Today's Daily Pencil

[FlyingClayDisk]

Very nice OHTO! They were one of the first companies to come out with a roller ball pen in the early sixties. This Daily Pencil looks very well engineered.

Matching the pencil to the mission is an art in and of itself... after a lot of experimentation over the years, I found I like shorter instruments with wider grips for most of my purposes. The weight and length of my Kerry the best for me, it's a wide grip with a good weight to it but not too heavy. It's pretty versatile. They say it's 49 grams (!) but I haven't put it to a gram scale. It works well for art and precision but it's not the best for writing (I like writing with a lighter pencil for the sake of endurance) at least for my taste.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks!

Interesting you wrote what you did, for two reasons actually.

Actually, as much as I hate to say this, the OHTO Super ProMecha (pictured above in Today's Daily Pencil) has a serious design flaw.  In fact, it is often a fatal one (for the pencil).  Ironically, this is the reason I chose the pencil for today's edition...because I just received a couple of them after avoiding buying one for a couple years.  I only purchased it because they have been discontinued, and prices are skyrocketing, so I wanted to get one in each size plus a couple spares to have in my collection..  Consequently, they happened to be sitting on my desk, so I grabbed one and posted it up.

If you look carefully in the picture above, you will notice there are two parallel grooved rings just above the knurled grip.  Those two rings are machined out of a cylindrical piece of aluminum below which rotates.  This is what adjusts the lead sleeve protrusion length.  However, while very cool looking, there is a major problem.  You may be asking yourself...well, then what keeps the top of the pencil connected to the bottom of the pencil if something in the middle rotates?  And that would be a very perceptive question!  The answer contains the design flaw.  You see, the top of the pencil is connected to the lower portion by two aluminum struts which span this gap, one on either side of the sleeve adjustment mechanism.  As a result, there is a serious structural weak point right at this junction.  If the pencil is subjected to any lateral stress (such as being dropped), the pencil will break in right in half!  In terms of durability, I probably would not recommend this pencil to anyone other than a collector.  In a production environment (where it could get dropped, or shoved in a pocket, etc.) it could likely result in disaster for the owner. 

Incidentally, tomorrow's Daily Pencil will be at the exact opposite end of the durability spectrum.  It is bulletproof, for a variety of reasons which I will go into then.

The other reason what you wrote was interesting is because in the other "Hobbies" thread you stated that you liked the Zebra F-300 series mechanical pencil.  I didn't want to say anything then, but I am not a fan of these pencils (at all really).  However, in your earlier post above you said you liked shorter pencils, and the Zebra F-301 is exactly that, very short.  In fact, it is too short for my large hands, hence my not caring for them.  Irony strikes again here too!  It's ironic because I noted the Zebra "Tect 2Way" pencil, several of which I showed pictures of in the other thread.  What was ironic was, I always have people come to me telling me how much they LOVE Zebra pencils, so I figured I must be missing something.  Consequently, of late I have been buying some other Zebra models just to see what it is about them which people like so much.  And yes, I have now changed my opinion of them as a result.

What a twisting, turning, road this pencil world is indeed!  LOL!

Who knew there could be so much intrigue in a simple pencil??   

P.S. - Just wait until we get to the "CONSPIRACY" side of the pencil world??  THEN you'll have to be drinking straight shots of Nyquil from the bottle and chasing them with scotch just to sleep!!!

Until next time...