KOH-I-NOOR hardtmuth 5.6mm leadholder madness!

Well this is definitely my largest collection of pencils so far. why these? you might ask, let me tell you...

The reason I like these pencils so much must be the fact that I like to use them for drawing and sketching (which is basically what they are made for!). But strangely, I also like to write with them, so they can basically do everything I need a pencil to do. I also like the way they look and feel, it's a solid brass mechanism, which makes it very heavy, and it has a sturdy aluminum barrel, available in different finishes. Oh, and it's reasonably cheap!

It's a 5.6mm leadholder. Now for the people that aren't familliar with leadholders, basically they are just mechanical pencils, with a slightly different mechanism, and way thicker leads (2mm is the smallest, up to 12mm or so for pastel crayons) So this one is already one of the more thicker leads. But with 5.6mm lead being quite uncommon, the only hardness I seem to find is 2B, which is still okay for me!

The smaller one in the picture above is an automatic version. It's basically the same pencil, except for the mechanism being very similar to normal mechanical pencils, unlike the others that are drop-lead type!

Another thing I like about lead holders, is the fact that they can be sharpened in a more traditional way, using a piece of sanding paper (they sell small wooden planks with some layers of sanding paper on it, in almost every artist's supply store) And I really like to take my time and think of new ways to sharpen it to a more effective point.

I did buy some of them that weren't painted properly, as the paint would come off after some use. So I decided to mess around with them. After sanding for a couple of hours, all the paint was gone, and there was just this raw aluminum finish left.  I think they are even more beautiful than before, and they become even prettier after using them for an extended period of time.

As I mentioned in the begining, the price is very reasonable, at about 8 Euros each.

I also have some other 5.6mm leadholders from Koh-I-Noor and other brands, so if you'd like to read more about this type of pencils, let me know in the comments below. And don't forget to subscribe to my feed if you want to stay updated about my blog!

something more about the Pilot Hi-tec-c...

Thanks to a comment I got on the post about the Pilot Hi-tec-c, talking about more handsome barrel versions of this pen, I remembered having another version of this pen. I guess not many people know this one, even though the Hi-tec-c is a very popular pen. They produced these pens for some time a few years back, and my dad bought one. Luckily, he didn't like the way it writes (like I said before, not everyone likes the Hi-tec-c !), and I got it from him. But only now I found out that it is actually the same as the Hi-tec-c (even though it does say Hi-tec-c on the barrel, stupid me!)

Some more changes...

Today somebody left a comment in which he asked me to adjust the lay-out of the RSS feed. Unfortunately this required me to adjust every post manually, and I managed to scramble the order of the posts. So some of my older posts might now be first on the homepage.
Something else also changed unexpectedly: from now on, the posts aren't entirely shown on the homepage. To read the full post, you'll have to click below the short post on: 'read more'.

I am really sorry for the changes, but I think it's also important to have a proper working RSS feed.  If you have a question or suggestion, please let me know in the comment section.

Rotring 600 2mm leadholder

Last time, I talked about a Staedtler from Japan, that wasn't really easy to get here. Well, this time it'll be about a similar hard-to-find pencil from another brand

Staedtler 925 25-20 2mm leadholder

On this moment, my biggest passion are pencils. (Mainly because of my studies, I have to do a lot of calculations, so when I make a mistake, a pencil is much more forgiving, and easier to use!) 
so I really needed to do a pencil-post, like this one...

Faber-Castell grip 2001/ Design pencils

I've had some of these Faber-Castell grip 2001 pencils for quite a while now, and I like them a lot. But recently I also found some with interesting designs and colours. My collection of these grew consistently, and I thought the time was right to review these lovely pencils!

Pilot Hi-tec-c review

In my previous post, I mentioned my new pens and pencils that I got. One of them is the Pilot Hi-tec C (or G-tec C, as they are called in Belgium) If you don't know anything about these pens, you should also check out Brad's blog: the Pen Addict, he really loves them!

Bloggers that have my eternal gratitude!

It's been a couple of days now since I started this blog, And I think it's the right time to thank some people.

There are six people in particular, that helped me out a lot by linking and giving good tips. They definitely made things a lot easier for me to start my own blog!

New stuff to review!

Today I went to Maastricht, which is a city in Holland, and I found a couple of items that I will be reviewing soon.

I have no idea what I'm doing!

So I have set up an RSS feed subscription (you can see it in the right-hand collumn) and an email subscription option  using Feedburner. BUT I have no idea if it is actually working correctly!

Definitely worth checking out!

So I've been sending emails back and forth with mr. Meckel from bleistift, which is an awesome blog, mostly about pencils. And also about Asian stationery, you should check it out immediately, the link is in the right-hand collumn. 

Visconti van Gogh

This Visconti Van Gogh fountain pen, that I accuired a few years ago, might be THE most beautiful and best writing fountain pen I own!

There will be more...

I am trying to get some more posts online already, but it takes some getting used to, so expect to see some new posts the next couple of days!


PS: expect to see a fancy Italian pen soon

What will it be? 

LAMY accent multipen review

I don’t really own that much multipens, so I’m not the guy that knows absolutely everything about them, especially not how the mechanism works. The main reason that my collection of multipens isn’t huge is because I’m in some sort of love-hate relationship with them: it’s nice to have a pen that can do everything, but it takes away the fun of being able to swap between a variety of pens and pencils.

Though if there is one multipen I would suggest, it would be this one! Lamy is known for their top quality products, and their  awesome  industrial looking designs.

Chapter One

So this is it, if you read this, I finally started a blog about the things I love most: pens, pencils, paper,...  basically everything that can write or be written on! 

Maybe it’s the best idea to start off telling something about myself: my name is Dries, I'm only 16 years old but I'm fond of writing utensils and related items. Which is a good thing, because writing with a nice pen gives a little twist to the everyday life of a student!  I live in Belgium with my mom, dad and a very little dog.

Now the fact that I have a dog doesn't really matter that much (though he is very cute!), but living in Belgium makes things a little more complicated, I’ll explain: Whereas in America and England, certain office supplies are easily accessible, here in Belgium the story is a little different. As long as I have been collecting pens, I have had a lot of trouble finding what I want. Which, especially recently, resulted in a lot of internet shopping (and cursing over enormous customs charges!)

I planned on starting a blog for a long time, so I already figured out what I want and what I don’t want to do. I want to underline the fact that I am Belgian, what I mean with that is that my English grammar won’t be flawless, so please correct me if I write something stupid, this is also a good chance to improve my English, so I hope you guys will help me with that!

Another thing I want to mention is that being a student means that I don’t always have the time to upload a new post. Please understand this, I will do my very best to keep the posts coming, but I can’t promise anything.

Something totally different: I don’t have a professional camera, nor do I have a special studio to take pictures for the posts. Though I have a pretty reasonable smartphone, with a camera that is capable of making reasonable quality pictures. I do customize them just a little to make them a little brighter and prettier. But I can’t promise perfect pictures (at least for now!)

So that’s basically it, but the most important thing:

I hope you all enjoy my blog, and if you have any comments, or recommendations, and you want to tell them to me personally, send me an email to: pencilcaseblog@gmail.com