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61-501: Keeran is considered a pioneer maker of mechanical pencils , as the inventor of the first successful one. Charles Rood Keeran , a native of Bloomington, Illinois , had worked for the Bloomington Pickle Co. in his 20s. Around 1911 he partnered with J.F. Funk to manufacture White Crown Mason jar lids, though his attention soon turned to mechanical pencils. Keeran's earliest patent on a pencil dates to October 10, 1913. He

122-637: A knife . The development of pencil sharpeners began in France when a French book from 1822 reported in detail about an invention of Mr. C. A. Boucher (Paris) for the construction of a pencil sharpener. He was working with pantographs and apparently needed a device to precisely sharpen the pencils. The device of Mr. Boucher was technically sensible and functional. His idea was also internationally known and recognized, as shown by corresponding reports in German literature at this time. But Mr. Boucher had not applied

183-415: A parer or topper ) is a tool for sharpening a pencil 's writing point by shaving away its worn surface. Pencil sharpeners may be operated manually or by an electric motor . It is common for many sharpeners to have a casing around them, which can be removed for emptying the pencil shavings debris into a bin. Before the development of dedicated pencil sharpeners, a pencil was sharpened by whittling with

244-458: A .046 inches (1.2 mm) lead, which became the industry standard for thin mechanical pencil lead (although today the most popular sizes are 0.5 mm and 0.7 mm). "On my way home on the train I had time to study it carefully... the thing that impressed me about it was the crudeness of the device … I realized that the public was willing to pay from $ 3.50 to $ 5 for a good fountain pen and I could see no reason why they wouldn't pay as much for

305-474: A World War II veteran, had kept his collection of more than 3,400 sharpeners in a small shed, outside his home in Carbon Hill in southeast Ohio. He had started collecting after his wife gave him a few pencil sharpeners as a gift in the late 1980s and kept them organized into categories, including cats, Christmas, and Disneyland . So-called "prism" sharpeners, also called "manual" or "pocket" sharpeners in

366-440: A business partnership with Gabriel Riddle from 1823 to 1837. The earliest Mordan pencils are thus hallmarked SMGR. After 1837, Mordan ended his partnership with Riddle and continued to manufacture pencils as "S. Mordan & Co". His company continued to manufacture pencils and a wide range of silver objects until World War II , when the factory was bombed. Between 1822 and 1874, more than 160 patents were registered pertaining to

427-655: A darker color and are typically softer. F stands for fine; it is in between H and HB on the lead grading scale. Compared to standard pencils that have 24 grades of lead, there are only 10 grades of mechanical pencil lead, ranging from 4H-4B. Mechanical pencils with colored leads are less common, but do exist. Crayola 's "Twistable" product line includes two different types of colored pencils (erasable and non-erasable) with mechanical feed mechanisms that are dispensed by twisting, but does not offer refill leads. Several companies such as Pentel , Pilot , and Uni-ball (Mitsubishi Pencil Co.) currently manufacture colored refill leads in

488-509: A desk or wall and powered by a hand crank . Typically, the pencil is inserted into the sharpener with one hand, and the crank is turned with the other. This rotates a set of helical cylindrical cutters in the mechanism, set at an acute angle to each other. The multiple cutting edges quickly sharpen the pencil, with a more precise finish than a single-blade device . Some cylindrical sharpeners have only one helical cutter cylinder , but most have two cylinders or more. Most planetary sharpeners have

549-472: A favourable balance between precision and strength. Less common lead sizes can range from 0.2 mm up to 5.6 mm. Pentel has also previously demonstrated a prototype 0.1 mm pencil. Pencils with sub-millimeter leads can usually hold multiple leads at the same time, reducing the frequency of refills. One exception was the Pentel 350 E, possibly Pentel's first mechanical pencil, which could only hold

610-629: A few other US companies, it dominated the market. Electric pencil sharpeners for offices have been made since at least 1917. A school teacher, Neil Carruthers, brought electric sharpeners from his visit to USA back to his town of Whitehaven for use in schools at the end of the Victorian Era. In May 2011, tourism officials in Logan, Ohio put on display, in its regional welcome center, hundreds of pencil sharpeners which had been collected by Rev. Paul Johnson, an Ohio minister who died in 2010. Johnson,

