About
This is the 0.5mm version of this pencil, and can be found on Amazon.Quality
The body is made of plastic, but the clutch is brass. I get about 7mm of lead out with 10 clicks.
Writing Experience
The grip is made of hard rubber. Like the body of the pencil, it gets thicker from the button to the tip. This results in a grip end that is comparable in size to a Dr. Grip's grip. This is strange as most grips are usually straight, concave, convex, or taper off. It seems to promote downward force on the page instead of a balanced grip force on the pencil. That and the hard (or harder than normal) Tombow lead in this pencil lead me to believe that this pencil might be well suited for a heavy handed person. I'm not heavy handed, but I have large hands, so the grip still feels fairly comfortable to me, especially if I press down harder than usual. In that case I also get a better, darker line. Changing the lead also helps, but I love the feedback I get from Tombow lead.The eraser is attached to the end cap, and is held there pretty snugly, so you can pull it out as you use it to get more out of it. The cap has a tab on the side that helps prevent the pencil from rolling around too much and makes it easier to remove.
Features
This pencil has a very interesting secondary knock, or advancement, mechanism that is actuated when the body is bent in any direction. I believe it is unique in that regard. I think it works very well, and I found it very useful. As a typical mechanical pencil user, I like the rotate the pencil as I write so that I can get the sharpest line that I can. Since this one has no clip, this pencil is fully symmetrical, so you can rotate it as much as you want without anything getting in the way. Then just bend it whenever you need more lead. It is like an upgrade to the side button.The tip is kind of pocket safe, but this isn't the kind of pencil to carry around in your pocket anyway.
Because of the "bend" feature, the lead isn't actually loaded from the top like usual. Removing the end cap reveals a small chamber, but it is too short to hold lead of the usual length. If you want to store extra lead there, you will have to snap it in half, but this means that you will waste twice as much lead than usual when each piece gets too small to use. That is too bad, but it occurred to me that you could also put spare erasers in there, and I can't think of another pencil that would let you do that. To load lead into the pencil you have to unscrew it from the middle as shown. The tube is really tiny, so I wouldn't try to put more than one extra piece in there.
Conclusion
I give this pencil an A rating. The grip is kind of weird, but it is comfortable to me. I love having a side-knock pencil that I can rotate as I wish and without worry. It is made of plastic, and the price reflects that, but they still put a brass clutch in this baby, and it clicks nicely. Finally, you can't get an eraser that's more solid than one that isn't attached to the pencil. Yes, it's tiny, but you can use it with ultimate control, and hell, you can store extra erasers in this thing.We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
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