george wilson
09-13-2010, 6:45 PM
This is an 18th.C. mechanical pencil I made a few months ago for a friend who wanted one real bad. Of course,you can't buy them,and they are rare.
The brass pencil was made on a metal lathe,but the work was turned freehand. The knurled parts are made with knurls I have made.
If anyone wants to see how to make knurls here,I will post pictures of how to make old fashioned knurls like you cannot get any more. They were used on old brass microscopes,etc. Those kind of knurls.
Wooden pencils with hand sawed square graphite "leads" were in use by the 18th.C.. I have 1,by the way. It is only 3/16" in diameter,with a 1/32" square lead in it. The lead doesn't go all the way through the pencil. The didn't waste lead on a short pencil.
There was a deposit of pure graphite discovered in England,I think in the 1500's. No where else in Europe did they have any of this graphite. For many years,the Germans and French struggled to produce a man made substitute. Conte,whose name is well known in pencils today,finally managed to do it,in the late 18th.or early 19th.C. I can't recall exactly.
The earliest use of graphite was by local sheep farmers,using chunks of it to mark their sheep.
It was discovered that cannon ball molds could be made out of the graphite. They could be used over and over. The English Government declared the deposits were crown property then. I suppose pencil makers got what couldn't be made into cannon molds.
You can get 3 millimeter leads,but at the time I did not have any,so just turned down a normal pencil to use in the meantime.
The pencil is simple:The knurled collars slide up the tapered shafts,squeezing the lead slightly. The pencil had to be made in halves,threaded invisibly together under the central collar. It was more trouble to make than I had realized before I started.
The brass pencil was made on a metal lathe,but the work was turned freehand. The knurled parts are made with knurls I have made.
If anyone wants to see how to make knurls here,I will post pictures of how to make old fashioned knurls like you cannot get any more. They were used on old brass microscopes,etc. Those kind of knurls.
Wooden pencils with hand sawed square graphite "leads" were in use by the 18th.C.. I have 1,by the way. It is only 3/16" in diameter,with a 1/32" square lead in it. The lead doesn't go all the way through the pencil. The didn't waste lead on a short pencil.
There was a deposit of pure graphite discovered in England,I think in the 1500's. No where else in Europe did they have any of this graphite. For many years,the Germans and French struggled to produce a man made substitute. Conte,whose name is well known in pencils today,finally managed to do it,in the late 18th.or early 19th.C. I can't recall exactly.
The earliest use of graphite was by local sheep farmers,using chunks of it to mark their sheep.
It was discovered that cannon ball molds could be made out of the graphite. They could be used over and over. The English Government declared the deposits were crown property then. I suppose pencil makers got what couldn't be made into cannon molds.
You can get 3 millimeter leads,but at the time I did not have any,so just turned down a normal pencil to use in the meantime.
The pencil is simple:The knurled collars slide up the tapered shafts,squeezing the lead slightly. The pencil had to be made in halves,threaded invisibly together under the central collar. It was more trouble to make than I had realized before I started.