671-464: A fine pencil." In October 1915, Keeran relocated operations in Chicago , then signed a contract with the "Wahl Adding Machine Company" of Chicago to manufacture Eversharp-branded pencils. In mid-November 1915 Wahl took control of Eversharp in exchange for a capital infusion of $ 20,000. At the end of 1916, Eversharp was wholly absorbed by Wahl through an exchange of stock. Keeran retained a small stake in

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732-402: A large opening, with a rotatable guide disk in front of it that has multiple holes of different sizes, to accommodate pencils of many different diameters. Advanced models have a spring-driven holder for the pencil, so that the pencil automatically is pushed into the mechanism while being sharpened. Some versions also offer a regulator of the desired sharpness, since it is not always desired to make

793-465: A limited range of diameters (0.5 mm, 0.7 mm, or 2.0 mm) for their own products, as well as "variety packs" consisting of different colors of leads for those who want to trial different colors of lead. Koh-i-Noor makes mechanical colored pencils with replaceable leads in 2.0, 3.15 and 5.6 mm sizes. Pencil sharpener A pencil sharpener (or pencil pointer , or in Ireland

854-434: A mechanism that retracts the lead when twisted the other way, but many older designs do not and the lead must be pushed back into the pencil manually. A clutch pencil (or leadholder) tends to use thicker leads (2.0–5.6 mm) and generally holds only one piece of lead at a time. A typical clutch pencil is activated by pressing the eraser cap on the top, to open the jaws inside the tip and allow the lead to freely drop through from

915-514: A new type of lead formulated with polymers that act as a binder to strengthen the lead. This polymer replaced the clay in mechanical pencil lead and made it easier for manufacturers to produce lead with smaller diameters. Compared to standard pencils, mechanical pencils have a smaller range of marking types, though numerous variations exist. Most mechanical pencils can be refilled, but some inexpensive models are meant to be disposable and are discarded when empty. Mechanical pencil mechanisms use only

976-511: A patent for his pencil sharpener. Commercial use of his inventions is unlikely. French mathematician Bernard Lassimonne (Limoges) applied for the world's first patent (French patent #2444) on a pencil sharpener in 1828. Pencil sharpener devices using his patent were actually produced and sold by Binant, a shop for painting accessories in Paris. In 1833 in England, Cooper & Eckstein patented

1037-492: A round pencil, abandoning some distinctive aspects of the carpenter's pencil. Alternatively, a special carpenter's pencil sharpener can be used, which has a sliding mechanism that leaves flat facets on the lead, in a manner similar to hand sharpening with a sharp knife. Mechanical pencils with thin diameter leads dispense the graphite lead progressively during use and thus do not require sharpening; such pencils are sometimes called "self-sharpening". A type of mechanical pencil has

1098-512: A series of missteps in its attempts to enter the then-new field of ballpoint pens hurt the company badly. In 1957 the Parker Pen Company acquired Wahl-Eversharp. The Eversharp name was used for a time, but within a few years the production of Eversharp pens and pencils had come to an end. However, accessories such as refills continued to be sold under the brand until 1999, when it was discontinued. Beginning in 2004, Syd Saperstein in

1159-464: A simple propelling mechanism with large lead capacity and robust, ergonomically sound design . . . that redefined the mechanical pencil as a mass-market product, to the extent that "eversharp" came to be widely used as a generic term for a mechanical pencil." More that 12,000,000 Eversharp pencils had been sold by the early 1920s, and its design was widely copied. A pioneering mechanical pencil in Japan

1220-429: A single blade for use on wax crayons are available, and sometimes included in boxes of crayons. These often have plastic blades, which are adequate for the soft wax. An artist's or draftsman's pencil sharpener leaves the graphite untouched and sharpens only the wood (some models can switch from standard to wood-only by an adjustment). The graphite lead is then honed to a sharp point with a lead pointer, which sharpens only

