Lead in Pencils: Safety Information and Facts - Pencils.com Lead in Pencils: Safety Information and Facts You are here: Home / The PENCILS Blog / Pencils 101 / Lead in Pencils: Safety Information and Facts As mentioned on our The Unleaded Pencil page there is no lead in the writing core of a “lead” pencil. The core is made of non-toxic graphite and does not contain lead. As a result of increased concern for the safety of different consumer products such as toys or art products from China, we often receive inquiries regarding the potential for exposure to lead in pencils. The only relevant concern regarding potential sources of lead in pencils is in the lacquer or paint used to finish the pencil. First, lead is a naturally occurring element that is contained in many different raw materials used in many industries to produce many consumer products. Exposure to high levels of lead through various means can have damaging health impacts. Next, lead content in all consumer products has been under strict regulation for many years by the regulatory authorities of different governments around the world. Generally, these standards are similar from country to country but there are some variations in regulations and content standards around the world.

In the United States the governing body on this issue is the Consumer Product Safety Commission or CPSC. Current CPSC lead content standards dictate that lead used in paints or lacquers used on consumer goods must not exceed 90 PPM. These are levels well below the limits considered to be dangerous established by years of scientific research. Producers that manufacture to these standards are making pencils and other products that are well within these safety limits. The CPSC itself does not carry out mandatory testing though they do dictate the standards and often the testing protocols and will investigate complaints about a product by consumers or consumer watchdog groups. Failure to produce to CSPC standards is a violation of the law, and any product found to be non-compliant is subject to penalties including immediate recall from distribution channels and additional fines. This is in addition to any potential liability issues a company may face if proven that a non-compliant product it markets causes any actual health issues for consumers who purchased that item.

Within the pencil and other related industries such as toys and art materials in the United States, as well as in all other major production regions, industry associations work to establish testing and certification procedures to assist manufacturers in assuring that products they produce meet the government standards related to lead content as well as other potential toxins. Testing is generally performed by independent third parties not under the control of the manufacturers. Pencils are generally certified to the ASTM D4236 standards or in Europe to EN71, part 3 standards to assure compliance with the law. The U.S. Writing Instruments Manufacturers Association has it’s own PMA Seal of certification for toxicity purposes which includes a higher level of testing of key materials with potential toxin content and is a voluntary program it’s members choose to participate in. If pencils you buy do not contain one of these certification marks there is some risk that there may be lead or other toxins at levels higher than allowed by law. However, lack of such a mark does not mean the pencils are necessarily unsafe. To be sure you should always look for one or more of these marks on the pencils you buy. Our Pencils.com Store includes the various certifications applicable to any given pencil within our store.

For more detailed product safety on pencils check out our Product Safety and Certification mark section here . Finally, here are some links to additional external resources: Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association How A Pencil is Made - General Pencil Co., Inc. Blog How A Pencil is Made We take pride in handcrafting quality pencils and artist materials using traditional methods passed down for six generations. Our history dates back to 1860 when Edward Weissenborn founded the American Lead Pencil Co. in Hoboken, NJ. He was an inventor and machinist and acquired 28 patents for improved machinery and processes in making 360 different kinds of pencils. 2 sold the company to The Reckford family in 1885. He then established the pencil exchange in Jersey City, New Jersey with his son Oscar, in 1889. Which was later renamed The General Pencil Company. STEP 1 Chunks of graphite (a soft, dark mineral) and clay are placed inside a huge rotating drum. Large rocks inside the drum crush the graphite and clay into a fine powder.

Then water is added, and the mixture is blended in the drum for up to three days STEP 3 Huge wheels grind the dried sludge into another fine powder, and water is blended in again to make a soft paste. ​ STEP 5 After drying, the pencil leads are put into an oven heated to 1,800 degrees F. The intense heat makes the leads smooth and hard, which makes for good writing points. STEP 7 A thin coat of glue is applied to the slats, and one pencil lead is placed into each of the eight grooves. Within seconds, another wide grooved slat is glued on top, sandwiching the leads. STEP 9 What's in a Lead Pencil? What's in a Lead Pencil? The following fascinating information is reproduced with permission from Reader's Digest (Australia) Pty Ltd from the book "How is it Done?". The original title of the piece is "How the lead gets into a pencil". The 'lead' in a pencil has not been made of lead for centuries. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all used small lead discs to rule lines on sheets of papyrus before writing on them with a brush and ink.

