Pencil Lead Concentricity with Wood Shaft

The simplest solution is to spend a bit more and avoid buying the cheap quality pencils.

You either get what you pay for or else you get what someone else pays for and that someone else is usually not the one who has to use what they paid for for you.

Yup I agree ... probably government supplied though.

Why did the OP not list the manufacturer(s)?

I prefer a good wooden pencil over a mechanical one if only for the smell (incense-cedar) ... it's a zen thing.

Perhaps a little civil disobedience is in order ... return the 'defective' implements. Sign the return letter,

Highly Defective,

'Thoreau Lee'

Pun intended.

If the pencils have to be used, try applying a torque to the end of the pencil to force it slightly to one side within the grinding gears.

You could issue pen knives (isn't that ironic) to the kiddies to shave down the wood, and sandpaper to point the graphite. (Old-time drafters' sharpening pads consisted of several strips of sandpaper stapled to a wooden slat.)

In this case, they would more accurately be termed "pencil knives".

"You could issue pen knives"

That would bring in the SWAT team.

I have also found that the quality of good ole #2 pencils have declined dramatically.

The other alternative is to issue individual pencil sharpeners to the students (although this adds cost and is not really a solution to what is effectively a poor quality, border-line defective product).

I would strongly suggest advising whoever is in charge of stationary purchase or supply to switch to a better quality pencil supplier as it sounds like either your current supplier's quality has slipped or has been changed to a cheaper inferior supplier.

Is there a specification standard for concentricity of pencil lead with the wooden shaft?

There probably is governing graphite quality and concentricity but I don't know what it would be. What country are you in?

This is probably a snoozer, but maybe something interesting might turn up: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=ie7&q=pencil+specifications&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7ACEW_enUS408US408

I question the sharpener that you are using. If the length from the point to any of the painted wood sides significantly changes in length then the problem is your sharpener and not the pencil.

If your pencils though are really that far off-center that a properly functioning sharpener puts wood instead of graphite at the tip then what will you do even if we tell you that the location shouldn't vary more than X millimeters away from center? Will you take the pencils back to the store you bought them from and ask for a refund? Will you wave a print out of our reply to the store owner to support your case? Maybe you could send the box of asymmetric pencils manufacturer and demand a higher quality replacement.

Before you do any of these, I highly recommend that you figure out a method to measure and quantify this eccentricity. Come back to us with some statistical data about the mean deviation and average eccentricity of the lead you've found that works in your sharpener and the ones that don't. Then we maybe able to help you with the engineering challenge to correct this problem.

If you look around hard enough, there is probably a "mil spec" (military specification) for pencils. It will feature the letter Q. What else I don't know.

If it is that big of a deal, give the kids mechanical pencils and eliminate the problem.

Kip Sing is correct. Pencil quality has significantly declined. Since I predominately use mechanical pencils I was unaware, but sourcing them for our shop I have found that even Ticonderoga brand pencils are obviously inferior quality these days. The off brand wood and imitation wood pencils are even worse. You have my sympathies. Perhaps we all need to complain louder or find a cheaper source of refillable mechanical pencils for our schools.

I put it down to continental drift, or in this case island drift. Lead pencils are made of graphite and Madagascar clay. Madagascar has moved serveral meters in the last 1000s of years and this may be causing the misplacement in the pencils.

I've noticed the pencils I get for FREE (usually have some advertisement or one my kids get with some goofy thing attached to them) have this issue. But the pencils we buy at work never have this issue.

They happen to be made by Paper Mate right here in the good old USA, Illinois to be exact. (I know hard to believe there is an American company still using American factories). The lead does seem to break more often than I remember when I was a kid but other than that they seem to work well.

As far as how to fix the problem with your existing pencils I kind of agree with the guys that recommend the pen knife. That is how I end up using the bad ones at home. But I can see the uproar all those little knives would cause. We've had kids suspended because they had a finger nail clipper in there pocket. Let alone the parents that would sue because "Little Johnny" cut himself while sharpening his pencil with a knife.

Do the pencils look as though they have been made like this:- picture compliments of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil

It's difficult to see how they could get it badly wrong, and, also difficult to see how to make them any other way.

Is the outer part wood? I believe that you can get pencils with the outer part made of some recycled material.

I always wondered how they drilled that long hole.

I would guess "Bad1", and the problem is maybe the machine that separates them from the block was not set up correctly.

I personally cannot imagine how "Bad2" could happen.....

Someone posted a link on how they were made, it would be a good idea to watch it first as it would explain why bad2 theoretically cannot happen........but Bad1 could easily happen.

