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As title, something for everyday writing, up to say £35-40. At the moment I use cheapo plastic things from the stationary cupboard but would like something a bit "nicer".
Let the middle-classing commence...
My favourites are my Rotring knurled 500 (metal) or my ohto super promecha
I've had a Pentel Graphgear for years. I'd buy another if somebody at work eventually manages to nick it (and i couldn't work on it who the somebody was)
Goes away to google mechanical pencil
Comes back feeling let down that it's just one of those (pen)cils. I was expecting something with cogs, maybe even a chain 🙁
Goes away to google mechanical pencil
It's a "propelling pencil" on this side of the Atlantic.
I use my Pilot S20 every work day, plus fountain pens and my rhodia webnotebook
Proper ponce me!
OK, propelling pencil it is. Let myself down badly there.
Rotring 500 0.35
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Have both these and the 800 model. The 800 brings very little more to the party for the extra outlay.
Propelling pencil or clutch pencil/lead holder? As an art teacher and stationery geek I have way too many of each.
If the former my favourite is the OHTO Promecha (love the Super Promecha too, but its fancy lead advancement adjustment thingy makes it a bit delicate if carried in a trouser pocket).
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If you want a lead holder the E+M ones are lovely, but the ones I actually use the most are my Rotring 600 and Lamy (Scribble).
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For something a bit less everyday, this is a beautiful drawing tool from Copic.
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That Wooden one is lovely. Link to stockist please
I get most of my - erm - extensive stationery collection from Cult Pens. Always have some really cool Japanese and German stuff.
I AM IN AWE
colournoise beat me to recommending Cult Pens!
I've got several Caran D'Ache 2.0mm 'Fixpencil' clutch pencils and various 0.5mm mechanical pencils but in all honesty I think for my needs a couple of 1.0mm or 0.7mm pencils in different leads would be ideal.
https://www.cultpens.com/c/q/brands/caran-dache/caran-dache-fixpencil
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Is this going to be like that shaving/razor thread? The next middle aged, middle class 'thing'?
Sweet lord colournoise, that link is a portal to a world I never knew existed 😯 behold! The land of pencils!
Kaweco or rotring
funkmasterp - Member
Sweet lord colournoise, that link is a portal to a world I never knew existed behold! The land of pencils!
It can be a bewildering, wondrous and expensive place to visit...
Get thee to the bookies
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Is this going to be like that shaving/razor thread? The next middle aged, middle class 'thing'
Well, you can try to make a 'thing' a writing instrument that many people have been using as part of their daily life for decades if you want, but I'll just add a #rollseyes to it.
I've got a Rotring 3-in-1 pencil that has a 0.3/0.5/0.7 set-up, which I bought along with other drawing equipment with the £100 I was given by my boss when I left my job with a print and publishing company.
I still have it, and still use it, thirty-one years later. I used to have a 0.3 4H lead, a blue 0.5 and an HB 0.7, the blue was used to construct grids for artwork on CS10 artboard, because it wouldn't photograph with lith film.
Superb writing instruments, the barrel on mine is brass with a black finish, the little clutch jaws that hold the leads are brass, it's just a nice thing to use.
There's another version that has ball point pens and a pencil as well.
It's the Trio, and the pencil-only version seems not to exist, I found an eBay sale that had ended, it was over £100!
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I've got both a Rotring 800 and a Pentel graphgear 1000.
Even though it's about 1/3 the price I prefer the Pentel.
Thanks all, particularly colournoise - I will spend a long time browsing that place and try and buy only one!
Had a look at Rotring's site, and the Trio pencil doesn't appear, so I'm going to have to look after mine very carefully!
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Doing ok for 30-odd years old.
Rotring trio.
Current Trio is a multipen thing - two ballpoint nibs and a 0.5mm pencil.
Not sure if you can retrofit/bodge it with 3 pencil mechanisms (doubt it).
Not sure if they are 'THE BEST' but 5 years in the drawing office 8 hours a day stooped over a drawing board these became the main weapon of choice for me and the overwhelming majority of colleagues:-
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Just functional.
Cultpens are excellent.
For a pencil - Waterman Hemisphere - weighty, with a lovely smooth action - and some good quality lead.
I've had a Lamy 2000 pencil for a few years now, very nice, simple design, just about in your price range. Matches my other Lamy 2000 pens of which the four colour ballpoint is the most used.
Have a look at zebra - a little under your price bracket but they do some nice stainless steel mechanical pencils which I have used and are very reliable
I always thought my Parker Jotter propelling pencil was nice, obviously there is a whole other world out there.
