Talk:Pencil/Archive 1

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Number 2 pencil

What's a Number 2 pencil then? Rmhermen 16:05 Aug 12, 2002 (PDT) Thanks Rmhermen 06:43 Aug 13, 2002 (PDT) == [[A NUMBER 2 PENCIL IS AN AMAZING DESIGN CREATED BY lAURA!!!!! == ==Erasers==]] "Attaching erasers to the end of pencils is largely a North American phenomenon, and is not the norm in Europe or Asia."

I can't speak for the rest of Europe or Asia but erasers on pencils are far from uncommon in the UK. It's not universal however, so is there really a distinction to be drawn here? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mintguy (talk • contribs). 09:07, 1 December 2002 (UTC)

Pencil Shapes

There is very little mention of the shapes of pencils. Not once is the word "hexagon" even mentioned. There should be something explaining which shapes of pencils are more common than others and why.JianLi 05:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

What patent issues?

The body of the article mentions that the 2 1/2 pencil (F) has other names "due to patent issues". What are these issues? I can't seem to find it anywhere on the web.

Can the person please elaborate? Thanks.

Also, wouldn't these be trademark issues perhaps? Patent would (I think) apply to a material or a method of manufacturing it. You can't patent the designation "2 1/2", I don't think. Herostratus 04:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

on mechanical pencils

The article says that the mechanical propelling pencils "were widely used in the Victorian era", as if they aren't still used today! Or are they? Is there some other name in English for this plastic/metal pen that takes graphite cylinders 5 to 6 cm in length and 0.5 or 0.7 mm in diameter that I use for writing on paper almost every day? :) --Joy [shallot] 13:56, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hardness scales

I am looking at my Grip 2001 Faber-Castell pencil right now and it says here: 2.5 = HB. According to this the 2.5 hardness level isn't equivalent to F, can anyone verify this? --Friðrik Bragi Dýrfjörð 12:33, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Patents

Is there a patent on left handed pencils? I have a feeling that these left handed pencils I was going to buy on the boardwalk might be counterfits. I just want to be able to notify the proper authorities if it is in fact illegal. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.13.228.14 (talk • contribs). 17:37, 25 June 2005 (UTC)

Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth

No mention of Hardtmuths family and the Koh-I-Noor pencil? The first yellow laquer pencil, which gave rise to all the other yellow laquer copies? Perhaps the most famous pencil winning prizes at Paris and Wienna exhibitions in ~1889? Franz Hardtuth came with the 17-grade grading system which is still used today, and Josef Hardmuth perfected the process of producing graphite rods after Conté.

-- Frantisek 11:55, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, you may add the infomation. The article Koh-I-Noor pencil and about Josef Hardmuth could be also added. Pavel Vozenilek 17:07, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


The acctual pencil (with reservoir) the romanian Petrache Poienaru in 1827 patented in Viena and then in Paris. please search for this!

"Everybody makes mistakes"

Carl Carlson of The Simpsons once said, "Everybody makes mistakes. That's why they put erasers on pencils..."

Isn't this an old saying? - furrykef (Talk at me) 22:24, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

yeah it's pretty old... but it is still a modern saying invented after 1900 Trick man01 00:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

merge proposal

Pencil lead is basically a duplicate of much of this information, and so I've put up tags suggesting its merged into this article. I'll sort the merge in about a week if there are no objections. Thryduulf 15:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Nooo.. pencil lead is good a seperate article.

Thryduulf is correct. The topics are essentially identical. In the name of all that is holy, let them be merged!

Vote against merge -- not all pencils use "pencil lead"; furthermore, "pencil lead" is not always found in pencils. Artists use "naked" graphite sticks. Why not merge "mechanical pencil" with "pencil" instead? Bendybendy 23:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Vote for merging. Much of the content is already the same. I just came to the pencil article looking for info on how the 'lead' is altered to affect hardness, whereas having two means I effectively need to then move somewhere else. Concision is a virtue. Smb1001 11:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Oppose: if both dealt fully with their topics, history, etc, there'd need to be two. mgekelly 08:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge Repetitive, redirect. Especially since "lead" is not the correct term for what's in there anyway. Rufusgriffin 05:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

DON'T MERGE THEM!!!

