I recently had a little excursion to the local Office Depot which requires a pass through the pen and pencil department no matter why I went in originally. One of the items I found was the Ticonderoga Sensematic Mechanical Pencil. It came on a blister card as a set of two. It claims to be an auto-advancing so I had to see it worked.
The pencil contains 0.7mm HB #2 lead and is encased in a metallic silver body with a green metal ferrule and black eraser. It has a classic hexagonal shape of a traditional wood pencil. The logo lettering is stamped in a green to match the ferrule and the ferrule has the classic yellow stripes painted. It looks quite similar to a regular wood pencil though its actually a plastic body. I admit that if it hadn’t been such a handsome pencil I probably wouldn’t have purchased it.
What was not made quite clear on the packaging is that inside the pencil is a tube of spare leads. When you unscrew the pencil at the eraser ferrule you can pull out the lead tube. There is a cap at the base end which will reveal the leads. Only one lead can be added to the pencil as a time so this little tube is useful for being able to carry a few spares easily.
The way the pencil lead works is that everytime you lift the pencil a tiny bit more lead is made available. I played with the pencil on and off all week at work trying to see it if ever showed no lead or too much lead but it didn’t. I did find it a little odd that only a fraction of the lead was sticking out of the plastic tip — more like a rollerball pen tip than a traditional mechanical pencil but as long as you don’t write or sketch at a severe angle, it never really presented a problem.
I did figure out that you could trick the pencil into giving a longer bit of lead by pushing the conical tip up towards the pencil body a couple times. It does not keep the longer length though. It seems to like to be a stubby little plastic tip.
The black eraser works well. I wrote “Eraser works” next to the “Eraser works?” question and there is almost no evidence of the word at all so yes, the eraser works well.
I tend to prefer a 0.5mm pencil lead but this works fine and if you prefer the wider lead, this might be a great option. I also would have preferred a wood casing to a plastic casing for the nice smell and the less likelihood of melting or cracking in severe weather but all-in-all I find it pleasing. It looks good, it does write without having to click or advance and the super-short lead exposure is particularly good for people who are heavy writers. The extra leads make it a reusable tool too.
($3.49 for pack of two)
These look really cool. I may need to pick them up!
Truely eco friendly .Saves a lot of wood and the need to sharpening ,which , actually wastes a lot of wood and the lead. Good product.
Excellent pencil, unfortunately they can’t keep them in stock. Ordered from several places and always out of stock. The five pack is better. The prices very from $3.50 to $ 12 for two pack and from $10-28 for 5 pack.
Thank you! For the most part I think when my current lead is gone I can get a new one started.
How does one “sharpen” (aka screw up more lead), AND load the refill lead, when earlier lead is gone & empty??? These are the mysterious and important things!!
A tiny bit more pencil lead is supposed to appear every time you lift the pencil.
bruh this pencil is over engineered I really needed this guide just to get lead out of the tip
all in all it’s a quality pencil but yk (and I agree wood woulda been nice but it might not have worked, you know how thin wood is)