By the 14th century, European artists were using rods of lead, zinc or silver to make pale grey drawings called silverpoint. In the 16th century, Conrad Gesner of Zurich, in Switzerland, in his Treatise on fossils, described a writing rod held in a wooden case. But lead ceased to be a writing implement in 1564, when pure graphite was discovered at Borrowdale in the North of England and the modern pencil was born. Graphite is a form of carbon, which is one of the softest minerals. When it is pressed against paper, thin layers flake off to leave a black mark. Some of the best graphite for pencil making comes from Sonora, in Mexico. It is powdery and extremely black. The wooden outer case of the pencil has to be fairly soft, so that it can easily be sharpened as the graphite wears down. The most widely used pencil wood comes from the incense cedar of the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California. The best wood is from trees between 150 and 200 years old. The `lead is made by mixing together fine graphite and clay and then firing it in sticks in a kiln.

Graphite cannot be ground in an ordinary mill because its flaky structure makes it a natural lubricant. So an `attrition mill is used. Jets of compressed air containing graphite particles are blasted at one another, and as the particles collide they break up. The fine particles are mixed with pure china clay and water, producing a putty-like paste. The mix is fed into a cylinder and forced through a hole at one end, emerging as a continuous length the diameter of pencil lead. The lengths are cut into pencil sized sticks, and dried in an oven before being fired at a temperature of about 2200ï¿½ F (1200ï¿½ C). Finally, they are treated with wax to ensure smooth writing, and sealed to prevent them from slipping out of the wooden casing. To make the casing, the wood is sawn into slats, each the length of a pencil, seven pencils wide, and half a pencil thick. Grooves are cut into the slats, the leads are inserted, and another grooved slat is glued on top. This `sandwich is then fed through machines that cut it into individual pencils of hexagonal or circular cross section.

After shaping, the pencils are painted with non-poisonous lacquer. The leads for coloured pencils or crayons contain no graphite at all. They are made from pure clay and wax, coloured with pigments C&EN: WHAT'S THAT STUFF? - PENCILS & PENCIL LEAD PENCILS & PENCIL LEAD STEVE RITTER Most adults probably realize that there isn't any elemental lead in a pencil . But I worried about that when I was a kid after I had the point of a freshly sharpened No. 2 lodged in the palm of my right hand. It's still there, 30 years later. My cousin Matthew and I used to sit next to each other in the first grade and often shared school supplies. One day I asked to borrow his eraser, and when he turned to hand it to me, he was holding his pencil in the same hand. The wound healed after a few days, but I was left with a visible half-centimeter-long piece of pencil lead in my hand. I'm sure my mother called the doctor to find out about the possibility of lead poisoning, but the doctor probably said not to worry because pencil lead isn't really lead, it's a nontoxic mixture of graphite and clay.

The connection between graphite and lead stems from the days of the Roman Empire (and likely before that), when lead rods were used by scribes to write on papyrus. Both graphite and lead leave a gray mark on paper, although graphite is a bit darker. Graphite didn't come into widespread use for writing until after the 1564 discovery of a very pure graphite deposit in Borrowdale, England. At the time, graphite was thought to be a type of lead and consequently was called black lead or plumbago. In 1779, Swedish chemist Carl W. Scheele determined that black lead was actually a form of carbon; in 1789, German geologist Abraham G. Werner reportedly gave it the name graphite, after the Greek graphein, meaning "to write." Inks were already widely available and were usually applied to paper with a brush called a peniculus, which is Latin for "little tail," hence the basis for the word "pencil." Charcoal probably was used in ancient times to mark on paper as well. Graphite from Borrowdale originally was used in chunks called marking stones.

Because graphite is softer and more brittle than lead, it requires a holder when carved into pencil-shaped sticks for writing. At first, sticks of Borrowdale graphite were wrapped with string, and the string was slowly unwound as needed as the writing core wore down. Later on, graphite was inserted between two slats tied together or into wooden sticks that were hollowed out by hand to create the first wood-cased pencils. The Borrowdale deposit was pure enough to use without modification. But lower quality graphite needs help to keep it in a usable form. Various binders mixed with graphite powder have been tried, such as gum, resin, or glue. Sulfur also has been mixed with graphite, which results in writing cores most like pure graphite. In 1795, French chemist and Napoléon courtier Nicolas-Jacques Conté invented a process to mix graphite with clay and water, a process that is still used. TODAY, GRAPHITE AND clay are crushed into a fine powder in a rotating drum containing large rocks. Water is added and the mixture is blended for up to three days. The water is pressed out of the mixture, leaving a gray sludge that is air-dried until it hardens.

The dried sludge is ground into a powder, water is added again, and the mixture is blended to form a soft paste. Carbon black may be added to increase the dark-ness of the lead. The paste is extruded through a metal tube to form thin rods that are cut into pencil-length pieces--called leads--that are then dried. The leads are heated in an oven to 1,800 &°F (about 1,000 °C) or higher to make them smooth and hard. The ratio of graphite to clay can be adjusted to vary the hardness of the lead: the more clay, the harder the lead; the harder the lead, the less graphite comes off onto the paper, making a lighter line. Pencils are made by cutting blocks of wood into slats that are machined to form a groove (two to nine per slat) to place the leads. A second slat is glued onto the first, sandwich fashion, then individual pencils are cut from the sandwich and sanded smooth. The pencils are next painted with five to eight coats of paint, and a recess is cut for the ferrule--the metal ring that holds the eraser.

