all the time, I hate buying an expensive pencil and worrying about losing it (as opposed to just buying a dozen regular pencils for backup)…
Just hand over the regular pencil and a decent sharpener.
Bonus points for #2 being #2
If you feel they are unreliable, it may just be that you aren’t using good ones. I use 3 on a regular basis (for Japanese) and never have issues with feeding or lead breaking; I also only have to refill it every few weeks.
I’ve had the same mechanical pencil for ten years. It’s comfortable, reliable, easy to reload, but if I had to choose one for the rest of my life, I’d still go with the traditional wood/graphite pencil. It’s cheap, it’s everywhere, it’s durable, and not a great loss if you lose it.
deleted by creator
I got one because I was intrigued by its lead rotation, but I found that it really didn’t rotate the lead enough while I wrote. I kept having to rotate the barrel manually to keep a thin line like I do for every other mechanical pencil, and then would get annoyed every time the clip came around to brush my hand. I’ve been wondering if I’m doing something wrong, or if Japanese just uses more shorter strokes. Do you also like it when writing English?
I only use my kuru toga when writing in Japanese, I normally just use a pen for english. Japanese does have significantly more strokes.
Same, an actual good quality, properly made and assembled mechanical pencil will just keep going and going, and if you treat it well, you never need to replace it.
Kinda like a decent quality safety razor.
All you gotta do is treat it right and replace the razors/graphite, nets out to saving money after probably a month or two of decent use.
On the topic of sharpeners, those battery powered pressure sharpeners are satisfying as fuck. They’re shit and invariably snap the nib, but they’re the sharpening equivalent of shoving a Q-tip in your ear and having a good rake about.
Or if you’re all about the procrastination, spending a few minutes every lesson at the classroom sharpener like this one brings back the nostalgia:
The pull out drawer for shavings is top tier.
Nothing beats these though:
Just gotta use them over the waste basket.
I had exactly one of these through my entire education period. Reliable and utterly indestructible.
Plus a good ol Dixon Ticonderoga can write on stuff other than paper. About the only time I use a pencil is when doing carpentry and mechanical ones just snap.
Since I switched to using 0.9 mm, I almost never break a lead unless I drop it onto a hard floor; it even holds up to some aggressive tapping. Consequently, I hardly ever have to refill. I also never worry about the point snapping or stabbing when tossed loose into a bag, or keeping a sharpener on hand.
Just my #2 cents.
“Decent sharpener” aka box cutters.
Unreliable? I have two Staedtler Mars Micro pens I bought a good 20 years ago and they both work perfectly.
Back at my school in the 90’s you just bought a 10 pack of the cheap black Bic mechanical pencils for like $3 (pic #5) and you were set for the year if you didn’t lose too many. They never really broke and you didn’t have to refill them if you didn’t want to. They also never clogged and if you weren’t an idiot you didn’t try to use too much lead length to where it would break off.
They were simple and easy and always sharp.
It also always ends mid-word/stroke, and you start etching the paper with the metal end. Very annoying.
Why do I feel like I’m participating in market research
Got em guys. I took down Mr. Bic
If that were the case, I would imagine that they would have picked a website with a much larger user base.
Why
For more accurate/representative research data.
But Reddit is saturated with others already doing market research. Lemmy is young and fertile, ready for a creepy old ad man to prey on.
I never said anything about reddit
I heard you whisper it
Yes you did. Indirectly. It’s the ultimate market researcher aggregate. There’s no other place
Gimme one of these bad boys and utility razor.
Reminds me of when I had to write a physics exam in university and it required a pencil for the Scantron cards. I basically never carried pencils so when my pencil tip broke I had to grab my utility knife out of my backpack and sharpen it to continue writing my exam.
Got in trouble in school once for using one of those way back in the day. Dad was a construction supervisor so they were frequently lying around.
This image perfectly stretches in the thread display. Incredibly satisfying.
Except they have no eraser. What good is the black tip??
You use a click eraser or a normal block eraser.
Only filthy casuals suffer one at the end of the pencil.
I am a casual haha. The once or twice I write by hand with a pencil in a year I’d like to not have to track down an eraser as well.
Ja.
This.