I too have the.....Pentel Graphgear 1000 Drafting Pencil - 0.5 mm - £6.50 on Amazon, can't compare it to much apart from the bottom end pencils. Nice and weighty, feels good quality 🙂
Zebra M-701 Stainless Steel Mechanical Pencil - 0.7mm
[url= http://www.survivaldepot.co.uk/product/zebra_m-701 ]From here £8.90[/url]
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0.7mm is much better than 0.5mm as I tend to break the latter ...
Another Rotring Trio user, I bought mine back in 1994 when i was studying engineering, i thought the choice of colours would be an incentive to tidy up my notes, not a hells chance in that ever happening but i've still got the pen and use it daily, be quite pissed off if i ever lost it which is why it lives next to my monitor.
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This is ace.
Peak Geeksville™ Granted, but ace.
Goes away to google mechanical pencilComes back feeling let down that it's just one of those (pen)cils. I was expecting something with cogs, maybe even a chain
You need to get a Uni Kuru Toga in your life. Rotates the lead whilst writing so you always have a rounded point. Bloody brilliant pencil if you get the half metal one from Japan for less than £8
I have a couple of propelling pencils - rotring 800, staedtler etc but mostly use lead holders for work.
I have a couple of standard 2mm which I have a rotring rotary sharpener and a ka-we-ko but my preferred one is a Worther hexagonal lead holder - that's what I've used mostly for the last 6 years for designing things. Combined with a roll of yellow trace its great for thrashing out concepts particularly with good civils engineers who can do more than just calculate pile sizes. Obviously SCL engineers are different 😉
Thanks Sniff , I've just gone and bought a pencil I have absolutely no use for 😀
I may just join you Kilo.
You need to get a Uni Kuru Toga in your life. Rotates the lead whilst writing so you always have a rounded point. Bloody brilliant pencil if you get the half metal one from Japan for less than £8
Upvote for Uni Kura Toga! Fantastic value. Mine is loaded with 2b's
Is someone going to start a 'What lead for my pencil?" sub thread...I have resisted the temptation!
deadslow - Member
Is someone going to start a 'What lead for my pencil?" sub thread...I have resisted the temptation!
Now, [b]there's[/b] a question...
Pentel Ain Stein lead - accept no substitutes:
[url= https://www.cultpens.com/i/q/PN21990/pentel-ain-stein-lead-05mm ]https://www.cultpens.com/i/q/PN21990/pentel-ain-stein-lead-05mm[/url]
Aargh! If only did the Uni Kuru Toga Roulette in 0.7mm...
http://www.saa.co.uk/uni-ball-m5-450t-kuru-toga-mechanical-pencil-smoke-barrel-free-leads.html
Uni-ball M5-450T Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencil Smoke Barrel + free leads
They do a .7 somewhere, its on the video.
And its go Nanodiamonds....:)
I mostly use a standard pencil and a British Airways Mechanical pencil I found on the roadside about 10 years ago.
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Thanks redthunder!
househusband - Member
Aargh! If only did the Uni Kuru Toga Roulette in 0.7mm...
That's what I have been thinking as well ... 
... also preferable in strong stainless steel barrel. 😀
That's what I have been thinking as well ...... also preferable in strong stainless steel barrel.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UNI-KURU-TOGA-MECHANICAL-PENCIL-0-7mm-HB-PINK-BARREL-Single-/291621013712
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uni-ball-KuruToga-Mechanical-Pencil-Starter/dp/B00BEYXGPC
I really don't [i]need [/i]any more pencils... but...
Thanks Sniff , I've just gone and bought a pencil I have absolutely no use for
+1
I've got no idea why I just bought it as I don't need one, I just know I want one! I might get a 0.03mm one next for doing the panel lines on my models.
Damn you Cult Pens and your Siren like website! 😀
I have a number of Kuru Toga pencils still in their packaging. When I find pens or pencils I like I buy a few in case society breaks down and I can't buy new ones or some acceptable replacement. And now I have a metal one on its way from Amazon.
As others have said - thanks a bloody lot.
kilo - Member
Thanks Sniff , I've just gone and bought a pencil I have absolutely no use for
May I recommend the Times Sudoku Ultimate Killer books.
That's what my collection of fancy pencils get used for these days. That and designing impossible bicycles. 🙂
I can recommend the Uniball Kuru Toga
[url= http:///uniball.co.uk/kuru-toga-m5-450t/ ]Here[/url]
The tip rotates the lead via an internal gear mechanism so a flat tip never develops and consequently breaks, i love this and go through far less lead!
Liking the Kuru Toga self-sharpening pencil, the metal bodied one on Amazon for less than eight quid is very enticing, I do like a nice writing implement.