The ferrule and eraser are crimped into place, and a metal stamp is used to press a label onto the pencil. Various types of wood have been used to make pencils over the years. Red cedar from Kenya and the U.S. was an early favorite, but today nearly all pencils worldwide are made from incense cedar, a species that grows in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. The first pencils were unlabeled and unpainted to show the fine grain of the wood used. But by the 1890s, manufacturers started stamping their names on pencils and painting them. Graphite DOUGLAS MARTIN/BOWLING GREEN THE LATTER TRADITION got started when a French merchant-adventurer named Jean-Pierre Alibert discovered very pure graphite along the Russian-Chinese border in the mid-1800s. Alibert later developed a mine and began shipping the graphite to points around the world. Pencils made with high-quality Asian graphite were painted yellow to indicate the source of the graphite. Although there are several domestic and international sources of graphite today, about 75% of the 2.8 billion pencils manufactured annually in the U.S. are still painted yellow.

The hardness of the lead is indicated by a number (1 to 4) stamped on the side of most pencils--the higher the number, the harder the lead. Sometimes there are other markings: H indicates hard, B indicates the blackness of the pencil's mark, and F indicates that the pencil can sharpen to a fine point. Sometimes combinations are used: HB, hard and black; HH, very hard. Many of the names stamped on pencils are manufacturer's model names or company name, but these generally have historical significance. For example, the Ticonderoga, made by Dixon Ticonderoga Co. , is named after the Revolutionary War fort in upstate New York, which is near one of the purest graphite deposits known, 99.9% pure carbon. Here are some amazing pencil facts: Laid end-to-end, the number of pencils made annually in the U.S. would encircle Earth about 15 times. In 1858, erasers were attached to the ends of pencils for the first time; most pencils in the U.S. have erasers, but those in Europe do not. A pencil lead or a line drawn by a pencil will conduct electricity.

Colored pencils are made from chalk, clay, or wax mixed with binders and pigments. The Unleaded Pencil - Pencils.com The Unleaded Pencil You are here: Home / The PENCILS Blog / Pencil News / The Unleaded Pencil Here’s a myth buster: There is no lead in pencils. Rather, the core is made up of a non-toxic mineral called graphite. The common name “pencil lead” is due to an historic association with the stylus made of lead in ancient Roman times. If you’re looking for information on potential lead exposure risks in pencils, Click here . Early Graphite Discoveries Graphite came into widespread use following the discovery of a large graphite deposit in Borrowdale, England in 1564. As the story goes, a passerby found bits of a shiny, black substance clinging to the roots of a fallen tree. The whole countryside was abuzz with talk about this mysterious mineral, which eventually came to be known as “plumbagoi” or, more commonly, “Blacklead.” They found it left a dark mark, making it ideal for writing and drawing, but so soft and brittle, some type of holder was required.

Initially, they wrapped graphite with string. Later, the graphite was inserted into hollowed out wooden sticks. The wood-cased pencil was born! In 1795, a French chemist named Nicholas Jacques Conté patented a new process for making graphite pencil leads. This method mixed powdered graphite and clay in a water slurry, then formed sticks which hardened in a kiln. These composite graphite-clay “leads” allowed for more efficient use of graphite and revolutionized the pencil industry. Not only did the formula reduce costs, but by adjusting the ratio of clay and graphite powder, the changing hardness allowed more control of the lightness and darkness of the graphite mark left on the paper. It’s proved a win-win for creative expressionists ever since! Graphite in America In 1821, Charles Dunbar (author/Henry David Thoreau’s brother-in-law) discovered a graphite deposit in New England that proved to be of a quality superior to any previously found in the United States (though not typically up to the European quality). Still, his finding spurred the U.S. pencil industry to develop writing cores close to these graphite deposits.

Eventually, the Thoreau pencil factory came to be known as one of the finest makers of pencils in America. Graphite Eureka in Siberia French merchant Jean Pierre Alibert was searching for gold in Siberian streams when he came upon some very round, very smooth pieces of pure graphite. Reasoning that they must have been carried a long distance downstream, he trekked some 270 miles until he came to the source of his discovery. Packing in supplies by reindeer, Alibert set up a mine at this mountainous site near the Chinese border. During the first seven years of operation, the mine produced graphite of marginal quality. Then a rich and unbroken deposit of the highest-quality graphite was uncovered; a find that yielded pieces of pure ore weighing as much as 80 pounds! Pencils using Asian graphite were painted yellow as an indication of the source of the superior material in the writing core. Pencil Cores Today Today’s graphite writing cores are a mixture of graphite and clay.