I’m surprised nobody else has rotring… my favorite by a considerable amount. Second place goes to the Uni Kuro Toga. Both fantastic pencils, but the weight and feel of the rotring 600 just leaves everything else in the dust
The rotring is super smooth, but its so heavy. I wanted it to be my favorite, but I ended up reaching for the kuro toga far more. Doesnt help that the tip of the rotring bent and dented out on the first drop. I bent it back and it still works, as long as I don’t rotate it.
So I thought the uni would be a neat way to use thicker lead but avoid the weird slant in longer sessions. But I don’t write in kanji (sp?) and with my mutated cursive alot of my letters string together. So the rotation is not nearly enough, and I end up still getting the weird slant thing on my lead. Only then it’s worse because after I build up a flat surface, it rotates a little bit and then the edge is all wrong.
Yessss. Use a 500 daily
I’d like to discuss the flashlight. ?
Love to see it! Your eraser game needs some leveling though 😋, may I introduce you to this bad boy:
Does it come in red? 😂
Definitely though, might need to look around
Unfortunately no, but if you don’t care about it being metal then yes they make a red one!
I have the same phone as you. I love that it’s red.
Agreed! Not even my favorite color, but it looks so good on a phone.
I specifically looked for red haha.
the correct answer
That’s like an allergen for ADHD
Damn straight. Best pencil I’ve ever had. Well, the 0.5mm. I write too small for 0.7.
.5mm or .3mm for me, the only place I use a .7mm or a .9mm is with woodworking.
I love 0.3. I would love a Rotring one if they made it. My only one is an Alvin Draftmatic.
- ole reliable
Yeah, 2 if I need a traditional pencil, and 5 for everything else
My fidgeting while I was in middle school led me to break every kind of mechanical pencil I used, except for 5. I forced myself to only use those in high school and college so I would always have a reliable pencil.
2
Same. I press too hard to use mechanical pencils
I just like being able to use a duller point sometimes when I’m drawing.
i also enjoy being able to do some shading if i wanted to draw something
5 may not be pretty, but it’s had my back in some hard times.
I have a ton of these in the garage for woodworking. Screw the carpenters pencils, these are way better.
The issue is the plastic internal mechanisms will wear out eventually. The Pentels have a metal core which has never worn out from my usage. I always end up losing the pencils before they break. The same can’t be said for the BICs.
Screw #8. Everyone here including OP missed out on the actual best Zebra mechanical pencil. The Zebra DelGuard.
It has this crazy mechanism that resists lead breakage by dropping a shield down if you press too hard.
https://www.zebrapen.com/products/delguard-mechanical-pencil?variant=40738814951630
They even made limited edition Hello Kitty ones years ago I imported. Best 0.3mm mechanical pencil I’ve ever used.
- By a country mile
I have 3 of them, one of which is metal and cost me more than I’d like for a pencil but holy hell is it nice to write with.
What is it like to hold? I have a few nice mechanical pencils but wouldn’t mind to get something a bit less expensive for when I travel to the office (my everyday is a YOL but I don’t like taking it out… ADHD, outside, and nice things do not mix well).
Someone do this, but with vibrators.
“you can only write with ONE type of vibrator, ignoring diameter”
Only one?
downvotes
Am I a psychopath for preferring to use a pen, even if it means I have to cross things out every now and then?
Stay strong brethren
Yes.
Pilot G2 has been my preferred implement since high school. Just have to be careful for smudges, but I hate the feel goopier ink like in a bic pen, so it’s a fair trade off.
This, I’ve been writing in inc brand R2s for 16 years now and I will never willingly use a different writing utensil.
There are a few things where being sble to erase the mark is important enough for a pencil, in which case good ol’ #2 fits every need.
I can’t reply what I want to because Id probably dox myself.
You missed an option.
#2
We’ve taken way too many things that don’t need to be plastic and made them plastic
made them plastic
#1 is all metal. Retractable tip. Bought one after Adam Savage reviewed them.
#2 is definitely the best long-term option, but it’s really nice not to have to constantly sharpen while you’re doing some intricate work.
+1
never fails
Yeah but with mechanical pencils you can buy one and have it for years, only just buying the occasional pack of leads… Saves the trees ¯_(ツ)_/¯
