u/Apart-Roof4358

Recently a rash of sellers on Amazon are selling dotting pens. This was kicked off by a Kern one being sold for a ridiculous amount so others want a piece of that action. I have posted a photo of the one I bought compared to an antique richter pen. The Amazon pen has a weak spring and the pen does not remain fixed on the arm as well as being low quality. It’s also giant. This pen does not work so save your money. As a prototype it’s a nice start but as a final product it’s no good.

I find proportional dividers fascinating and I have quite a few of them. By far the largest is this 12” pair, beside it is the 8” K&E pair. They are massive. The cool thing about the 12” pair besides the size is that it’s divided universally into 1000 divisions on one side and lines and circles on the other side. I have not seen another pair with both types of divisions. Though no small miracle this pair came in excellent condition with very sharp points.

German manufacturer Haff made the Rotring threaded compasses, but they also sold them under their own label as well. This is the PT version that has a Matt chrome finish instead of a glossy one. There is room for three Rotring short pencils. A nice adder on this compass over the Rotring is the universal screw so you can use a pencil or pen with the compass. These Haff branded compasses are hard to find unfortunately.

This K&E proportional divider in a cool red velvet lined clamshell case. It’s lines and circle divided for dividing lines and circles. It’s about 8” long. It is a rack and gear system for accurate setting of the divider. As with most K&E tools this divider was made by Haff and it works like a dream.

Out of Japan there are found sets that contain German made compasses with Japanese pencils and pens. In this set is the wonderful staedtler superbow compass, a small 4” compass and a divider, all German made. It has Japanese pencils tips and handles and it comes with two sets of 0.3, 0.5, 0.7mm mechanical pencil attachments for the large and small compass. I added the universal adapter. These sets are lined with foam and have slots for pencils and sometimes come with pencils. There are many variations of these Japanese staedtler sets. I always wonder if there is a catalog for them? Who put them together?

I have this nice K&E drafting set from the 1960s that I have made some modifications too. I have replaced the centre screw giant bow compass with the same vintage winged quickset compass. The set was missing the divider and for some reason the mark 1 divider is too large for the slot for the divider, so I had an older K&E hairspring divider that fit. I’ve also filed down a universal adapter so I can use pens and pencils with the compass. Perfect for modern use

Alteneder was a US manufacturer that made the finest quality tools. This example has the typical tools found in a North American set, plus the addition of a dropbow, curve pen, plus detail pen. As well it he pens and tips are of the jackknife style that open up for cleaning without changing the line weight. I have yet to figure out what is supposed to go in the fat slot.

An unknown maker for this 19th century drafting set. I loved the beam divider and the double sided need brass pen. There is also an interesting divider. Lovely work on the case and the case actually closes too!