By varying the graphite to clay ratio, pencil makers adjust the core “hardness”–usually identified by a number ( 2, 2-1/2 or 3) or letters ( HB,2B, H or F). Click here to learn more about the HB Scale for grading graphite leads. Beyond graphite pencils there are other types of pencil leads used for many different purposes. • Charcoal pencils, used primarily by artists, are another popular form of black lead pencil, made from a different form of carbon than graphite that is more like coal. These make a very dark black mark on the paper compared to even very soft graphite pencils, such as 8B. • Color pencil leads, also used by artists and popular with children and students, are made through a similar process of creating a blend of pigment, china clay and wax that is extruded into a lead. Some basic sets of color pencils come with 12 or 24 colors per carton, but other high quality sets for art purposes include up to 120 different colors or more. • Aquarelle or water color pencils are color leads with the added feature of being washable in water, producing an effect similar to watercolor paints.

• Cosmetic pencils are special color leads used for make-up purposes, such as eye or lip liner. • Finally, pastel pencils are another type of color pencils that make a mark resembling chalk, looking especially beautiful on dark papers. Click here to watch ‘Let’s Make a Pencil’ video. Recommended Posts Lead Hardness | Pencyclopedia | Cult Pens Lead Hardness Lead Hardness The Cult Pens Guide to Pencil Lead Hardness Pencils usually have some letters and numbers on them - HB, 2B, 4H, or even just numbers - 2, 2 ½, etc. This article is intended to explain what those odd little codes actually mean. Pencil 'Lead' Pencil lead is made of a mixture of graphite and clay. The graphite is the part that makes the dark mark on the paper. The clay is there because graphite on its own is far too soft and crumbly to write or draw with. Thin leads for mechanical pencils are similar, but with a polymer or resin taking the place of the clay. Wooden pencil leads also have a little wax or grease added for extra smoothness. In mechanical pencil leads, this is replaced with oil.

The grade, or hardness, of a pencil is due to the proportions of graphite and clay (or polymer/resin). More graphite makes for a softer lead, and more clay makes for harder lead. What it Means in Use When you're actually using a pencil, you want it to make marks on paper. The softer the lead, the darker the marks it will make. Artists often use a range of different pencils for a single drawing, switching to a harder lead when they want light shading, and a softer lead for darker areas. The downside of softer lead is that you're getting the extra darkness by putting more of the lead on the paper, so it gets used up faster. That means you'll be sharpening more often, or with a mechanical pencil, clicking out lead more often. You'll also have to buy more lead or another pencil sooner - great for us, but maybe not so good for you ;) The Numbers Here in Europe and the UK, we have one system for both art pencils and office pencils. The middle ground is referred to as HB. Softer lead gets a B grading, with a number to say how soft the lead is. B on its own is just a little softer than HB.

2B, 3B and 4B are increasingly soft. Further up the range, 9B is the very softest lead available, but so soft and crumbly that it's rarely used. Anything over 4B is probably too soft for most people's day-to-day use. Harder leads than HB get H ratings. In the same way as with the B ratings, the numbers go as far as 9H, but few people need anything that hard. There is an extra grade used by some manufacturers, between HB and H - an F grade, for 'Firm'. American Pencils For art and drawing pencils, Americans use the same system. For office use, they often use a different system, with just numbers. A #2 pencil is the same as an HB, with lower numbers for softer pencils and higher numbers for harder. This numbered system only covers a range from B to 2H - enough to cover most office use, but not enough range for drawing and sketching. Availability Different pencils are available in different ranges of hardness. Many ordinary pencils are only available in HB, whilst some specialist art pencils are available in every possible hardness grade.

Wooden Pencils Faber-Castell Grip 2001 : available from 2B to 2H, with a triangular cross-section, and rubber dots for grip. Staedtler Mars Lumograph : available from 8B to 6H - the widest range of any pencil we stock. A great quality pencil. Mechanical Pencils Because the lead in mechanical pencils has to be stronger, but not too brittle, it is not usually available in very soft or very hard grades. Pentel AIN Lead : quite a good range of hardnesses, and great value, as you get more leads in a pack. Pilot ENO Lead : has a wider range of hardnesses in some sizes, even including 2B leads in 0.3mm. Clutch Pencils An interesting compromise - the lead thickness of a wooden pencil, but with replaceable leads, and they don't get shorter as you sharpen them. Guide To Mechanical Pencils | Pencyclopedia | Cult Pens Guide To Mechanical Pencils Guide to Mechanical Pencils Introduction We love mechanical pencils. You'd probably guess that from the huge number of them we stock.

