Decent Pencil Kits?

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Mike Lindstrom

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May 29, 2011
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Howdy!

As this is not actually a review, it may be in the wrong place. I started turning pens a little over a year ago. I'm a school teacher and decided it might be motivating to my kids if they had a nice pencil with which to write. My fiance is also a teacher and over the past school year, I made around 100 pencils as gifts for students' birthdays.

They were super excited, and it gave me lots of practice to improve my skills, but I was universally disappointed in the quality of the kits. Every single day, I was having to help kids deal with jammed mechanisms. Typically, multiple pieces of lead were in the jaws at the same time. Sometimes, there would be an extra shard of lead jammed in the o-ring. Now to be fair, who knows what a third or fourth grader might do to mess things up, but too many kids had too many problems for it to be all them. if I were doing this as a business there is no way I could sell any of these. I could not trust them to function. One of my students did have the idea to only load one piece of lead at a time. It worked, but was not practical.

Many were bought from my local Rockler and Woodcraft. After I got frustrated with them, the rest were the 8mm click kits from Craft Supplies. The CS kits seemed to be much better, but still had problems of jamming. I did do a couple of twist click pencils, but everyone found the twist function irritating to use.

Obviously, these were all low or lower end kits, but for the price of one kit, I can get a couple dozen Bics that will work flawlessly.

Can anyone recommend a kit that works well? Are there things I might have done to mess things up with these kits?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Mike Lindstrom
 
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I really like the comfort grip pencil from PSI (minus the rubber grip). Great click mechanism. I made mine from Chilean Lapis trustone and it has perfect weight and balance for my taste.
 
The only one I've turned was the 7mm from Rockler. I liked it. Used deer antler, and it's got really good weight. Made it for the missus. Speced it for her hand. She really likes it, too.
 
Mechanical pencils have always been a problem to me. Lead always breaking, things jamming. I suspect it would be even more so with young children. I have had the most success with the Vertec pencil sold by PSI. It uses 2mm "lead" which is a nice size, not too thick and not too thin.
 
Like you I started making the 7mm pencils. I probably made 20 or so before getting problems reported. I stopped making them and kept the kits that were left over as back up for replacement. I have repaired or replaced about 6. It's the ones I DIDN'T hear about that worry me! :eek:

I have seen others here recommend, among others, the Perfect Fit. From what I can gather it uses the Parker style refill when made as a pen, but can be converted to a 5mm or 7mm pencil with the Schmidt pencil mechanism.

What I don't understand is why can't this mechanism be used for ANY parker style pen??? :confused::confused: I guess that would be TOO EASY!!! :frown:

I have also used the Vertex 2mm pencil but consider it more of a workshop pencil kit, just my opinion.
 
I have used the PSI Power pencils with 2mm lead. Have had no problems and I like the 2mm lead against the thin 0.5 or 0.7mm leads. Have had no problem with the matching pens either.
Phil
 
The Schmidt conversion will work with any click pen that takes a Parker-style refill, while the Cross version should work with any twist pen using a Cross-style refill, and save you the headache of getting your parts alignment dead on. Lack of near-perfect alignment between the point sleeve and the lead feed mechanism is one of the main causes of jamming and lead breakage in the space behind it. Another is the distance between the clutch jaws and the o-ring in the back of the sleeve tip: if that distance is too great, the jaws can open wider and a second lead can sometimes slip through. Both these issues also apply to Pentel barrel replacements: the parts need to be concentric, colinear, and at the right distance from one another.

With the Schmidt and Cross converters, the alignment is built into the units.

The quality of the lead is also a factor; I suspect that what comes with the pencil kits is about on a par with the ballpoint refills that come with Chinese-made pen kits. Try using some of the better name-brand leads and see whether it makes a difference.

Oh, and for kids that age try to make 0.7 or even 0.9 mm pencils; the leads are much harder to break than the 0.5 mm and smaller sizes. :-)
 
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Thanks to whomever moved this to the correct section, and thank you all for your replies.

I had looked at the pentel deal, but it seemed impractical for the volume and time I had.

I did not come across the schmidt converter. That's interesting. I may have to give it a try.

Good idea on the quality of lead. I tried a variety of lead in them. I wasn't thinking of quality so much as variation in size. In any case, it did not seem to help.

That's interesting about the internal tolerances being so important. Makes perfect sense. I don't have a kit in front of me, but I think the design keeps that distance fixed. I'll check them out in the morning. I wonder if that could be modified to improve performance.

The thin lead. My gifts were not entirely altruistic. Third graders on the whole write much worse than their second grade selves did. One thing that messes them up is pressing too hard. Using a thin lead pencil forces them to be more gentle with their pencil, and therefore able to have more delicate, sensitive control of their line.

Thanks again for your thoughts,
Mike
 
Sorry to dredge this one back up, but I'm prepping for a fundraiser at my kids' school, and was hoping someone somewhere was providing a good off the shelf pencil kit.

Any updates or improvements? These would be used by elementary age kids, so need to not be taking up class time fixing jams and, well, they need to just work like a cheap 25 cent mechanical pencil does. Slims are the right size, but I've never made one that worked very long. I'm guessing I'm out of luck.
 
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PSI sells a mini sketch pencil that is a 3mm lead. Is very sturdy and has an eraser. You might try it. It is also only one piece so easy to make. They are a little bigger around and would fit a child's hand nicely. Harder to break. I use one a lot and it has held up to a lot of abuse and keeps working.
 
nava1uni said:
PSI sells a mini sketch pencil that is a 3mm lead. Is very sturdy and has an eraser. You might try it. It is also only one piece so easy to make. They are a little bigger around and would fit a child's hand nicely. Harder to break. I use one a lot and it has held up to a lot of abuse and keeps working.
Click to expand...

Cindy:
You continue to consistently deliver good advice and productive reviews. The mini sketch pencil might be the answer to my dilemma of too thin a lead (or graphite).
John
 
Agreed, I have not run across a good mechanical pencil anywhere. I have seven left that are given away at shows to get people to buy the more expensive pens. I use them as "chum". A good word to use to describe the mechanical pencil kits is "crappy".
 
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