Assuming that the "join" can be seen of course, otherwise it could appear also to be bad2 if the join cannot be seen/diiferentiated.......

I agree, Bad2 is not possible with the pencil assembly technique used today. I also believe that the pencil batches that fail to meet the prime or secondary quality standards that are in the diagrammed "good" and near "good" category are being sold at discounted prices.

I still question though the combination of sharpener and pencil. I remember the old style hand crank pencil sharpener that accepted multiple diameter pencils like this:

If one used an alignment opening too large and one did not keep the pencil perfectly centered then one would get precisely the sharpening error described. The base of the cone created from sharpening the pencil would not be perpendicular to pencil. My point (pun intended) is that the problem could easily not be the fabrication of the pencil. It can be either operator error or failure of the sharpening machine.

Again, I have a feeling that this stems from government issued pencils. I am not thinking they would have anything labeled Bosch in most state or local run facility.

perhaps they look more like this :

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://3poundsofrealestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/irs-pencil-sharpener.jpg&imgrefurl=http://3poundsofrealestate.com/page/2/&usg=__4aXgcvED8kM2sjOaH8N7hTadnkc=&h=307&w=400&sz=19&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=mtdNl8ZJifqZ8M:&tbnh=135&tbnw=175&ei=t4w1Tb-oD8-p8Aao_bCHBg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpencil%2Bsharpener%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D837%26tbs%3Disch:1%26prmd%3Divns&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1035&vpy=216&dur=12545&hovh=197&hovw=256&tx=134&ty=95&oei=TYw1TYrOMoHPgAeXlqGICw&esq=15&page=1&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0

Ah, I thought you might have known my MO ... I took the tit and made it my own. High brow humor bos'tit'ch.

Alas no one seemed to get the "highly dissatisfied ... thoreau lee" either (Post#12). If you know H.D. Thoreau ... the author of 'Civil Disobedience' ... played an important role in improving the pencil in America. http://www.suite101.com/content/henry-david-thoreau-pencil-revolutionary-a90594[/p

Check out the link ... very applicable to the OP's issue.

Perhaps I am a bit deep at times ...

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I walked into my daughter's class this morning to look at their sharpener ... they didn't have one in the class! ... I asked and they directed me to the 'study hall', where there was a electric sharpener with the single size opening. I half expected to find this hanging on the wall with a trash can under it ...

I went back to raise 3 kinds of hell of course ... and was beaten to the punch by the teacher who said the students are expected to have 3 sharpened pencils at the beginning of class. Apparently there is a lesson being taught here somehow. (Be prepared?) ... which honestly, I sit well with that.

BTW the government already knows me well.

Disclaimer: My daughter supplies her own pencils & Nothing I said was intending anything malicious.

TY OP Kip Sing ... this thread was worth my time ... as I learned something about my daughters school today.

As a student of many years ago, we had to supply everything ourselves in terms of writing implements. So the problem never arose.

Personally I use only mechanical pencils since about 40 years or so. The ones I have been using over the last 15 years or so are great, when you lift off, they push the lead out a tiny bit.......work perfectly till the last 1/2" or so......

There are several on the market, I am using "No-Names" that I paid less than €4-00 each for. Work fine.... 0.3 Leads......

I had a look on ebay and found ones with leads ranging from 2mm downwards....

Whether or not they extend the lead automatically was hard to tell on ebay.....but its a strong "Buying" point for me personally....

Many used to be made in Tennessee, but now are being made in Mexico....

Friends lost their jobs when those plants left....

I like the ones with a retractable sleeve: you click once, then, as you write the sleeve rides up the lead

All the ones I have had worked just like that, when you lift off the paper, the lead id moved out to the didtance that it was just "worn" in to............

Is there another "Fully" automatic mode for automatic pencils? I have personally never seen it, but I would be interested just to hear about it....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er9CLxSmQE0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS2zQXq7AFY&feature=related

Wow… I thought it was the pencil sharper I was using. I told the QC department about it. They said they'd get someone in to calibrate the sharper. I'm still waiting. I also notice the erasers don't work like they use to either. They appear to be hard smearing the lead on paper and in up brake off at the ban. It's like their dry rotten.

It still may have somethging to do with thte sharpener. When I was but a lad.... the old sharpeners had 2 "cutting heads" that rotated around the pencil. The sharpeners I have seen as of late have only one "cutting head". It could be that having only one cutter can allow the pencil to be incorrectly aligned duringthe charpening porcess. Just a thought.

Nope. This one has two cutters. It's old dull and rusty, but it works.