Why is a carpenters pencil oval in section?

[Eric The Viking]

Hex shape would not roll off the bench

Never played pencil cricket in Latin lessons? Hex pencils roll fine.

Owzthat! (You probably have to be of a certain age.)

So who made the first square. And how did they check it was square?

Elementary (geometry), my dear Watson. A piece of string is sufficient. Oh, and something to make marks with. Which is where we came in, I suppose.

Incidentally, I think the first 'carpenter's pencil' was most probably actually either real lead, charcoal or possibly slate.

Discuss...

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

I don't get on with them either, I use hex shaped ones. I don't sharpen with a knife as a pencil sharpener is quicker and stops you going to far and braking the tip.

I do have carpenters pencils but thats only because I brought them and don't use them.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Many years of audio tape editing mean I prefer to use a blade (we used to sharpen with the single-sided razor blades readily to hand). I find you can shape the tip far better that way, and a flat point, like a carpenter's pencil, can be kept sharp longer. You can also change the shape of the pointy end, depending on what you're doing - steep angle for robustness, concave cone for finer work.

Harking back to a bygone age, I still use 'Chinagraph' pencils for all sorts of marking-up, and for filling engraving on equipment, etc. Bright colours, waterproof-ness and the ability to mark almost anything (and get it off again!), are all strong reasons.

They're getting pricey now though, and I suspect in part that's because one major use (in audio) has gone away. My local artists' supplies shop has them at over £1 each, but they're cheaper on-line. I don't get on with the paper-coil ones, but the conventional wooden ones stay warm nicely behind one's ear.

E.

 

[bosshogg]

Hex shape would not roll off the bench

Never played pencil cricket in Latin lessons? Hex pencils roll fine.

Owzthat! (You probably have to be of a certain age.)

So who made the first square. And how did they check it was square?

Elementary (geometry), my dear Watson. A piece of string is sufficient. Oh, and something to make marks with. Which is where we came in, I suppose.

Incidentally, I think the first 'carpenter's pencil' was most probably actually either real lead, charcoal or possibly slate.

Discuss...

And chalk, don't forget that not all that was/is marked is white/light.
It all started in the brain of man, who through the ability to analyse his observations worked out how drawing a straight line or taught string marking a centre and measuring (string again) two equidistant points either side of this, then applying the same principle from these two points mark two intersecting arcs at a distance from the centre = line perpendicular to the first = the first square, actually two squares one mirror too the other. As has already pointed out, and with this model in mind, that's exactly how we check a square, by reversing it...a mirror image.
The real question should be how did man first think of a straight line, none exist in nature! perhaps a shaft of light?...bosshogg (hammer)

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. A.E. 8)