There's an amazing variety of mechanical pencils available, in all sorts of styles, with all sorts of features, for many different purposes. So we thought some sort of guide might be useful. We're aiming for this guide to serve several purposes: If you need some tips on using your pencil (pun intended), we can help. It's not always obvious how to add spare leads, for example, or clear a jam when things get stuck. If you want to buy a mechanical pencil, but you're not sure what type would be best, we have a few ideas. The best pencil for you could depend on a lot of things, but we'll help you narrow things down. We also hope it will be an interesting read, if you find mechanical pencils interesting. We do! What Is a Mechanical Pencil? Definitions vary, but for the purpose of this article, we'll consider a mechanical pencil to be any pencil with a lead-advance mechanism that pushes the lead forward in some way. We'll mention clutch pencils briefly too, where the lead is released when you hold down a button, but we consider those to be a separate type. Woodcased pencils are obviously not counted here, but that doesn't mean we don't love them too.

Other Names for Mechanical Pencils Mechanical pencils may be called different things in different places, by different people. Here in the UK, 'automatic pencil' and 'propelling pencil' are quite common terms, and people may also refer to 'clicky pencils'. Ones designed for technical drawing may be referred to as 'drafting pencils' (or even 'draughting' in British English), or 'technical pencils', though these terms have also been used for traditional clutch pencils. Although not used here, Wikipedia tells us 'pen pencil' and 'lead pencil' are used in India, and 'pacer' is used as a generic term by some people, though it's actually the name of an old Paper Mate pencil. We'll stick to 'mechanical pencil' here. History of Mechanical Pencils The first pencils were more like modern clutch pencils than what we now think of as 'normal' wooden pencils. Graphite was first used in lumps, with perhaps a bit of cloth wrapped around to hold it. When things started to progress towards the pencil, the first attempts involved wooden holders to grip sticks of graphite, so they could be used more easily and cleanly.

The first description of a leadholder was by Conrad Gessner, back in 1565. If you want to be really traditional, Cleo Scribent make a replica, called Der Gessner . It's rather fiddly to adjust, because there's no spring mechanism, but the basic elements of a clutch pencil are all there. For many years, push-fit lead around 1.18mm in width was most common, with a twist mechanism that wound the lead down like a screw as it was used, and pencils were often decorated with ornate designs in sterling silver. The need to write intricate characters meant Japan had a greater incentive to make thinner leads, which lead to the birth of the modern mechanical pencil there. Tokuji Hayakawa made the 'Ever-Ready Sharp Pencil', which was a huge success, and his company took the name of the pencil, and became 'Sharp' - the electronics company we know today. Thinner lead wasn't possible with the traditional mix of graphite and clay, as it was too brittle. Modern thin leads are based on high-polymer organic materials that can take much more force without breaking, and they're getting better all the time. Why Use a Mechanical Pencil?

There are some good reasons why you might prefer a mechanical pencil over a woodcased pencil. No Sharpening. If the lead is thin enough, you don't need to keep sharpening it - just keep writing or drawing. Not only does it save time and effort, but sharpening can be messy. Consistent Line Width. When a woodcased pencil is freshly sharpened, it writes a very thin line. As soon as you've written a bit, the line gets thicker and thicker. With a mechanical pencil, the line says the same, so it's a more predictable tool. Consistent Balance. As a wooden pencil gets shorter, the balance changes. Mechanical pencils don't change as you use the lead. It's not hugely important to everyone, but some artists find this makes a big difference for them. Refillable. You don't throw away stubs, you just keep putting more leads in. There are no trees to be cut down. It can be argued that mechanical pencils are the more environmentally friendly option, if you use one for a long time.

Given that the leads usually come packaged in plastic boxes, though, it's not a simple calculation to know which is better, but there's a lot to be said for a single tool you can use for years. Choice of Styles and Materials. Mechanical pencils can vary hugely in how they look - some look like technical tools, some look like luxury goods, and some look like simple plastic-bodied pencils. Some even look like wooden pencils! Not that we have anything against other types of pencils - we have lots of clutch pencils, and a huge range of woodcased pencils here at Cult Pens, and they're all ideal tools for someone. A wooden pencil can make a wider range of marks, and has a certain simplicity that mechanical pencils can't match. It's perfectly possible to love them all! Using a Mechanical Pencil For the most part, mechanical pencils are quite simple to use - with most of them, you just click the button on the end to feed out more lead whenever you need to. Retract the lead by holding the button in and gently pushing the lead in. When one stick of lead is used up, keep clicking until the next appears.

When you're all out, just add more leads of the right size, usually through a hole under the button, often hidden under the eraser. There are some variations and oddities, though… Twist-click Mechanisms This mechanism is most common in pencils that are designed to go with a matching ballpoint pen. You twist the top part of the barrel, and the lead clicks forward. Release, and the top part springs back, but the lead stays put. Twist and hold, and you can push the lead back in. It's just like the clicky mechanisms, but twisting takes the place of pushing. These usually pull open in the middle to add more leads. Inside, this type of pencil often uses an adapter, similar in shape to the refill for the matching ballpoint, which contains the whole pencil mechanism and lead tube. Essentially, the pencil is a ballpoint pen with an adapter fitted to turn it into a pencil. There's usually a cap at the top of the adapter which you remove to add more leads.

