I didn’t do drafting for very long but I did a lot of writing by hand for many years. I had a callus like that for a long time. It’s faded over the years but there’s still a slightly raised, rougher spot there.

I always enjoyed writing by hand. Studied calligraphy for a while. Eventually I graduated to using fountain pens for as much of my writing as was practical.

Using pencils with the Spirograph or Wild Gears you can do some subtle things I don’t believe are possible with pens. I went kind of nuts with the pencils and leads this year, but then life intervened in my Wild Gears drawing and I wasn’t able to do nearly as much as I’d hoped. I’ve got a brand new set of 100 colored pens sitting here I’ve not yet used at all. It’s right next to a lifetime supply of mechanical pencil lead. Hopefully I’ll find a bit of time to work on it over the summer. Maybe build that callus back up.

Hi Jay,

Since you mentioned drafting I was curious if you still have (or ever developed) a “drafters callus”on your middle finger….haha.
They may take longer to develop than a couple years of drafting classes however if you didn’t do any drafting after school.
I did manual drafting for close to 10 years (before moving to CAD) and still have a callus from the mechanical pencils pressing up against my finger.

Just ordered the Super Spirograph set and was thinking about using pencils to try out designs before doing them in color.
I still have a few lead holders and various leads so I’ll have to dust them off and try them.

This is a great website by the way. Had the standard set as a kid and loved it and just recently got the urge to try Spirographing again.

Yes, mechanical, or, more specifically, technical pencils. Technical pencils are designed more for drafting and art use rather than for regular writing. They will almost always have a thin metal shaft that allows them to be used right up against a straight edge, or the edge of a Wild Gear pen hole. A generic mechanical pencil might have a conical tip more like a wood pencil.

Mechanical pencils were more of an elective course in school. 😉 Dating myself here, but I took drafting in high school back when it was done by hand and inked velum drawings turned into blueprints that were actually blue. (That ammonia developer was nasty!) The pencils we used from drafting were rather different than these, but that got me into using mechanical pencils and aware of hardness ratings. I’ve been using mechanical pencils off and on ever since.

Being able to erase is useful as you mentioned, or for just correcting mistakes. The other idea that comes to mind after using some of the harder/lighter leads is for drawing a pattern to be colored where you don’t want the lines to show up. The 3H lead is so light it’s hard to see when you’re looking for the lines so they would almost certainly disappear once the drawing was colored in.

I have also experimented with wooden colored pencils. They provide a more watercolor-like effect. It’s interesting with some patterns.

I think you’re talking about mechanical pencils. That would make more sense than wooden pencils, as they have a metal barrel that pushes the gear around, rather than the lead, if you hold it right. I must have missed the day in Grade 3 when they taught how to use those pencils, as I’ve never had much luck with them.

They could be useful, however, in certain art applications. Someone was using the wheel-within-a-wheel setup to make celtic knot-type designs, using a pencil, and she was then able to erase part of it before incorporating it into a zentangle-y piece.

Initially I bought a set that included one each of 0.5mm, 0.7mm, and 0.9mm pencils. The 0.9mm was clearly too wide and the 0.5mm was a bit too narrow. The 0.7mm one seemed just right.

That lead me to the next issue — smeared graphite on dense patterns. I’d been using fairly standard HB lead, which is relatively soft. I looked for harder leads but the prices online, mostly due to shipping, were ridiculously high. Eventually I found a deal on Pentel 3H leads. Unfortunately, these turned out to be too hard, making it almost impossible to see the form being drawn. Expanding the search unearthed a deal on Pentel H lead. This seems a good compromise. Hard enough that it doesn’t leave excess graphite on the page but dark enough you can actually see the drawing, at least in good light.

I’ve also experimented with other pencils. I got a Pentel GraphicGear 500 that has a plastic body with a metal grip barrel near the tip. The plastic body doesn’t mate securely with the metal barrel. The slight movement there bothers me. Then I bought a Rotring 600, which has a solid metal body and grip. Very nice pencil I like a lot. Unfortunately, after all these purchases I’m not sure I’m saving much.

This is getting very deep into geeky gears country, but to address a similar problem with my Wild Gears I bought a small set of metric nylon washers on Amazon. They were only a couple dollars so I was willing to experiment.

I took two slight different sized washers and glued them together with the holes aligned. This allowed use of a top washer with a hole sized so it wouldn’t ride up past the shaft of the pen tip and a bottom washer big enough to not drop into any of the holes on the gear. I put the washer pair over the gear hole I want to use and insert the pen through it. This traps the gear between the paper and the body of the pen, keeping the gear from riding up and popping out of the ring. It’s not the most elegant approach but it is reasonably effective for those cases where the gear keeps trying to pop out.

Wild Gears have a smooth surface over which the washers easily slide. My recollection from childhood is that Spirograph gears are not smooth so this may not work with them.

After a year of no change in the non-availability of the 50-pen Stabilo set, I contacted MacPherson Art. I was told the 50-pen sets are on order and should start to show up at art supply dealers over the next few months. Suggested retail price is a rather staggering $59.95. One can only hope that street price will be deeply discounted like with the current sets.

In other pen-related events, I recently purchased a 14-pen set of Sakura Pigma Micron color pens. These are all the 05 versions that have a .45mm tip. They also came with a very nice zippered case with loops to retain each of the pens. I doubt I’ll get much use from the case but it’s a nice touch and could be useful if you travel with a subset of your Spirograph/Wild Gears. The colors are all vibrant, including one of the yellowest yellows I’ve every seen. Like the other Micron pens, they lay down a very consistent, steady line. Drawings done with Micron pens always have an air of precision about them that other pens don’t have. If only they weren’t so expensive. I paid $24 for the 14-pen set.

The Stabilo 88s have a thin, straight point. Other pens such as the Uniball and, from what I can see, the Pentels, have a thicker, more conical point which may help hold down the inner wheel. Just guessing. Keep practicing….

Thanks, Heather! I saw those too but couldn’t tell whether they were the same as some of the colors in the larger assortment I linked to. I guess there’s one good way to determine that. 🙂

I’ve been trying to use the Stabilo 88s, but is it just me, or do other people have issues with the wheels popping out over the rings with Stabilos more than other pens? I’ve gotten really frustrated with them for this reason, which sucks, because I really like the array of colors available!