Retro 51 Tornado Dmitri Mechanical Pencil Review

I’m a traditionalist when it comes to mechanical pencils. Give me a classic design over most anything. Bonus points if it is an engineering-style mechanical pencil, like my beloved Rotring 600.

That’s what has kept me away from the Retro 51 Mechanical Pencil for so long. Not that this isn’t a classic style with it’s twist mechanism. In fact, it may be more classic than the standard click mechanism. But the twist pencil is no longer the expectation for mechanical pencils, nor has it been for decades.

It took Retro 51 to design one to get me interested. The Dmitri, named after Dr. Dmitri Mendeleev, the father of the Periodic Table, is not only a great bit of scientific history, but is beautiful to look at.

Unfortunately, that’s where my joy with this product ended.

Retro 51’s Tornado mechanical pencils are designed around 1.15 mm graphite diameters. I like larger diameters, regularly using both 0.9 mm and 2.0 mm varieties in various products I own. But, the graphite has to be good. I’m not sure this graphite is good. It has a more plasticky feel than I would like. That makes it smooth and firm, but it has no character. No depth. No darkness.

With a more standard lead size I would happily swap in a different brand, like I do with ballpoint and rollerball refills. 1.15 mm is such a peculiar size that it makes swapping the lead out more difficult than with other mechanical pencils. Quick Googling shows a dearth of options.

Even the times I am content with the lead situation in this pencil, I’m not content with the mechanism. It works fine extending and retracting the lead, but when I’m writing and the tip hits the page between words, the lead scoots back into the barrel slightly. Not every single time, but enough to be noticeable. It’s like there is some play in the twist, allowing it to backtrack if it’s hit in the right spot.

And finally, the eraser. It erases fine, that’s if it remains in place long enough to get the job done. I figured out immediately that if I erased in a left to right fashion, the eraser would pop out of the barrel. If I erased in an up and down fashion, it stayed in place. End of the world? No. Annoyance? Yes.

Does the style of the pencil outweigh the annoyances I had with it? No, it doesn’t. There is no doubt it is a stunner, and would make a great gift for the right person. But if you aren’t looking for a gift and instead want a great writing experience, you should look elsewhere.

(Retro 51 provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Tombow Mono Graph Grip Shaker Mechanical Pencil Review

It the most recent episode of the Pen Addict podcast, Myke and I discussed some of our favorite school supplies. This brought back a ton of memories for me, especially since it has been a VERY long time since I was in school.

My school supply heyday was the late-80’s, and while we discussed a few items from that era, we skipped over one of my primary writing tools: The mechanical pencil.

The Pentel Sharp P205 and the Pentel Quicker Clicker were my workhorses. As someone who was committed to the finest lines I could find, 0.5 mm mechanical pencils were a core option for me. I couldn’t afford the engineering pencils from the college bookstore I frequented, but I could liberate the P205 from my dad’s office (remember when office supplies were good?) And, the Quicker Clicker was inexpensive and available at the grocery store.

So, what does this lead up have to do with the Tombow Mono Graph Grip Shaker? It made me fall in love with durable plastic barrel mechanical pencils. I pick one up today, like this one, and am immediately transformed back to my teenage years.

Don’t get these pencils confused with the trash that is disposable plastic barrel mechanical pencils like the Paper Mate SharpWriter. These are quality pencils with added features that will last years if taken care of.

The feature list of the Tombow Mono Shaker is impressive. The primary feature is even in the name. This is a shaker pencil, meaning a quick flick of the wrist will extend the lead, while keeping your hand in the writing position. There is a knock as well, in this case, in the clip which can be depressed for the same effect.

Speaking of the clip, it has a locking mechanism to keep the shaker from extending the lead when getting tossed around in your backpack. On top of that, it has and extra-large, extra-wide eraser that can be twisted to be extended or stored away. Did I mention that the eraser is the best in the business? That too.

That’s a lot of stuff!

Admittedly, Tombow has confused their own market (and me) with the introduction of this pencil. At $7.25, it is close in price to the $6.00 plastic grip, plastic clip, and similarly named Tombow Mono Graph Shaker. Are the rubber grip and metal clip enough to introduce a completely different pencil? There are metallic paint jobs too, but they are awfully similar.

In the end, either of these pencils are excellent in my book. They offer more than I expect in this mechanical pencil price point, and look great to boot.

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

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Pilot Mogulair 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.)

There are some truly fascinating features available in modern mechanical pencils. The features are cool, but the fascinating part is how they manage to make them work in such a small package.

The Pilot Mogulair falls into this category because it manages to fit an "Active Suspension" feature into a slim pencil along with a shake mechanism to advance the lead. All I can say is that I would have loved to have this pencil in school. It would made math homework more tolerable.

At the end of the day, it's still a pencil. Luckily, it handles that aspect with ease. This pencil is comfortable to use for jotting notes or calculations, sketching, writing, and anything else you might need a pencil for. The grip is smooth, but it has plenty of traction for your fingers. Due to all the fancy metal gizmos in the grip section of the pen, there's a nice weight to the pen that's focused in the grip/point area. This gives you more control when making careful lines, but since the rest of the pen is plastic, the overall weight is still fairly low.

The Active Suspension feature of this pen, branding aside, is superb. Basically, if you press down on the lead hard enough, the lead will retract into the protecting pipe to prevent breakage. Several other pencils offer a similar feature (we've written about the Zebra DelGuard several times), but I think the Pilot Mogulair has the smoothest action of the ones I've used. Unless you're writing at an extreme angle to the page, it's unlikely you'll break the lead. It just works!

Advancing the lead also has a fancy method on this pencil. Sure, you can advance the lead by clicking on the eraser cap, but it's more fun to shake the pencil a couple times. There's a small weight in the body of the pencil that causes the lead to advance by one click when it hits the mechanism. Again, it's not a new feature, but the Pilot Mogulair works beautifully. Just be careful not to shake too hard or you'll end up with broken lead pieces in the tube.

If you like your mechanical pencils to have a tiny eraser under the click cap, Pilot has you covered here. There's a tiny eraser located under the cap that can be used for emergencies. It's always best to carry a real eraser, but this will do in a pinch.

The cap that covers the eraser has a delightfully crisp click when you put the cap in place. I've found myself fiddling with it because the noise and feel of capping the eraser is so enjoyable. Hope I don't lose the cap...

When it's time to refill the lead, you do so by removing the eraser cap and the eraser to expose the lead reservoir hole.

The Pilot Mogulair is available in several colors and lead sizes. Ice Blue is featured in this review, and there's also Pink, Violet, White, Black, and Blue. Each of these colors is also available in 0.3mm and 0.5mm lead sizes.

Overall, the Mogulair is a great pencil with some futuristic features. The lead protection works great and the shake feature is a fun gimmick that also works as intended. At under $10, this pencil is a great deal.

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

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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, for which I am very grateful.

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