1281-546: A single lead diameter. Some pencils, such as the Pentel Function 357, place several mechanisms within the same housing, so as to offer a range of thicknesses (in this case three: 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 mm). 1.00 mm leads also exist, but they are very rare. Different sizes of lead diameters are available to accommodate various preferences and pencil builds, as shown in the table below. The most common lead sizes are 0.5 mm and 0.7 mm, whose line widths provide

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1342-504: A single stick of 0.5 mm lead. Refill leads can be bought in small tubes and inserted into the barrel as needed. The bracketed values in inches were found by calculation and rounded to 3 decimal places. The diameters, however, are not exact. The exact diameter is usually slightly larger. The Japanese JIS standard for mechanical pencil leads, states that the actual diameter for "0.5 mm" lead (for example), should range from 0.55 mm to 0.58 mm. For sub-millimeter diameter leads,

1403-411: A traditional HB (US#2) pencil lead. The hardness depends on the proportion of polymer or resin and graphite in the lead. It is determined by a numerical scale: the higher the number, the harder the lead. Similarly to standard wooden pencils, the lead is distinguished by grading scales. H stands for hardness; as they are typically harder and produce a light gray color. B stands for blackness; they produce

1464-507: A variety of improvements to mechanical pencils. The first spring -loaded mechanical pencil was patented in 1877. Two of the most popular 19th-century lead sizes were 1.5 and 1.03 mm, "VS" and "M", respectively. Many other sizes were in use, however, before the Eversharp's success made its .046 inch lead size a de facto standard (this size has been variously metricized as 1.1, 1.18, and 1.2 mm, all nominal sizes). Thinner .036 inch (0.9 mm) lead

1525-464: Is a spring-loaded collar that, when depressed as the lead is worn away, extends out again when pressure is released. An advanced ratchet type has a mechanism that rotates the pencil lead 9 degrees counter-clockwise every time the lead is pressed on to the paper (which counts as one stroke), to distribute wear evenly. This auto-rotation mechanism keeps the lead 50% narrower than in the common propelling mechanical pencils, resulting in uniform thickness of

1586-410: Is applied on the lead, the lead is automatically retracted inwards. Higher-end mechanical pencils often feature a lead hardness grade indicator and sometimes feature a retractable lead guide pipe. This allows the lead guide pipe to retract back into the pencil body, which will keep it protected in storage and during transit and makes it 'pocket-safe'. In spite of the name, pencil leads do not contain

1647-404: Is released and the jaws retract, the "lead retainer" (a small rubber device inside the tip) keeps the lead in place, preventing the lead from either falling freely outward or riding back up into the barrel until the jaws recover their grip. Other designs use a precisely-fitted metal sleeve to guide and support the lead, and do not need a rubber retainer. In one type of ratchet-based pencil, shaking

1708-504: Is the Boston Polar Club pencil sharpener, introduced around 1936. Electric pencil sharpeners work on the same principle as manual ones, but one or more flat-bladed or cylindrical cutters are rotated by an electric motor . Some electric pencil sharpeners are powered by batteries rather than being plugged into a building's electrical system, making them more portable. Auto-stop electric pencil sharpeners are able to sense when

1769-820: Is worn away from use. The vast majority of mechanical pencils have erasers . Other names include: microtip pencil, automatic pencil, drafting pencil, technical pencil, draughting pencil, click pencil (generally refers to a specific brand), pump pencil, leadholder, Pacer (Australian English, ca. the 1980s), propelling pencil (British and Australian English, often refers to higher-end mechanical pencils), pen pencil (Indian English), and lead pencil (Bangladeshi and American English). Mechanical pencils are used to provide lines of constant width, without need of sharpening , for tasks such as technical drawing as well as for clean looking writing. They are also used for fine-art drawing. Since they do not have to be sharpened, they are also popular with students. Mechanical pencils were first used in

