Faber-Castell TK 9420 Color, the lesser-known sibling of the legendary TK 9400. Same slim hexagonal barrel, same 2 mm drop clutch, but made for coloured leads, with a colour-coded push button where the hardness grade would be. It had quietly disappeared from the market, with no documented date...
Found one in the wild, under the sunlight of early autumn.
Wanted to share this A.W. Faber „Partout" 4602. It's a 2 mm clutch leadholder from West Germany, usually dated to the 1950s–60s.
Simple push-button mechanism, a solid plastic barrel with textured grip, and plated metal fittings. The best part: the push button pops off and has a small lead pointer built in. More robust than those I see from Caran d'Ache or Koh-I-Noor.
They came in a few colours, and you'll see both "A.W. Faber" and "A.W. Faber-Castell" imprints depending on the era, from my research. "Partout" means everywhere in French, I suppose the name emphasizes the portability of the leadholder, though in my opinion other leadholds are capable to be carried around without any problem 😅. The barrel is wider than modern Faber Castell leadholders (9400 and 4600, to name some), which can be the crucial features for some people.
Still takes any standard 2 mm lead, so it works perfectly as a daily pencil. Anyone else have one? Which colour?
There was a post about the A.W Faber 4600 „Partout" with identical design, but I failed to see the link between 4600 and 4602. Judging from the pictures, I guess 4600 no clip and 4602 with clip ? There was some interesting convos inside the linked post on the difference between these two.
For many people who went through technical drawing classes or worked at a drafting table, the Staedtler 775 needs no introduction. It was a regular part of Staedtler drafting sets, sitting next to the Marsmatic technical pens, compass, and lead holder. Because it showed up in so many of those boxes, it became one of those pencils everyone recognizes even if they never went looking for it.
Here are two of mine, a regular navy blue one and a sligtly unusual yellow one. The yellow one reminds me of the game Satisfactory, my favorite 😁
Beside the Gedess, the Minfix is also my favorite choice for the sharpening ritual.
The Minfix is a vintage Faber-Castell lead pointer, a small handheld sharpener for the thick leads used in drafting leadholders. It was made in Germany, with production starting around 1950. Examples often date to the 1950s–60s. It is solid brass with a reversible, replaceable steel blade. It takes leadholder leads of either 2 mm or 3.15 mm diameter, with one hole on each end.
Feature : Super portable. It has small "graphite vents" that let shavings fall out and reduce clogging.
Final result: Taper length is about 5.5mm, smoother surface than being sharpened by the Gedess.
Both are satisfaction guaranteed.
EDIT : added some info
Nothing much, just how the Drehgriffel Nr.2 of Leuchtturm1917 has changed after 2 years of heavy use. I like the mint color so I got another one.
Drehgriffel Nr.2 is a nice pencil but its paint quality is quite poor. Mine is mostly gone, leaving the metal underneath. On the cone, paint also started to pop off.
I find it cool, how the pencil changed, and still works well of course.
Simple slender metal body with vivid paint, often available in a pack of ten. A cap with built-in sharpener, can fall off fairly easily.
Koh-I-Noor also make 5217 which has identical design, in a tin box of 6 nice colors and an eraser.
Koh-I-Noor leadholders are like that, such basic design, cheap, but also work well (with some quirks of course)
I often use 10 of them at the same time, those color variations light up the workspace pretty nice 😁
And some feedbacks on the Altdraw after actually using it:
This pencil is heavy, as expected of the presence of brass. Compared with the TechDraw, it feels a bit more bulky (8.9mm barrel vs 8.45mm). For long session, this pencil brings fatigue faster than the TechDraw and EverDraw. For taking notes, it's fine but for drafting, I tend to pick TechDraw more often.
The finish is superb, I don't know how they join the metal grip and the wood barrel, but the connection is well made. The knurled metal grip is a bit short. On the wood barrel, the etched text is unnecessary, if only they put ALTDRAW and nothing else, it would be great (but, well). The clip, like other pencils of Luddite, is very easy to remove, which I give it a plus point.
