Posts filed under Pencil Reviews

Zebra DelGuard Type-ER Mechanical Pencil Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

Mechanical pencils come in all shapes and sizes, and it seems that most manufacturers try to introduce a unique angle or feature for their pencils to make them stand out from the pack. Some times, the features are pure gimmicks, but other times we benefit from the ingenuity of their design. In the case of the Zebra DelGuard Type-ER, it's the latter.

The DelGuard Type-ER looks like an ordinary mechanical pencil, but it has a couple of tricks up its sleeve. The first one involves the eraser. Many mechanical pencils hide the eraser under the click mechanism cap, which means you have to remove it in order to erase. Unfortunately, this makes the metal cap easy to lose. Other pencils use some sort of twist or push mechanism to show or hide the eraser when you need it. This is good, but the Zebra takes it a step further by relying on gravity and friction.

See, when you're writing with the pencil, the eraser is hidden inside the cap. But, when you turn the pencil upside down to erase, the eraser pops out. Once you apply some pressure to the eraser, the friction between the eraser casing and the pen body cause it to stay put while you erase. Brilliant. The only time this won't work well is if you're trying to erase in a position where the normal assumptions of gravity aren't true (say, upside down or up against a wall).

The other tricks this pencil boasts involve the lead system. We all know that if you press too hard on mechanical pencil pencil lead, it will break. Well, the DelGuard Type-ER has a couple of springs in the body that prevent that from happening. Are you pushing down on the lead too hard? Then the lead pipe will slide down to protect the lead until the pressure eases. Same thing is true if it detects too much sideways pressures on the lead. This is handy if you're tracing a ruler with the pencil at an angle and don't realize you're pressing down too hard. Very nifty indeed.

In my tests, this system works great. I'm more prone to put too much pressure on the lead from the side, so this feature is a lead saver for me. It also serves as a training tool to let me know (without wasting lead) that I'm pressing too hard while writing or drawing.

This pencil doesn't have a fancy click mechanism, a lead rotation device, or any of the other usual niceties, but the two features it does sport are down-right cool.

Apart from that, the grip on this pencil is extremely comfortable. Even without the lead protection system and cool eraser, this is a great pencil.

The Zebra Del-Guard Type-ER only works with 0.5mm lead, but it comes in a variety of colors (with an extra couple of erasers included) at JetPens. It will set you back about $12, but that's a sweet price for a pen with a couple of surprising tricks. I've been pleasantly surprised by it, and I'll be keeping it in my "top five" list of mechanical pencils for a while.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, which I am very grateful for.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Zebra, Mechanical Pencil, Pencil Reviews.

Camel HB Pencil Review

I don’t know why this didn’t hit me before now, but I realized why I have been so taken with wooden pencils: They allow me to write tiny.

That has always been my thing, even since I was a little kid. I always wanted the finest tipped pens and pencils I could find. On the graphite side of the ledger, that meant an 0.5 mm mechanical pencil. I rarely used wooden pencils because they dulled so quickly and sharpeners were generally terrible.

While there were opportunities in the 70’s and 80’s to hunt down wooden pencils and sharpeners that would work for me, they were few and far between. And weren’t a focus honestly. Pentel mechanical pencils were the way to go.

But as the internet tends to do, it opened my eyes. Just how my fascination and exploration of micro-tip gel ink pens came about with this blog, some amazing pencil blogs and fans were spreading the word of the woodcase. I’m glad my ears were clear and my mind was open, because I have found some wonderful writing instruments thanks to these lead-heads.

So, what does this have to do with the Camel HB? I would have never known about this pencil or the company behind it without this wonderful online stationery community we are all a part of. Is it the best pencil I own? No. Is it an excellent pencil? Yes. But to me, the Camel HB represents discovery, learning, and the process of finding the best tools for me.

In my eyes, the Camel HB is a beauty. I like natural looking pencils to begin with, and while this one isn’t raw, the deep caramel lacquer is translucent enough to see the wood grain. And the eraser, well, that’s what made me buy this pencil. I assumed it wouldn’t work or was a gimmick. I assumed incorrectly.

In the pantheon of things that just work, this eraser just works. It erases cleanly with minimal mess, and its attachment to the pencil is rock solid. I keep thinking the other shoe is going to drop, but it never does.

The graphite core of the pencil is very smooth and retains its point well. This goes back to my intro. The longer I can write tiny with a pencil before sharpening, the more I like it. And, the darker the better, which is usually the challenge. And when it dulls, I have several long point sharpeners I can use to top it off, which is a post for another day.

There is something about using wooden pencils. I don’t have to tell most of you that. But for the uninitiated, the choices are as wide and varied as with most pens and inks, and the process of finding the perfect one for you is just as fun.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Camel, Pencil Reviews.

Kokuyo Enpitsu 1.3 mm Mechanical Pencil Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

Out of the wilderness between the mechanical pencil and the lead holder, comes the Kokuyo Enpitsu 1.3 mm mechanical pencil. It was designed to mimic the simplicity of a wooden pencil, but with the convenience of a mechanical. It does achieve this goal, though obviously not without sacrificing some features of both.

The body is fully coated in a soft rubber, which makes it very comfortable to hold, even for long periods of time. It has a very slight triangular shape--just enough to keep it from rolling on a flat surface, but isn't in any way intrusive to how you'd hold the pencil. The lead and metal nose retract completely, so there's no risk of lead marks or breakage in a bag or pocket. The lead feeds in through a hole in the top of the click button. It has the potential to fall back out this way, but it doesn't happen easily. Since I didn't have refills handy, I'm not sure how many pieces of lead it can hold at once, but it doesn't look like there's room for a lot of backup--just the one in use and a spare. And that's really it--there are no removable parts, no eraser, no clip--it really is a cross between a wood pencil and a lead holder.

The 2B lead that comes with it writes like a graphite marker. It's incredibly soft and dark and lays down a thick layer that fully covers the paper beneath. I can see it being very useful for sketching or shading, especially on a larger scale. The thick lead isn't well-suited to fine detail work. It also wears down very quickly, due to its softness. I didn't find it ideal for writing, for that reason. I was having to click new lead every paragraph. The lead is also available in other hardnesses that may be better suited to writing, though the selection is limited due to this unusual diameter.

If you're a sketcher, you probably already have strong feelings about erasers and keep your favorite handy. So not having a redundant eraser on this pencil could very well be a plus. I kind of missed one, though--and even forgot a few times that there wasn't one and kept flipping the pencil around to be disappointed. Admittedly, it would have to be a pretty robust eraser to contend with the thick lines of dark lead put down by this thing. Not one of those tiny cylinders one could mistake for a Tylenol. It could also serve the purpose of sealing off the lead chamber--but then we risk losing Kokuyo's vision of simplicity for this pencil. And I do like its simplicity.

So I keep coming back around to admitting that all the features I'd want to add to this (an eraser, a clip, etc) would just get in the way of its design. It really wants to float in that space between pencil and lead holder, both in form and function--and I don't know of much else that's available to fill that gap in the market. And for under three bucks, you can keep all different lead widths and hardnesses handy with a set of these. They come in a bunch of fun colors, with either .7, .9, or this 1.3 mm lead. Sketchers and drafters will, I think, love this thing.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!