I thought it was so they could charge more. Ordinary pencils work fine, but I'd recommend sharpening them to a shorter blunter tip for robustness, so using a sander or if necessary a knife.
And felt tips, when their fatness is ok, clean off.
NT
The reason for a carpenter's pencil is the lead can be reasonably strong but with a sharp chisel point to draw a thin line. A thick lead in a propelling pencil would need sharpening to give a thin line.
An ordinary pencil with the same tip shape has a stronger 'lead' as wood is stronger than graphite. But being a narrower tip the standard pencil dulls quicker. The main body of the carpenter's pencil is more robust, but that' s minor. If you use them all day, day after day then no doubt it's worth ge tting the carpenter's ones. I never lack ordinary pencils so don't bother, there's no significant upside.
NT
What you want is a "clutch pencil". They often incorporate a sharpener. Thicker leads are less likely to break.
[Snip]
They also don't roll away out of reach
I know nothing of the app you talk of ......
Yes, I've two 2H propelling pencils. One is decades old; the other old one broke irreperably so I bought a good one - £12 (!) but worth it. They take
1.8mm leads and have sharpeners built in.
You can't get ordinary pencils with the same tip shape as a carpenter's pencil. That's the whole point(NPI). Next off, you'll be claiming you can get pencils with the same tip shape as a tailor's chalk. (Triangular pieces of chalk with three sharp edges)
The lead in a carpenters pencil is oblong like the shaft of a miniature chisel, and as with chisels and tailors chalks its sharpened to an edge, not a point.
How you keep the edge sharp is another matter. Possibly as with chisels you can create two angles. A shallow "grinding" angle created when you pare away the wood and a more acute "honing" angle which is topped up by regularly rubbing the two sides on a stone as you go.
As with tailors chalks drawing lines with a chisel edge rather than with a point presumably has advantages which aren't immediately obvious. In the case of the former, it can't be wear as you'd imagine they'd wear out quicker.
Maybe both were in regular use before pencil sharpeners became widely available and haven't been bettered.
michael adams
...
A chisel shape actually wears better than a point, and maintains the line width better. Maybe it is better visualised as a wide point.
Back before the ubiquitous 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 clutch pencils became common, and technical drawings were still done on actual paper (or drafting film), we were taught to sharpen our 4H pencils in a chisel shape so that we got a consistent and dense line, which was necessary for the copying methods of that era. I may still have one in a pencil pot somewhere.
Chris
I'm more familiar with ruling pens and rapidographs myself. But if a pencil is sharpened to a chisel point then presumably the pencil can't be rotated as this would alter the width of the line. Digging deep I seem to remember mechanical pencils with a triangular grip somewhere along the shaft, presumably this was the point (again NPI) of that particular design. I also now remeber triangular section wooden pencils possibly so designed for the same reason. I remember at the time I thought they were freebies from some sort of marketing exercise.
michael adams
...
We were taught to use Rotring ink pens instead.
The point of a chisel tip is that it can be narrow enough to be accurate along a rule or square, without breaking because its so slender.
The ones I've seen have an oval cross section and a rectangular lead, presumably so they can make a nice thin line without wearing down too quickly.
I lied, mine are 0.7mm.
Wake up. You trim the tip of the pencil the same way as you would a carpenter's pencil. The result is a chisel tip, it's just rather narrower so wears faster.
NT
While widely believed and often suggested, for that to be true there would need to be some reason why carpenters' pencils are more inclined to roll away than pencils used by anyone else.
"Roofers" pencils maybe.
Because they have a chisel edge, rather than a round point they can't be picked up and gripped just any-old-how like a normal pencil with a point. They have to be gripped in a specific way with the chisel edge pointing along the line to be drawn. Having an irregular shaped barrel, in whatever form makes easier to do this.
michael adams
...
>
When you've finally worked out why carpenters pencils are the shape they are - as opposed to your ludicrous suggestion that its simply a way of charging more for them - then I might have been willing to take the odd statement you posted a bit more seriously.
The important word there being "might".
However as I've already provided you with the real answer in another post, that offer no longer applies.
And that's not forgetting that only the other day you made the categorical statement that there had never been any such thing as Windows 286.
I suppose you thought that by now that would all be forgotten; and it was safe to crawl out from under your stone, yet again
michael adams
...
wood is stronger
penter's pencil.
yawn.
With respect windows in any form was not a workable option on an 8086 or 28
NT
With respect nothing. This is what you actually posted
As it says on the box Microsoft sold it not as an OS but as a presentation manager sitting on top of DOS, competing with programs like Desqview.
Therefore with all due respect, whether or not it was a pile of crap as you suggest, as you are undoubtedly aware, is contingent upon the fact, that it must have existed in then first place.
As is shown in the picture.
QED
Your stone is over that way >
michael adams
...
Yes, I have used clutch pencils for decades without knowing that was what they were called.
Long time since I saw one of the "twist" kind.
Cheers
Dave R
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