The rattling is noticable when doing super fast and broad hatching, but the rest of use cases is fine. Like others with heavy metal button, a fix with tape will solve it.
I will eventually come back to Kaweco and Rotring for my daily use, but trying new stuff is fun; Luddite often bring fresh and nice stuff to the table, so, kudos to them.
Saw this pencil posted here a few days ago, I decided to take some photos of mine, and give some thoughts about it. A beautiful and annoying piece of art.
Push-button incremental ratchet mechanism like the Staedtler 925 25, some might say this is not a real leadholder, however, as tradition, one can remove the lead retainer rubber ring to make it drop clutch. Metaphys makes this job super easy by providing a second threading at the tip, unscrewing the black cone (picture 2) and the lead retainer is right there.
The metal finish is beautiful, matte and smooth like Copic SP fineliners, or Parafernalia, very elegant and sturdy at the same time.
I don't know what to say about the clip. From the cone to the barrel, the minimalism is well shown, then the clip makes a totally different design direction, funny, the same design on Rotring 900 is super nice, but on Metaphys, it feels weird. The clip also longer than any common pencils in my toolset (picture 4), is it a good thing? Who knows...
The grip is acceptable, not slippery but the weight might make this pencil slip from my hand if I don't pay attention.
My biggest complaint comes when I have to sharpen the lead. If one holds the barrel and uses it with a common pointer (like the UNI's), the whole internal rotates with the lead in this process and as a result, sharpening this pencil is very unintuitive. I found out later that I have to hold the pencil and the clip at the same time to counter the unwanted rotation. As a person who worships the sharpening routine, this is a loss.
I've said in another post, I would choose Caran d'Ache Fixpencil or Staedtler 780 over this one for daily use. But on a random beautiful day that I want to shuffle my tools a bit, why not Metaphys?
Edit
List of pencils in the last photo
- 3 Metal Languo Mechanical Pencil from Alixpress in 0.3mm 0.5mm and 0.7mm (I want to explore some affordable pencils myself, instead of reading reviews only, these 3 are pretty good).
- The Metaphys 2mm
- Tombow Zoom L2 Matte Black 0.5mm
- Tombow Zoom C1 0.5mm
- Draf-tech by Meister by POINT
Cleaning the drawer and playing a bit with a Leroy tool, just like those dip pens with fancy ink - leadholder version. It feels wrong and it feels right at the same time 😁
It's an old habit from my drafting days. Back then, I always needed a full set of Rotring Isographs to properly finish a technical drawing. While that's obviously not necessary for work anymore, the habit stuck. I still find myself carrying various sizes of identical hardness around at the same time just in case.
As I've started drawing more, this habit has become useful again. Alongside variations in hardness, having different lead sizes brings a ton of versatility to the routine 😁
And an anotomy picture of these pencil at the end.
A coproduct by the stationary brand Kaco and Coca Cola. It inherits the minimalist design of Kaco Rocket Mechanical Pencil, with some final touch representing Coca Cola : bubble lines grip and its logo.
Plastic body, metal cone, brass clutch, a light pencil (9g) with a midrange grip (10mm), only supports 0.5mm. Writing? With the 3-prong brass clutch and the fixed cone tip, the lead play is practically zero. It’s got a remarkably stable, wobble-free writing feedback that rivals some pencils twice its price. Its design somehow reminds me of the Sun-Star Nocfree.
To be completely blunt: It is a very basic, lightweight plastic pencil. It won't replace your Rotring or your Kurutoga Dive. But for a cheap, fun, branded desk toy that actually writes exceptionally well thanks to its brass internals? It’s a neat little piece of stationery candy.
With old pieces, it's very often that I found them broken/tarnished and missing parts. Though it shows that the tools are (well) used, I can't help but sometime want to see the piece brighten like it was. Hence the fun and frustration of polishing, fixing and retouching. Forgot to take a before picture, I can only blame myself.
One Criterium is polished by an old handkerchief.
One Criterium with no cap so I made a replacement in wood and strong tape.
Finally a case originally for ballpoint refill but I repurposed it to a lead case. I can store four 2mm leads, pretty nice.
