Pencil Sharpening

[Bob D.]

How many of you use a pencil in your shop? Most I would hazard a guess do.

What or how do you sharpen your pencils?

If you use more than one of the choices below pick the one used most.

I guess a follow-on question should be what type of pencil do you use.

If you use only a mechanical pencil, you're not going to be visiting the pencil sharpener of course. I've included a choice for those too.

If you are using a wood pencil, is it a flat carpenter's style or a common diameter round(hex) or one of the larger diameter ones.

Votes are anonymous so if you're scared to let others know which way you lean have no fear, no one, not even I who created this thread, can see who voted for what.

[Bob D.]

I use an electric desktop model the most. I found two of them at a yard sale years ago for $1 each and
bought them both. I keep one in the garage shop and the other in the basement shop. Makes sharpening
fast, easy, and consistent.

I do use a mechanical pencil but not always. I do like them for critical layout because the diameter of the
line does not change.

I'll add some photos of the ones I have later.

Here's the one in the garage shop.



I have the other Panasonic (different model) in the basement shop.


And I have another battery-operated Panasonic at the desk in the kitchen which I've had
forever it seems. I think my sister gave it to me for Christmas back in the early 80s.

[marsfruitegg]

Just electric desktop model the most.

[BadgerDave]

99% of the time I use mechanical pencils. For that other 1% I have and use a wall mounted sharpener, hand held sharpener or use my pocket knife.

[blue_can]

Cannot recall the last time I used a pencil that needed sharpening. Mechanical only here. I do have a hand held sharpener for the flat carpenters pencils.

I added my vote.

[CWSmith]

I use my old 'lead holders', which I first bought back in 1966 when I started my career as a technical illustrator. They hold a long 5-inch stick of lead and come in a variety of hardnesses and in a limited number of colors. I have three or four of those which I've purchased over the years.

The sharpener (actually a "pointer", is a Koh-I-Nor, which I bought around the same time. I presently keep in mounted just behind the left side of the fence on my 1974 Craftsman RAS, where it is fairly near the center of my shop little shop.

Release a short length of lead at the tip, insert it in the pointer, rotate a couple of turns and you can have a needle point. I prefer to just a slight rotation for a more blunt point (less likely to break), and you and even do a swipe across some some sandpaper to make a chisel-like point.

While the primary application was drawing, they work great in the shop.




CWS

[drainman scott]

I mostly use a flat carpenters pencil with a handheld sharpener then use a utility knife for a crisp line ... I also made up some shorty's to use for confined areas .

[Bob D.]

I use my old 'lead holders', which I first bought back in 1966 when I started my career as a technical illustrator. They hold a long 5-inch stick of lead and come in a variety of hardnesses and in a limited number of colors. I have three or four of those which I've purchased over the years.

The sharpener (actually a "pointer", is a Koh-I-Nor, which I bought around the same time. I presently keep in mounted just behind the left side of the fence on my 1974 Craftsman RAS, where it is fairly near the center of my shop little shop.

Release a short length of lead at the tip, insert it in the pointer, rotate a couple of turns and you can have a needle point. I prefer to just a slight rotation for a more blunt point (less likely to break), and you and even do a swipe across some some sandpaper to make a chisel-like point.

While the primary application was drawing, they work great in the shop.




CWS

Yes, I have one of those too and a couple Dietzgen lead holders but they have not seen the light of day in a couple decades.
And the sandpaper pad on a stick for manual sharpening. That's what we had in mechanical drawing class in HS 50 years ago.
I still use the trick of rotating the pencil as you draw a line to keep the point wear even.

[CWSmith]

"I still use the trick of rotating the pencil as you draw a line to keep the point wear even." .... and to keep the line width consistant

Yes, that was a very long time ago! Thankfully, I never had to spend any time as a paid draftsman, as I got a job as a technical illustrator before I graduated from those night school classes to be a tool designer. As an illustrator, I'd do the drawing and then pass it to an 'inker' who would trace my layout in ink so it could be photographed for print. I still have my first illustration layout that was done in the summer of 1966, it was of an IBM 029 keypunch machines card assembly.

Somewhere in this mess I call my office, I still have my original lead holder, still works although the enamal and chromed plating is mostly worn away. I moved to a PC back in the 80's IIRC and put those old tools away. I dug them out a decade or so later when I started playing with wood as I never liked those flat 'carpenter's pencils'

CWS