(Some of the pencils at that link will be of the other twist type, but we'll mention those specifically in the next section.) Continuous Twist Mechanisms These aren't so common these days, but there are a few around, like Faber-Castell's e-motion. The inside is a kind of screw-mechanism, where you wind the lead down as it's used. When you finish a lead, you remove the little stub, and push a new lead into the mechanism, and wind it back up to the top. Sometimes these only hold one lead, but they often have somewhere to store spares. The e-motion, for example, has space for six extra leads hidden behind the nose-cone. All our continuous-twist pencils Shaker Mechanisms Another solution to the problem of stopping to click out more lead is the shake mechanism - give the pencil a firm shake up and down, and a weight hidden inside does the job of hitting the button for you. These normally have a button in the usual place too, but a quick flick of the wrist takes less time away from scribbling down your notes.

All our shaker pencils Auto-feed Pencils Some pencils don't make you stop at all to extend more lead, at least until you reach the end of a stick of lead and have to click the next one through. The way these work can be a little unexpected, as you need to write with almost no lead visible at all. There is a (usually) plastic cone around the lead. Normally, you'd have to make sure you clicked out more lead before it wore down enough to reach the supporting tube or cone, but not with an auto-feed pencil. Just keep writing or drawing. When the lead wears down enough that the cone touches the paper, the cone is pushed back up a little way. A spring inside pushes it back, feeding some lead back down with it. The result is that the lead will wear down until it reaches this cone, but then won't go further. It sounds as though it would be uncomfortable and scratchy to write with, but the cone is smooth and rounded so it doesn't catch the paper. You may still find it more comfortable to click lead out the usual way when you have time, but if inspiration strikes, just keep scribbling!

All our auto-feed pencils Sliding Lead Sleeves It's a bit subtle, but we're going to make a distinction here between pencils where the sleeve that surrounds the lead can slide up if pushed; and pencils where the sleeve is designed to slide up easily while writing. A few pencils now have sleeves with edges that are smoothly rounded, so they won't catch on the paper, and made to slide up really easily. The result is that you can keep writing in the same way you can with an auto feed pencil. The difference is that these pencils won't actually feed out any more lead, so you'll have to stop and click eventually. By that point, though, there's bound to have been enough of a pause in proceedings for you to give the button a click. Examples: Kuru Toga Slide Pipe , Pentel Orenz Kuru Toga Probably the biggest innovation in mechanical pencil technology in the last few years, the Kuru Toga is, quite literally, revolutionary! As you write or draw with it, the up and down movement is used to rotate the lead. Because a pencil is usually held at an angle to the page, the lead wears down at an angle, and forms a chisel-shaped tip with a sharp point.

This shape makes for a thicker line, and the sharp point can catch on the paper. Some people naturally work around this by turning the pencil as they go, wearing the lead down more evenly. The Kuru Toga does this for you. The result is a finer line, and less lead breakage. While it probably works best with Japanese characters (yes, no surprise, it was invented in Japan!) where the pencil is lifted from the paper several times for each character, it still works well with English writing, and even helps a bit with cursive script. The Uni Kuru Toga range Twist-extend Erasers With most mechanical pencils, the eraser is there for emergency use only. If you needed to erase much, you'd probably want a separate eraser. A few pencils, though, have larger erasers, with twisting mechanisms to extend them, so they can last a long time. If you erase often, it's a great feature. Examples: Pentel Twist-Erase , Faber-Castell Grip 2011 , Staedtler Triplus Micro . Lead Jams If you use mechanical pencils, at some point you're likely to have a lead jam. It happens.

A tiny bit of lead gets stuck somewhere in the mechanism, and stops it from working. Lead might not click forward, or it might click forward but slide back in when you try to use the pencil. Most mechanical pencils can be dismantled to some extent to clear a jam. Usually, the part near the tip unscrews, which lets you see the mechanism. If you then push the button down against your desk, the clutch mechanism pushes up. There's a brass ring around the clutch jaws, holding them shut - push it down, and it will release the jaws. Once they've sprung open a bit of sideways tapping should dislodge any tiny bits of lead. If the mechanism can't be opened up, blockages can usually be cleared by holding the pencil tip-up, with the button held down against your desk, and feeding a cleaning pin in through the tip to push any little bits of lead out from where they're stuck. Some pencils include a cleaning pin, attached to the eraser, but many don't. If you don't have one to hand, another piece of thin wire or a pin may fit, but don't force anything too wide into the tip.

