Drafting pencil I swore by for 10 years finally let me down

Used a 0.5mm Rotring for a decade and thought it was perfect. Yesterday it snapped a lead on a critical dimension line for the third time in an hour. Anyone else have a go-to tool that just started failing on them?

3 comments

3 Comments

king.val1mo ago

Hang on, I'm going to push back a little on that. @taraross makes a good point about lead batches, but I've had a Rotring 600 for about eight years now and it's never done that. The mechanism in those things is pretty solid. I think you might just have a dud, or maybe the lead breaking is a sign the clutch is worn out from that many years of use. I'd check the mechanism before assuming it's a lost cause.

evahenderson1mo ago

Maybe it's not the pencil itself but the batch of lead you're using... happens sometimes with different production runs. Could try swapping the lead first before retiring a trusty tool.

taraross1mo ago

Good point about the lead batch. Had a similar issue with a batch of HB that wrote way too light. Worth trying a different pack before giving up on the pencil.