While writing and drawing are the obvious uses, I honestly get so much joy out of just taking my pencils apart.
It reminds me of the exploded view diagrams in childhood science books. Reverse engineering them not only satisfies my curiosity about how the mechanics work, but it’s also a lifesaver for troubleshooting when something jams.
Pencils (leadholders) in the picture
Koh-i-noor 5228 2.0mm
Koh-i-noor 5358 3.2mm
Koh-i-noor 5340 5.6mm
Cleaning the balcony after the heatwave and gathering some leaves...
Some modern looking lead holders by architect Lucio Rossi. Ergonomic is questionable but they look cool.
Personal highlights should be the D10 with a large barrel diameter and the DKyoto as a close Faber Castel TK9604 alternative.
Mechanical pencils with different paints are surely eyecatching and charming. It's just sometime I wanna see the bare metal. Kinda reminds me of the design principle "Truth to Materials" (Materialgerechtigkeit) (*). Hence the personal pencil rotation for July.
Left to right
(*) The core rule is : A material must never be coated, painted, or manipulated to look like something else.
I've started my lead holder journey with 2mm (with Staedtler) then 3.2mm from Kaweco, mostly from my drafting experience. Once the interest sparked, I discovered quite a few more: 1.18mm, 1.3mm, 1.4mm, 2mm, 2.5mm, 2.8mm, 3mm/3.15mm/3.2mm/3.25mm, 4mm and 5.2mm/5.6mm. Hidden in between there is 3.8mm, which is, to me, a real gem, the more I research about this size.
Not many brands support this size, I can name a very few : Pilot Croquis in plastic with twist to advance mechanism, Bohin which is originally made for people who work with fabric, and Uchida in the past. And of course Koh-I-Noor, they seem to have every sizes.
The Koh-I-Noor 5356 is a metal, drop clutch, an absolute unit of a lead holder. From my experience, 3.8mm fits better for drawing than drafting (there's no way to control the precise thickness of diameter greater than 2.5mm). The 3.8mm sounds random at first, but it has the exact size of color pencils core (compared with the Faber-Castell polychromos, they have the same diameter). And to my surprise, KIN offer some watercolor leads to work with KIN 5356 as well. Side story : I was looking for some watercolor leads for a long time but only Caran d'Ache has that in some (2mm) of its special editions. Well, 2mm is preferable but 3.8mm is not bad, knowing now I can remove the wooden part of Faber-Castell polychromos to get whatever color I want. So great.
Also in my research, I discovered that in Japan they sell watercolor leads too, in 3.3mm by Kita-Boshi (last photo), and it fits the KIN 5356, viva the Versatil!
Here are some pictures of this lead holder, and some comparisons which helps my long text more understandable.
Switching the material a bit, carbon fiber (CF) is certainly an interesting option. It's durable with a fraction of weight, a different experience. My current CF rotation :
I'm a fan of drafting mechanical pencils. However for a long writing session (2-4 hours), standard drafting pencils can eventually chew up my fingers or cause serious hand fatigue. A long writing session requires a totally different balance, grip, and weight distribution than quick drafting work. Here is my recent rotation for marathon writing
Pentel Smash
Rotring Newton
Muji Wood Hexagonal
Faber Castell Ambition
Tom's studio
All are filled with 2B lead, which is the real MVP I think.
There are more criteria to decide pencils for long writing session : simplicity, ergonomic grip, auto advance, lead rotation etc. would love to see other approaches here.
Have fun writing!
Penac is the à la maison brand of Kotobuki, and while Kotobuki make several pencils for other brands in Japan, sometime we encounter identical pencils, with a bit of color play.
Among the 3 Kitera KS, the KS-03 with the double chuck is the one I find having a bit more character, only in 0.5mm. Back then while reviewing Kitera KS, I was thinking, a lead variation would be nice. Penac Protti answers that, with 0.5mm and 0.7mm ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ.
Together with Platinum OLEeNU, Muji ABS, Pilot Clutch Point... mech pencil fans have more options to enjoy the lead to the last few mm, which I sometimes see questions raised in this sub.