Patent ID: 6908246

Claim:
A mechanical pencil, comprising: a barrel; a lead feeding mechanism disposed in said barrel to tighten and feed a lead; and a single-piece lead bolder disposed between the lead feeding mechanism and a tip end of said barrel, said single-piece lead holder having a through hole through which the lead penetrates and comprising: holding portions, for holding the lead; a contact portion for contacting an inner peripheral surface of the barrel; and a body, said holding portions including a first holding portion at a front portion of the lead holder and a second holding portion at a rear portion of the lead holder, the holding portions fixing the lead relative to the barrel during writing, a maximum static friction force generated between the lead holder and an inner peripheral surface of said barrel is set to be larger than a maximum static friction force generated between the holding portions and the lead, so that when a length of the lead becomes shorter than a distance between the lead feeding mechanism and the tip end of said barrel, said first holding portion holds the short lead and said second holding portion holds a next lead tightened by the lead feeding mechanism, wherein said contact portion comprises an outside cylinder provided concentrically on an outside of the body, wherein said outside cylinder comprises a rib projecting in an outside diameter direction to come into contact with said inner peripheral surface of the barrel, and wherein a slit is formed in a portion of the outside cylinder in which the rib of the outside cylinder is absent so that said rib is elastically displaceable radially outwardly into contact with said inner peripheral surface of the barrel.