I realize that pens and gel pens aren't the only writing instrument out on the market. While I prefer to write in brightly colors inks, pens aren't the best utensil for designing my D&D characters, erasing quick calculations and drawing or sketching pictures in my sketch books. In these cases, I switch to a pencil. We've all used them in grade schools when learning our letters and doing homework and passing notes to and from each other. However, when was the last time you took a good look at your pencil and thought... what exactly does this writing implement do? Why do pencils get stamped with numbers or random letters? Well, look no further as this week we take a look at pencils, both traditional and mechanical.

Traditional pencils are manufactured from wood or plastic bricks and contain non-refillable cores. They're put together like a sandwich, a slim rod of lead stuck between two sheets of wood or plastic, which is then cut down to small hand-sized rounded rods. Once the lead has run out, these pencils are thrown away. Pencils can be manufactured from plastic, tropical rain forest wood or incense-cedar wood. To identify which type of pencil is made of what material all you need to do is look at the material that surrounds the "lead" center or writing core of the pencil:

1. Plastic pencils have a pinkish color near the writing core. They bend easily, and snap cleanly if you break it in half and have no scent.
2. Tropical rainforest pencils have a brownish color as well as tiny flecks of brown and read in them. They also have a slight woodsy scent to them.
3. Incense-cedar pencils have a reddish brown color to them as well as a visible seam from their manufacturing process. They also smell like cedar when they are sharpened.

The part of the pencil that creates the marks on paper is known as the writing core. While many of us grew up thinking that lead pencils were made of lead, they are not. Instead they are made of a mixture of nontoxic graphite and clay. Therefore, the grade of hardness a traditional pencil has, is dependent on how much more clay or graphite is added to the core. Manufacturer's mark the hardness of the pencil on the outside with either a numbering or a letter grade. Numeric grades go from 1-4, while there are several different letter marks. An H represents hardness, a B designates the color the tip writes with and an F represents the pencil’s ability to sharpen to a fine point.The most common grade here in the States is a #2 or HB grade pencil. Pencils with harder grades are used most often for drafting means while softer pencil grades are preferred by artists for their ability to shade or soften pictures.

Since traditional pencils don’t last very long, can be a bit messy, and take some sort of sharpening device to expose the graphite inside them people started finding ways to conserve their favorite writing device. In 1822 two Britons (Sampson Mordan and John Hawkins) developed and patented the first mechanical pencil mechanism to propel a writing core thru a shaft allowing people to write with it. We call this device a mechanical pencil. Growing in popularity across the globe, Tokuji Hayakawa, a metal worker in Japan refined the casing using metal and sold his version as “Ever-Sharp Pencil”. It sold in such great numbers that he founded a company based on the name of the pencil... Sharp.

Like it’s traditional cousin, there are 4 different types of mechanisms that make a mechanical pencil push the graphite out from the tip:

1. Ratched-based pencils that advance the lead to the tip with a button on one end or the side of the pencil.
2. Screw-based pencils that advance the lead by twisting a screw which moves a slider down the pencil’s barrel.
3. Screw-based pencils where the lead is advanced using friction inside the screw.
4. Twist-based pencils that advance the lead when the pencil is twisted in some fashion. These pencils sometimes allow the lead to slide back inside the pencil as well so that the lead does not get wasted.

What makes the mechanical pencil so popular was the ability to refill the pencil case with different types of graphite. It needed no extra sharpener, created no wood shaving waste and people didn’t have to purchase a whole new pencil when their last one ran out of lead. The writing core for a mechanical pencil is composed of graphite, clay and wax. They appear as long thin rods and are usually sold in small bundles in a plastic container. Unlike a traditional pencil who’s grades are marked in hardness and blackness, mechanical pencil grades are marked in terms of their diameter, in millimeters. I’m not sure why this is... but I do know that it’s because of their popularity with drafting that they’re marked in millimeters.

The most common thicknesses include 0.5mm and 0.7mm. However, the writing core can be made as small as 0.3mm and as large as 2.0mm. The rule of thumb for selecting size goes: the smaller the core the finer the line these pencils yield. 0.5mm pencils are more practical for general writing purposes and 0.7 -0.9mm pencils work best for sketching and writing.

I prefer to use a mechanical pencil unless I’m coloring in a picture with a colored pencil. I tend to lose pencil sharpeners to my cats who think they are play toys. Electric sharpeners are fine and dandy, but they cost and are quite loud and sometimes not as portable as my current lifestyle is. Which is why I’ve been favoring my green Sanford Clear Point 0.5mm ratchet-based pencil. It handles all my needs from writing up my character sheets to sketching images from my imagination onto paper. It has a slim case and an ergonomic, soft rubber grip at the tip of the pencil that fits nicely in my hands. It also slips into my gaming clipboard. Some of my friends use those fat ergonomic pencils like EZGrip or Dr. Grip but they feel large and awkward sitting between my fingers. No matter what pencil you choose, whether it’s a traditional-tried and true #2 pencil or a fancy ergonomic grip mechanical pencil, make sure that it’s a tool you’ll enjoy using and will want to use over and over again.