Current Trio is a multipen thing - two ballpoint nibs and a 0.5mm pencil.Not sure if you can retrofit/bodge it with 3 pencil mechanisms (doubt it).
I very much doubt it, it seems the Trio is only available as a pencil and two coloured ballpoint, or pencil, ballpoint and highlighter, I can't understand why there's no 3-way pencil version any more, it's really handy to have three different hardness leads, in different sizes.
Shame.
Just been scouring the webz for a Trio like mine, and I've found three ended sales, at €85, £109 and £229!
😯
I think I'll place mine into protective custody and buy a couple of the cheap metal bodied mechanical Japanese pencils.
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Call me a philistine but i love my parker jotter!
Didn't have a Kuru Toga (though was aware of them). Now got one on the way thanks to this thread. Let's see if it can topple the Promecha...
I've an ancient (1930s?) silver Platignum propelling pencil that was my grandfather's. I use that in the workshop - 1.2mm lead and really solid body. On my desk/case I use a .7 Lamy cp 1.
https://www.lamy.com/eng/b2c/cp_1/156
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I really didn't need to go looking through Cult Pens site, I've given it a cursory look before, but it just fuels my liking for nice writing tools, just like I really don't need to go looking at torch sites, I've got too many already.
Or sunglasses, for that matter...
CountZero - Member
I really didn't need to go looking through Cult Pens site, I've given it a cursory look before, but it just fuels my liking for nice writing tools
I hear that (even though I'm a regular there). Must be up to around 50 'nice' pens and pencils now. At least in my job they get used (on a 'I'm a bit bored with this one, what else have I got?' basis).
Oh for goodness sake, I clicked on this thread to laugh at the nerdy neediness of it all. Now I'm browsing for pens and pencils 🙄
Lost a lot of time looking through cult pens in my time. My daughter has one of the finest stationary collection at school with all my cast offs!
I hear that (even though I'm a regular there). Must be up to around 50 'nice' pens and pencils now. At least in my job they get used (on a 'I'm a bit bored with this one, what else have I got?' basis).
Once upon a time I had quite the collection of Rotring and Mechanorma technical pens, along with various size felt pens, and the Trio, of course, but driving cars for a living doesn't allow much opportunity for artistic expression with nice writing tools, sadly.
Being a rally co-driver (or at least a wannabe) I need a thicker 2mm lead so it doesn't snap when bouncing along in a car, and has to be mechanical rather than clutch as you don't have two hands to adjust the length with.
At the moment I have a few Staedtler 925 (from Cult Pens) with 4B leads but would like to upgrade to something a bit more premium, but need to avoid the above links until pay day.......
If it's a clutch you are after I don't think you can top a cheap Staedtler. I have owned many including metal Rotrings and others, the Staedtler feels the nicest in the hand. The Rotring Trio ones, well I am afraid the lead wobbles on the thinnest lead setting. Infuriating.
j4mie - Member
Being a rally co-driver (or at least a wannabe) I need a thicker 2mm lead so it doesn't snap when bouncing along in a car, and has to be mechanical rather than clutch as you don't have two hands to adjust the length with.At the moment I have a few Staedtler 925 (from Cult Pens) with 4B leads but would like to upgrade to something a bit more premium, but need to avoid the above links until pay day.......
https://www.cultpens.com/c/q/explore/product-type/pencils/mechanical-pencils#:=&g_tip_size=2mm
hah, it's threads like these that make the STW Forums what they are. I have no interest in owning a propelling pencil but can't help admire some people's 'passion' & knowledge about this sort of thing.
Please stop bumping this thread. I dread going onto cult pens, I keep seeing stuff I want!
That Kuru Toga looks good
This thread was potentially much more interesting given the Mobile View version of the forum truncates the title.
I used to have a black Pilot pencil like the one Charlie Luxton wields on his TV show. I found it on Oxford Road in Manchester 25 years ago and had it for years until it completely fell apart, it was fab.
He says that his is is a Dr. Grip Full Black and is only available in Japan, like this one:
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Alas it's not the same model as my much loved sadly perished pencil.
Woe is me
I have some "Dr Grip" pens (not black) and found that unfortunately the squishy grip gets nasty and sticky after a while:-(
Glad to see someone else vote for the Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil
just a beautiful piece of machinery, and a design award winner to boot
[url= https://www.lamy.com/eng/b2c/2000/101 ]Lamy 2000 Pencil[/url]
[url= http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/227631-lamy-2000-and-the-origins-of-lamy-design/ ]Some background reading [/url]
[url= https://www.thepencompany.com/blog/pencils/lamy-2000-mechanical-pencil/ ]Lamy 2000 Review[/url]