At a push, a spare piece of lead can do the job, but it takes a steady hand to feed it in without snapping it! Multifunction Pens with Pencils A lot of multipens have pencils as one of their functions. These are most commonly either twist-action or gravity select models, and the pencil mechanism and lead chamber are all fitted into the space of one of the tiny ballpoint refills. They normally operate like most pencils do, by just clicking a button on the top to extend more lead. Adding more lead is a bit more fiddly, and generally involves pulling the little pencil mechanism off its mounting, just like you would to change the ballpoint refills. There's space for a few leads in the tube it fits onto, but don't put too many in there - two or three spares is all there's space for. These aren't the best pencils for heavy users, but if you only need a pencil occasionally, they can be ideal - a couple of different ballpoint colours in one pen is quite useful, and a pencil thrown in so it's always handy! Our range of multipens - most include a pencil. Buying Guide Buying a mechanical pencil is easy.

It can be a bit more difficult to buy just the right mechanical pencil for you. And maybe even more difficult to buy the right one for someone else. The good news, though, is that they're nearly all quite reliable and tough, and most are quite comfortable to use, so it's unlikely you'll go too far wrong. If you're the sort of person who likes to put a bit of thought into this sort of decision, though (and a lot of our customers are), we're here to help. Purpose It's not a bad idea to start with thinking about what you're likely to use the pencil for. If it's mostly going to be for writing, you're probably going to look for different features to someone who will use their pencil for sketching. Writing If you're going to be writing with your pencil, you'll want lead thick enough that it won't break too easily. With modern leads, 0.5mm is quite strong enough for most people, but more heavy-handed people do sometimes find they snap such thin leads, and 0.7mm or even 0.9mm leads are better for them. Some have cushioned lead, where an internal spring cushions the lead against rough treatment.

If your writing includes the sort of notes where you sometimes just can't stop scribbling, like taking down lecture notes or meeting minutes, you might want to consider pencils that make it easier to feed more lead in a rush, with shaker mechanisms or side buttons. Auto-feed pencils can work well, too, keeping the lead usable at as you keep going. Some good pencils for writing: shaker pencils , auto-feed pencils , Uni Kuru-Toga , Faber-Castell Grip Plus , Pentel Energize . Drawing Drawing or sketching can have quite different requirements to writing, and can require a bit of experimenting to see what suits you, and what feels right for your style. Lead thickness is very important for drawing. Rough sketching can benefit from thick leads, for bold lines, usually using softer grades of lead. For this style, you may well want to consider clutch pencils too, as there are more of them available with thicker lead. 0.5mm is the classic size for more technical styles, but the humble 0.5mm mechanical pencil is a very versatile tool, and is used by many artists for all sorts of styles. For detailed drawing, you might want to consider 0.3mm leads.

If the pencil is going to live in a pencil pot on your desk, it won't matter much to you if it isn't pocket safe. If you're going to be sketching out and about, though, it can be very important. Conical tips aren't usually too risky anyway, but tubular tips can be a bit too sharp to want them in your pocket if they don't retract. For quick and easy retracting, a 'double-knock' mechanism helps - the mechanism is retracted with either a side button or a firmer push of the end button. Others may need you to push the tip in against something while holding the button down. If the eraser is important to you, you'll need to make sure it's a good size, probably of the extendable type. These usually twist up and down to expose more eraser as needed, usually with the added bonus that you can twist it back down out of the way when pocketing the pencil. For drawing, though, you may already have a preferred eraser that you'll carry separately, in which case, any eraser would be for emergency use only. Chunky sketching pencils: Lamy Scribble , Kaweco Sketch Up , e+m Sketch Pencil .

Features Mechanical pencils can have a surprising variety of features. If you think the number of possible features to consider is a bit much when you're trying to choose which pencil to buy, just imagine how it is for someone who has to write an article all about them! Here are some of the features you may want to consider when buying a mechanical pencil. Mechanisms The classic mechanism for feeding lead is a button on the opposite end to the tip that pushes lead forward one 'click' at a time. There's quite a complicated set of parts inside to make it all work, but it's all so tried and tested that they work very reliably, and you can usually get years of use out of even the most basic mechanical pencil. So why might you consider other mechanisms? Well, side-mounted buttons, shaker mechanisms and auto-feed mechanisms can all feed lead a bit quicker. For most people's use, it's not that critical, but if you have to keep up with lecture notes or take minutes in meetings, the time taken to click out more lead might be enough to put you behind. They're all based on a mechanism very similar to the push-button clutch, so they're all usually very reliable.