I concur with the guy above me. I believe that pencil lead and pencil are separate articles and should not be fused. I am in demurrence with any movement to merge the two topics to one article.

P. S. I have a username (Bob the ducq), and use this web site a lot. I think the articles should stay separate, speaking as an active user.

Number 2 pencil?

What is a Number 2 pencil? Could some information be put into this, or a new, article? --Gary King 00:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

It's equivalent to HB in the European classification system, and is mentioned int he article. Lisiate 23:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Colour Leads?

The article mentions that the leads of coloured pencils aren't made from graphite, but doesn't elabourate on what they are made from. Might that be something to include?

Certainly. coloured pencil had best be a separate article. This is what the CAMEO tells us http://www.mfa.org/_cameo/frontend/home.asp:
A colored drawing stick encased in a wooden shaft or peel-away paper casing. Colored pencils, often called marking pencils, were first produced in 1835 by J.S. Staetler. These early pencils were composed of a few selected pigments (Prussian blue, chrome yellow, chrome green, etc.) dispersed in clay then baked to form a hard stick. Starting in the 1920s, the number and intensity of the colors were increased and marketing was directed to artists. The colored core of the pencils contain a colorant (pigment or dye) bound with a synthetic resin and some wax. Emulsifiers and dispersion aids were sometimes included. Fillers, such as kaolin, talc, or chalk were also added for opacity and color dilution. They are available in both water-soluble and solvent soluble forms. Many of the colors contain organic dyes that are not lightfast.
Apparently Faber-Castell was the first to produce coloured pencils in the modern sense (i.e. not as industrial markers) in 1924, followed shortly by Stabilo and Caran d'Ache.--MWAK 11:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

As a side note, we should redirect "Pencil crayon" to this article (Canadian term for coloured pencil). I have no idea how to do that.


See comment below re need for new section. Coloured pencil 'leads' which are artist quality are made from either a wax or an oil base. This varies by manufacturer. Lightfastness is a major issue. Composition of 'pencils for children' varies again. Shouldn't the focus be rather more on the present and rather less on the past? Cosmopolitancats 08:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

2 = B

According to Faber-Castell's USA site, "B" is the same hardness as a "#2". Could we verify the information on the hardness scales used throughout the world?

A quick Google test says that HB is roughly the same as a #2. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 20:14, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
According to the Pentel package that contained my lead, "HB" is the same hardness as a "#2".Leon7 04:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Lead poisoning

The "Miscellaneous" section currently contains this sentence: "However, a child has gotten lead poisoning from chewing her pencil because the paint on the outer covering contained lead (need a source, check Chinese news archives)." An anecdote without supporting evidence does not belong in a Wikipedia article. I'm going to delete it. Pat Berry 04:29, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

DO NOT MERGE THE TWO ARTICLES

They are different things, merging them would be wasting important information


Pencil colours ?

I would be interested to know the source behind the "common pencil colors" section which suggests that various countries have different preferred pencil colours...

This seems to vary more based on the manufacturer? Having lived in the UK all my life I have used and seen a variety of colours from a variety of manufacturers: yellow (Berol & others), red (Berol, Stabilo, others), blue (Staedtler), black (Rexel), yellow/black and red/black striped (Staedtler), blue, purple, green (various store brands) and natural varnished (Rexel). I haven't noticed that any one colour is more prevalent than the other? The images all seem to be of Faber Castell pencils (which aren't the commonest...)... Tjwood 10:12, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The common pencil colours date from an earlier period. Between the advent of mass education together with industrialisation and the introduction of the ball point, the pencil — not the pen — was the normal writing medium. They were procured in hugh numbers by schools, companies and the administration. This led to a high level of standardisation and to long term contracts with one manufacturer practically monopolising an entire country. So before the war Germany was dominated by Faber-Castell's green pencil and The Netherlands by Stabilo's red/yellow striped. When one colour scheme became associated with the concept "pencil" other manufacturers then imitated it. The dominance of yellow in the US is mentioned in Victoria Finlay's Colour. Travels Through the Paintbox--MWAK 11:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of fact, this point is absurd to be included, as clearly stated, one can buy pencils with any outer colour they desire. This is a trivia point and has far too much prominence in this article. 62.56.99.13 11:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this slightly outdated debate and will therefore delete the nice table. Please do not re-include it unless you canp provide references for its inclusion.—Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 02:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

History of the pencil?

