Mechanical Pencils

A clutch pencil is a refillable holder that grips a single thick stick of graphite (usually 2mm or 5.6mm) in a mechanical clutch, while a mechanical pencil advances thin lead (0.3mm–0.9mm) through a spring-loaded tip with each click. Both are “leadholders” in the loosest sense, but they solve completely different problems, and that’s exactly why … Read more

Stand in the pencil aisle long enough and you’ll notice something odd: nobody ever fights over 0.9mm. It’s always the 0.5 versus 0.7 crowd, squaring off like two rival football supporters who both think they’ve got the better squad. 0.5 vs 0.7 mechanical pencil for drawing is one of those questions that sounds trivial until … Read more

Somewhere between a soggy 2B stub and a £3 biro chewed to bits sits a genuinely useful tool most artists ignore for years: the mechanical pencil. A good mechanical pencil for drawing gives you a fixed, predictable line width from the first mark to the last, with no sharpening breaks, no wonky points, and no … Read more