Why is a carpenters pencil oval in section?

[powertools]

Serious question as per topic.

 

[marcros]

presumably to stop them rolling off the bench

 

[Tusses]

presumably to stop them rolling off the bench

or roof !

 

[powertools]

Hex shape would not roll off the bench, is easier to sharpen and fits behind your ear.

 

[myturn]

Hex shape would not roll off the bench, is easier to sharpen and fits behind your ear.

Carpenter's pencil fits fine behind my ear, along with all my other tools....

 

[marcros]

Hex shape would not roll off the bench, is easier to sharpen and fits behind your ear.

Given a bit of force to overcome the inertia, hex would still roll. Admitted, it would take a great deal more effort than a round one, but if knocked with a lump of timber, that is feasible. Oval would have to slide.

 

[Anonymous]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_pencil

 

[powertools]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_pencil

That must be it then.
I think that I will stick with the hex rather than get bigger ears.

 

[condeesteso]

Hi Powertool, very pleased to see the signature is back.
One question - and it is rhetorical. You don't plug your pencil in now, do you?
I rest my case :wink:

 

[jimi43]

So it can be used to do the cricket scores in its spare time! :mrgreen:

Coat?

Jim

 

[powertools]

Hi Powertool, very pleased to see the signature is back.
One question - and it is rhetorical. You don't plug your pencil in now, do you?
I rest my case :wink:

I do sharpen it with one of those old style sharpeners that grips it in a 3 jaw chuck and has a handle you turn to rotate the cutters. It is open to debate if that is a power tool, I tend to think it is.

 

[mailee]

Hex shape would not roll off the bench, is easier to sharpen and fits behind your ear.

Carpenter's pencil fits fine behind my ear, along with all my other tools....

Well, well,well, I didn't realise you were on this site your Highness. Welcome. :lol:

 

[Steve Maskery]

I don't understand why people sharpen these with a rotary cutter. The whole point is not that it doesn't roll off the bench (just how far off level is your bench anyway?), the point is that one tool (the pencil) can make two very different kinds of marks.
It needs to be sharpened with a knife, so that the lead is like a small chisel. That way I can make sharp fine lines and also make wide lazy squiggles. Both are useful. Actually I often sharpen mine on the disk sander.
Whatever, I don't see the point (!) of sharpening an oval pencil to a round point.
S

 

[Eric The Viking]

After a bit of Googling, I found this:

http://www.pencilpages.com/gallery/oldest.htm

Interesting that the oldest known one actually is a carpenter's pencil.

 

[Lee Brubaker]

Steve: Your absolutely right. An ordinary pocket knife will sharpen the lead to a chisel shaped point which when used with a square lays flat to the blade of the square and draws a fine sharp line. This was especially important when carpenters hand cut their own rafters instead of using trusses. This lowly pencil also in the old days resulted in the interior corners of housing to actually be square.

Lee

 

[Keenedge]

Definitely not a round point! As you draw back with the pencil, there is a lack of support for the tip where as a chisel edge works far better

 

[CHJ]

From day one of being shown how to use a pencil and a try square I was shown how to sharpen one with a chisel or penknife to a 'chisel edge'.
Two things were explained to me for it's shape following the obvious question as to why it was flat not round, both of which have already been quoted.

1. It allows you to draw a line of varying thickness as required.
2. When you want a fine line the 'lead' has far more support and less likely to break as is the case if you try and use a standard pencil on anything other than a smooth piece of wood.

Oh, and he said " it wun't fit behind me ear if it were round" I guess that's 3.

 

[bosshogg]

Sorry folks, the reasoning's given behind square/ oval joiners/carpenters pencils are amusing but a tad off course.
First a little bit of observation made over the years, these pencils are of a softer lead so to enable a darker line, essential when you are working in either darkened daylight or inside a building where the light from festoons makes fine light lines nigh on impossible to see. The lead also has a grain to it, much like slate and fine chisel like edges crumble easily. Remember your humble joiner seldom works in a heated environments, cold hands don't set fine lines all that easily, the 1mm-1.5mm line produced by these pencils is more readily seen in these conditions, easy on the hands and all joiners have their own discipline as to whether they cut the line off, through the middle, or cut so as to leave it on, that's how precision is achieved. At the same time we drop our pencils more often, from cold stiff fingers, over size lugs and the like, these pencils due in part to their size, don't break as easily. I say all of this from experience by the way, not conjecture, on site is a little bit different from working in the workshop.
I have in the past sharpened my squared lead to a chisel edge, maintained by sandpaper to prevent crumbling, but the sharp edge tends to break more frequently than the more normal round or hexagonal pencils, which can be sharpened more easily...bosshogg

you can't help a man who doesn't tell you what he wants (hammer)

 

[drillbit]

Hex shape would not roll off the bench

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

when used with a square lays flat to the blade of the square

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

 

[Steve Maskery]

And how did they check it was square?

The same that we do today. Flip it over and see if it gives the same reading.

S