Pencils?

SideWinder said:
Sounds like a job for the Staedtler 2B. It destroys all other pencils in terms of performance, sharpness and durability.
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Wow! I honestly never thought I would remember that. Navy Blue pencils with gold etched writing printed into the end right?

I also remember having the pencils shaped like pens. With the long lead that clicked out and it usually had a rubber on the end with a plastic cover. Scouring through newsagents for Back to School stuff in the late 80s. The smell of new pencil cases/folders etc. Those were the days. Lovely Dennis the Menace smooth glossy black/red pencil cases as you take the foam inserts out.
 
I never use pens, even at work, have a draw full of staedtler hb pencils at work and home. Think I have a weird pencil fetish from school or something.:cry::o
 
Cyber-Mav said:
Kiddo getting stressed with school work since the pencils we got either keep breaking when being sharpened or dont seem to be dark enough when he is writing. He is 8 years old so everything they do is in pencil.
Looks like im gonna have to spend some money on quality pencils.
The only pencils we had good luck with are the black and yellow stripe ones. I dont know the brand but i do remember them having made in Germany on it.
That pack was gifted to him as a birthday present so dont know where it came from and they finished long time ago.
Also whats the correct type of pencil to use? I see stuff like HB and other letters etc.
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H is the hardness and B is the blackness. The numbers are a scale. It's been in use for donkey's years. Generally they're inversely proportional, i.e. a higher hardness rating will leave a fainter mark and a higher blackness rating will wear down quicker. Around the middle of the scale is best for general school work on paper. A high hardness rating would be too narrow and too faint and a high blackness rating would be too dark and too soft (and thus wear down too quickly, not lasting long enough and making the lines too wide after a little bit of use because the point would be very quickly blunted).

Gary* said:
Sounds to me like you're describing the Staedtler H2B, that's what we order in our Primary School.
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That's what I was using ~50 years ago. Some things stand the test of time because they do the job very well. Your child might prefer a slightly higher B rating (based on you saying that the pencils they've used don't seem to be dark enough).
 
V F said:
Wow! I honestly never thought I would remember that. Navy Blue pencils with gold etched writing printed into the end right?

I also remember having the pencils shaped like pens. With the long lead that clicked out and it usually had a rubber on the end with a plastic cover. Scouring through newsagents for Back to School stuff in the late 80s. The smell of new pencil cases/folders etc. Those were the days. Lovely Dennis the Menace smooth glossy black/red pencil cases as you take the foam inserts out.
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To be honest, I was just joining in and wanted to go further with saying how amazing the pencil is.

I have no idea what I am talking about. :o
 
pepp77 said:
And for the OP, on a pencil the H is for Hardness and the B for Blackness. HB is standard of both and usually used for writing, B isn't as black as 2B which isn't as black as 3B, etc, but if H has a number on it, it means it isn't as Hard, so a H is harder than a 2H, which is harder than a 3H. The blackness of the graphite also usually decreases up the H numbers, so H is darker than 2H etc.

Oh the fun things we remember from 35 years ago in school!
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that's really interesting, I did not know that.
 
pepp77 said:
And for the OP, on a pencil the H is for Hardness and the B for Blackness. HB is standard of both and usually used for writing, B isn't as black as 2B which isn't as black as 3B, etc, but if H has a number on it, it means it isn't as Hard, so a H is harder than a 2H, which is harder than a 3H. The blackness of the graphite also usually decreases up the H numbers, so H is darker than 2H etc.

Oh the fun things we remember from 35 years ago in school!
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I can't remember the 'rules' but I do remember having a thing for drawing 3d shapes in abstract pictures when I was little, a tray of pencils from 7H to 7B (or something?) made the shading significantly easier for an artistically impaired kid!
 
labbby said:
When i was 8 i was sharpening pencils with the lock knife i took to school. never had any issues.
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Same here except mine was a blacksmith knife with the hoof cleaner long pointy bit. Never had a problem and neither did the rest of class as most of us had knives. Dib Dib Dib

Ps - try Staedtler
 
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