November 30, 2006

The pencil pages include fascinating articles and an amazing gallery of pencil pictures (including the world's largest. See also Leadholder for a fine collection of vintage ads and other drafting pencil stuff.
posted by Plegmund 17 years ago
  • Pencil Loving Monkeys! When clearing out my late Dads stuff, I found and kept a tube of 100 10cm long pencil leads with a diameter of 1.5mm. I cannot find a 1.5mm lead holder. 2mm lead holders are everywhere! Including the lovely Staedtler one with the knurled grip! But no 1.5mm. Can anyone help? Would a 2mm holder hold a 1.5mm lead without slipping? I MUST KNOW! (The tube is labelled GPO, meaning General Post Office, who ran the telephones in the UK until 1981. And they never used standard kit when they could invent a new standard)
  • I trust you have checked art supply stores, not just stationery stores? Why do you want to write with such a big fat lead anyway, EH?
  • I like to play at engineers from time to time, and a mechanical pencil lends a certain cachet, and it seems a waste to chuck these things away. Also, daft as it may seem, the GPO branded stuff was all over my childhood home, and I've got an emotional attachment to it now, being an orphan and all (violins). GPO earthenware battery tubes being used as kitchen utensil pots, GPO notebooks for shopping lists, and GPO tools in the garage.
  • Hmm. Checking out what the folks at Staedtler have to say, it would seem as though the clamping chuck would be able to clamp a smaller size, given its very nature of clamping. But there might be some slippage. Worth a try, though.
  • (Aah. Now I know why "pencil pages" sounded so familliar.)
  • I see your point about the clamping, chuck (or is that clamping chuck?) That's a risk I'm going to have to take. I went to a chain art supply shop in my lunch hour (just finished) but they didn't even have 2mm ones. Poxy chains. Amazon, here I come.
  • Righty-ho. I bought a Staedtler Mars 780 (mmmm check out that knurling) but the lead it does slip. A scrap of paper wrapped round the lead stops this. The Quest Continues...