1830-589: The 18th century, with many designs patented in the 19th and 20th centuries. Conrad Gessner described a lead holder pencil in 1565, but the lead had to be manually adjusted to sharpen it. The earliest extant datable example of a mechanical pencil was found aboard the wreckage of HMS Pandora , which sank in 1791. The first patent for a refillable pencil with lead-propelling mechanism was issued to Sampson Mordan and John Isaac Hawkins in Britain in 1822. After buying out Hawkins' patent rights, Mordan entered into

1891-603: The Boston Fountain Pen Company. Somewhat confusingly, the Wahl Pen Company used the Wahl name for its pens and the Eversharp name for its pencils. At the end of the 1920s, however, the company renamed itself Wahl-Eversharp, and all products, pens and pencils alike, were marked accordingly. In 1941 the company renamed itself, this time as Eversharp. It remained a major player throughout the 1940s, but

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1952-579: The French nobleman Thierry des Estivaux invented a simple hand-held pencil sharpener in its recognizable modern form. The first American pencil sharpener was patented by Walter Kittredge Foster of Bangor, Maine in 1855. He founded a company – the first pencil sharpener company in the world – and produced such small hand-held pencil sharpeners in a large amount. Only a few years later the sharpeners were sold also in Europe as "American pencil sharpeners". At

2013-596: The United States and Emmanuel Caltagirone in Italy attempted to revive the Wahl-Eversharp brand, working independently at first, then joining efforts. In 2012, they secured abandonments of the original Wahl and Eversharp trademarks and filed new trademarks for a new venture, reviving the brand name as the "Wahl-Eversharp Company", a wholly owned subsidiary of Pensbury Manor LLC, an Arizona corporation. Today

2074-422: The United States, have no separate moving parts and are typically the smallest and cheapest commonly used pencil sharpener on the market. The simplest common variety is a small rectangular prism or block, only about 1 × 5/8 × 7/16 inch (2.5 × 1.7 × 1.1 cm) in size. The block-shaped sharpener consists of a combined point-shaping cone that is aligned to the cylindrical pencil alignment guide hole, into which

2135-528: The barrel (or back into it when retracting). Because the lead falls out freely when the jaws are opened, its forward movement cannot be controlled except by external means. This can be easily done by keeping the tip of the pencil a few millimeters above a work surface or the palm of one's hand. Some clutch pencils do have mechanisms which incrementally advance the lead, such as the Alvin Tech-Matic leadholder, but these are not normally considered to be in

2196-550: The beginning of the 20th century the company Automatic Pencil Sharpener Co. (APSCO) was founded and brought out the US Automatic Pencil Sharpener after 1907, which dominated in those years. They later sold machines with milling mechanisms, such as the Climax, Dexter, Wizard, and Junior models. In the next few decades, APSCO became the largest pencil sharpening machine producer in the world and together with

2257-415: The combined firm and held the position of sales manager, but by the end of 1917 Keeran had been squeezed out of the company. The Eversharp pencil was a huge success. By 1921 over 12 million had been sold. The Eversharp allowed Wahl to become one of the leading manufacturers of both pencils and pens. Wahl's entry into the fountain pen business in 1917 was also facilitated by Charles Keeran, through purchase of

2318-422: The company produces modern fountain pens based on original patented designs of both Wahl and Eversharp. Mechanical pencil A mechanical pencil or clutch pencil is a pencil with a replaceable and mechanically extendable solid pigment core called a "lead" / ˈ l ɛ d / . The lead , often made of graphite , is not bonded to the outer casing, and the user can mechanically extend it as its point

2379-770: The end of the 19th century, especially in the United States, pencil sharpeners with various mechanisms had been developed and put on the market. These devices were often heavy and intended for use in offices. Examples are the Perfect Pencil Pointer (Goodell. Co.), the GEM Pencil Sharpener (by Gould & Cook Co.), the Planetary Pencil Sharpener (A. B. Dick Co.), all from the US or the Jupiter (Guhl & Harbeck Co.) from Germany. At

2440-401: The flattened shape of which stops them from rolling away, while still providing a constant line width. These pencils were traditionally sharpened with tools conveniently to hand, such as a plane or sandpaper. Rotating pencil sharpeners are now available for these pencils, in which a rotating plastic collar holds the pencil in position, although they then sharpen to the usual conical point as for