Shaker pencils have a weight inside that will knock the lead forward by one 'click' when you give the pencil a quick up-down shake. It's quicker to do than pressing a button, so these can be quite popular for students. They normally have a button too, so you can ignore the shaker part when you don't need it. Auto-feed mechanisms can work really well. Just keep writing, even after the visible lead has all been used. You won't see more lead feeding, but it won't ever disappear back into the lead cone/tube. What actually happens is that the cone or tube that surrounds the lead is smooth so it doesn't catch on the paper, and when the lead wears down far enough that it touches the paper, it slides back in a little. A spring pushes it back out again, and pushes the lead forward at the same time. Erasers Most mechanical pencils have an eraser. They're very important to some people, and completely irrelevant to others. If you rarely erase, you probably don't care much about the eraser. Oddly, though, people who erase a lot may not care much either, because they have their favourite eraser, and they're happy to carry it separately.

Those in the mid-ground, who do care about the eraser, need to consider the size and replaceability of the built-in eraser. They can almost always be replaced, but make sure you can actually get the replacements. There are very few cases where spare erasers exist and we don't stock them, and we do have spares for most of the pencils we stock, but it's best to check if it's important to you. In most pencils, the erasers won't last long, because they're so small. If you expect to use the eraser enough that this is a problem, look for pencils with large extendable erasers. Several different brands have pencils with long erasers that can be extended by twisting. Mechanical pencils with large erasers Price You probably have some idea how much you want to spend, or at least how much you're willing to spend! There are plenty of perfectly good mechanical pencils around for less than £5, but you might need to spend more to get what you want. Tougher build. While even the cheapest plastic-barrelled pencils should last well, something with a metal body is likely to be tougher. Features.

You may have to pay a little bit more if you want a big extending eraser, say, or a quicker way of advancing the lead. Looks. A cheap plastic pencil will be perfectly functional, but might not look the part in a meeting. If you're wearing a nice suit, it would be a shame to have the cheapest pencil poking out of your pocket. Your tastes might be more towards the technical or machined-metal look, but again, you'll need to invest a little more for the right look. Feel. In some ways, this can be the most important thing. If your pencil feels right in your hand, it can make a big difference to how much you use it. The most critical part is the grip - you might love knurled metal for the grip, or find it too rough; rubber is best for some people, while others like a smooth surface to touch. The rest of the pencil is probably less important to the feel of it, but it can still make a difference. More expensive pencils will usually feel more solid than the cheaper ones. All our mechanical pencils, cheapest first Lead Thickness If you know what thickness of lead you want to use, this is a great way to narrow down the choices.

Many pencils are only available in one size, so if you know you want 0.9mm lead, it's no good looking at pencils only available in 0.5mm. Many of the more technical style of pencil are available in several different widths, most often 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 0.9mm, while some add 0.3mm or 2mm to the range. The thickness you want depends very much on your usage, and depends a lot on personal taste, too. If your writing is small, or your drawings detailed, you'll need thinner lead. If you're heavy-handed, you'll need thicker lead. 2mm leads are similar in width to the core in a standard wooden pencil, so for most purposes, you'd need to sharpen them to get a sharp enough point. You can filter our mechanical pencils page by size using the links near the top Other Types of Pencils While this article is all about mechanical pencils, there are other types of pencils to consider - a mechanical pencil isn't the right answer to all problems for all people!

Woodcase Pencils We're all perfectly familiar with wooden pencils - a stick of wood with a 'lead' core, sometimes with an eraser on the end. They don't have the predictable line width of a mechanical pencil, and they get awkward to use when you've worn them down with sharpening. There's a simplicity about them, though, that's impossible to beat. That simplicity means you always know it's going to write, and you can pass one to anyone without having to explain anything. Our selection of wooden pencils Clutch Pencils (Leadholders) Clutch pencils are closely related to mechanical pencils. They use a very similar clutch mechanism to grip the lead, but they lack the extra complexity required to push the lead forward with a click or twist. Then usually have a button on the end, and when you press the button, the lead is released. You manually move the lead to where you need it, then let go of the button. They are only normally available for 2mm lead and thicker, and there are plenty of clutch pencils available in sizes up to 5.6mm. To many people, they combine the best features of mechanical pencils with the best features of woodcase pencils.

They don't vary in length as you use them, and while they can be sharpened to get a good point on them, sharpening isn't vital if you really need to keep scribbling. They keep much of the simplicity of a wooden pencil, though, with big, simple clutch jaws gripping the lead, and just a spring to make them close and grip. The thick lead makes them less practical for many, though, as you do need to keep sharpening if you need a reasonably thin line. Our selection of clutch pencils - we have lots! Other Resources If you've read all that and you still want to know more about mechanical pencils, you might have a bit of an obsession developing! We do know a few great places to send you, though, if you want more: Leadholder.com - the drafting pencil museum - a great resource. Dave's Mechanical Pencils - while Dave has now stopped updating this blog, it's still a treasure-trove of well-written reveiws and articles.

Question: What is the lead in a lead pencil made from?
Answer: Graphite