For such an important instrument, there isn't much of a history written in the article. - Rudykog 18:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

It was cut out by a vandal in March with this edit [1], and I only just noticed. Jooler 22:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Coloured Pencils are not the same as Pencils

This whole article seems to confuse pencil colours (ie the colour of exterior of the pencil) and coloured/colored pencils (ie pencils which contain a colour).

I suggest a separate sub-section as a minimum for coloured pencils (maybe a separate section altogether - recognised as a separate media from graphite by artist societies?) as they raise a number of separate issues eg

 composition of the coloured 'lead'; 
 artists quality versus 'for kids'; 
 lightfasteness issues re pigments used in artist quality; 
 number of different brands and ways in which they differ (eg oil based versus wax based, different approaches to lightfastness considerations); 
 different approaches to working with coloured pencils; 
 supports for coloured pencil work; 
 erasers which work with coloured pencils; 
 solvents which can be used with coloured pencils; 
 sharpening considerations; 
 colored pencil societies;  
 etc etc

Cosmopolitancats 07:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

As there have been no adverse comments on this proposal I am going to propose a separate article should be created - which I will try and start soon Cosmopolitancats 16:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there needs to be a separate article. I tried to make "coloured pencils" be a red link to suggest that, but it just gets redirected to the pencil page. I plan to research colored pencil makers, and start an article if Cosmopolitancats doesn't do it first.SusieQ7 00:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi SusieQ - happy to work with you on this - once I've worked out how on earth to create an article! Cosmopolitancats 01:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest you start adding info to the current article, and if the section becomes sufficiently large it can be split into its own article. Should you want to create a colored pencil article, it is currently setup as a redirect. Click the "Redirected from..." message at the top of the page, or go to [2], and click "edit this page" to access the article data. Shoehorn 02:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Hexagonal shape?

Are most pencils really hexagonal in shape? Most of the pencils I've encountered have had round cross-sections. Maybe it's true that most expensive pencils are hexagonal, but that's a different matter. Theshibboleth 00:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Faber-Castell color examples

Maybe it's my monitor, but the example of the "American" color pencil looks orange to me. Would it be possible to find a real U.S. pencil to use there, rather than a European pencil that's supposed to be yellow?

Also, any idea why "Castell" is written in what looks like faux-Hebrew on those pencils? -- Mwalcoff 03:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Marks under skin

In 1968 I inadvertently stabbed myself with a pencil in the nail of my left index finger, punching a hole in the nail and leaving a gray mark visible under the nail. The mark is still there almost forty years later.

Space Pen

Pencil article: "This task is not as simple as it seems, as standard ballpoint and fountain pens require gravity in order to function."

Space Pen article: "There exists a common rumor claiming that because a standard ballpoint pen would not work in zero gravity (which is false [1])..."

I'm confused. Should the Pencil article be edited?
Tajik24 21:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed the line:
This task is not as simple as it seems, as standard ballpoint and fountain pens require gravity in order to function.
As you're right, the reference strongly suggests it's misleading. The article still needs to be improved when someone can confirm what the situation really is Nil Einne 14:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I Go to Wikipedia For All Of My Pencil Information

Whenever I'm in need of perspective in the midst of the exciting, changing world of pencils, I always know where to go: Wikipedia! Thank you for your diligence and excess of free time ridding the world of pencil-related ignorance.203.131.167.26 09:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

lead pencil

In many parts of the US, the term lead pencil refers solely to the mechanical kind...--Ioshus(talk) 13:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

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