2501-432: The graphite core needle-sharp. Some older models like the 1897 German Jupiter 1 used reversible rotary cutter-disks with cutting edges radiating from the center on each side. These were high-end models, quite large and expensive. Others simply used abrasives like sandpaper . In some cases an abrasive was used to shape the graphite core, while the wood was cut some other way. The oldest surviving electric pencil sharpener

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2562-499: The lead 18 degrees per stroke (or 20 strokes per complete revolution), which is better suited for western scripts. There exist protection mechanisms that prevent the lead from breaking (within certain limits) when excessive pressure is exerted while writing. A mechanism employed in the DelGuard system by Zebra of Japan causes the lead sleeve to extend outward when excessive pressure is applied at an angle. When excess vertical pressure

2623-434: The lead and can actively propel it forward, and those that only hold the lead in position. Screw -based pencils advance the lead by twisting a screw mechanism, which moves a propelling pin or lead carrier down the barrel of the pencil. Lead is not fed from an internal reservoir, but must be replaced manually, usually from the front. This was the most common type up until the earlier part of the mid-twentieth century. Most have

2684-438: The lead without wood. Lead pointers are also used with mechanical leadholders , with thicker diameter leads like 2 mm which have removable/refillable leads. Some sharpeners which function as a long point sharpener, have a second hole in which the blade sharpens the untouched graphite to a long, more precise point than would be otherwise possible using a single hole long point sharpener. Carpenters may use carpenter pencils ,

2745-522: The lines written onto the paper. The design was first patented by Schmidt of Germany, and later developed by Mitsubishi Pencil Company of Japan, and named Kuru Toga under the Uni brand. This type of pencil is most suited for Asian languages that have multiple strokes per letter or word, where the pencil is frequently lifted off the paper. The mechanism is less suitable for cursive writing used in western scripts. Another recent auto-rotation movement by Uni rotates

2806-640: The manufacture of radios, but his first invention was immortalized in the name of his new company: Sharp . Some present-day manufacturers are: Pentel , Pilot , Tombow , Uni-ball and Zebra of Japan; Faber-Castell , Lamy , Rotring and Staedtler of Germany; Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth of the Czech Republic; Bic of France; Monami of South Korea ; PaperMate and Parker of USA; Caran d'Ache of Switzerland and numerous Chinese as well as other Asian and European manufacturers. Mechanical pencils can be divided into two basic types: those that both hold

2867-432: The pencil back and forth causes a weight inside the pencil to operate a mechanism in the cap. A button may be present on the top or side of the pencil, to allow the user to advance the lead manually when necessary. Another variation advances the lead automatically. In this design, the lead is advanced by a ratchet but only prevented from going back into the pencil, just held from falling by a small amount of friction . The nib

2928-420: The pencil being sharpened. Unlike prism sharpeners, linear blade sharpeners do not rotate relative to the pencil being sharpened, and may be viewed as just a special form of knife, with a mechanical guide for increased safety and convenience. Some models use replaceable shaving razor blades , while others have permanently-fitted blades. Linear blade sharpeners may require more skill, but they allow one to sharpen

2989-420: The pencil is inserted. A sharp blade is mounted so that its sharp edge just enters the shaping cone tangentially . The pencil is inserted into the sharpener and rotated while the sharpener is held motionless. The body of the sharpener is often contoured, ridged or grooved to make the small block easier to firmly grip, and is typically made of aluminum alloy , magnesium alloy or hard plastic . The blade inside

3050-428: The pencil lead which break away to be removed with only minor inconvenience. Prism sharpeners can be bare or enclosed in a container to collect the shavings, while some enclosed sharpeners may be harder to clear in the event of a blockage. A few prism sharpeners are hand-cranked, rotating the cutting blade instead of rotating the pencil. Moderate care is needed to not break the tip of the pencil being sharpened, requiring

3111-469: The pencil to be sharpened again. However, because pencils may have different standard diameters in different nations, imported sharpeners may have non-standard-sized alignment guide-holes, making sharpening attempts difficult. If the alignment hole is too small, the pencil cannot be inserted, while if it is too large, the tip of the pencil will repeatedly break off. Prism sharpeners may be right- or left-handed, requiring clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation of

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3172-408: The same category as most pencils with propelling mechanisms. Ratchet -based or "repeater" pencils are a variant of the clutch pencil, in which the lead is held in place by two or three small jaws inside a ring at the tip. The jaws are controlled by a button on the end or the side of the pencil. When the button is pushed, the jaws move forward and separate, allowing the lead to advance. When the button

3233-417: The sharpener shaves the wood and graphite tip of the pencil, while the shavings emerge through a slot along the blade edge. It is important that the cylindrical alignment hole closely fits the diameter of the pencil, to keep the pencil from wobbling, which would cause stepped or lurching cut-depths and point breakage. Another important feature is a larger clearance hole at the end of the cone allowing sections of

3294-444: The so-called Styloxynon, a simple device consisting of two sharp files set together at right angle in a small block of rosewood. This is the oldest pencil sharpener that has surviving examples. In the 1830s and 1840s, some French people, all based in Paris, were engaged in construction of simple pencil sharpening tools, like François Joseph Lahausse. These devices were partially sold, but without supra-regional significance. In 1847,

3355-435: The standard length of the cylindrical stick for all grades is 60 mm. However, some manufacturers make leads that are 75 mm long, for selected grades. As with non-mechanical pencils, the leads of mechanical pencils are available in a range of hardness ratings , depending on the user's desired balance between darkness and durability. A commonly-used mechanical pencil lead is identical in density, but not in thickness to

3416-503: The tip of the pencil into any desired shape and angle of taper, whereas prism sharpeners have a fixed sharpening angle and produce circular symmetry. While most linear blade sharpeners are simple and directly hand-operated, some devices in the past were crank-operated, using mechanisms to convert crank rotation into linear motion. These mechanisms are also called planetary sharpeners , in reference to their use of planetary gears . A larger, stationary planetary sharpener can be mounted on

3477-466: The tip of the pencil is long enough, so they stop automatically. In basic automatic pencil sharpeners, the lead may become too long and break, and so users must be careful to supervise the operation. Specialized sharpeners are available that operate on non-standard sizes of pencil-shaped markers, such as wax crayons used in primary schools. Sharpeners that have two openings, one for normal pencils and one for larger crayons, are fairly common. Sharpeners with

3538-430: The toxic chemical element lead , but are typically made with graphite and clay, or plastic polymers. The downside of mechanical leads are that they are not as strong as traditional pencils. Wooden pencil lead is bonded to the outer wooden case, therefore providing more lead protection and strength. This changed in 1962, when Pentel launched new mechanical pencils with the diameters of 0.5mm and 0.7mm. These pencils contained

3599-588: Was granted US patent 1,130,741 on March 9, 1915. The first production of Eversharp pencils was made in New Jersey by the "Heath Corporation", a prominent provider of high quality metalwork to the writing equipment industry. These pencils were test-marketed over the holiday season of 1913 at Wanamaker's in New York City . Keeran returned to Bloomington sometime in 1914 and established "Keeran & Co.", selling Heath-manufactured pencils. Those pencils had

3660-489: Was introduced in the later 1930s and gradually became the new standard, eventually being displaced by 0.7 mm. Many thinner sizes are now available, as well as thicker leads such as 1.4 and 2.0 mm. The first modern mechanical pencil was the Eversharp (originally "Ever Sharp"), invented by Charles R. Keeran who applied for the key patent in 1913. It has been described as "the first mass-produced mechanical pencil to combine

3721-591: Was invented in 1915 by Tokuji Hayakawa , a metalworker who had just finished his apprenticeship. It was patented in Japan in 1920 and marketed as the "Ever-Ready Sharp Pencil". Although it has been claimed that large numbers were sold, surviving Ever-Ready Sharps are rare. In 1923 the Hayakawa Brothers factory was destroyed in the Great Kantō earthquake. By 1924 Tokuji Hayakawa had turned his attention to

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