There are hundreds of different pencils available to buy in 24 different graphite grades. The reason there are 24 grades is that pencils can not only be used to write with but for many other things.
In this guide, we will show you what makes a good pencil and how to choose the best pencils for drawing, journaling, marking wood, note-taking, sketching, technical drawing, and writing.
Kum Pencil sharpeners are widely regarded as the best pencil sharpeners in the world. They are manufactured in Germany, and we show you why they are so good with their unique curved blade technology and a little bit more about the company’s history.
We also give details about all their current models with the Kum 410 Magnesium Sharpener being their most popular standard pencil sharpener.
The graphite pencil scale is a system that grades pencils according to how hard the pencil lead is and how dark or black is the mark that it produces on the paper. The gradings on the scale are sometimes referred to as degrees of hardness and currently, there are 24 degrees on the graphite pencil scale ranging from 10H -12B.
In this guide we explain why there are 24 degrees of Hardness on the Graphite Pencil Scale, what are H & B & how this relates to the U.S Pencil Hardness Scale. As well as what percentage of graphite is in pencil.
When it comes to wooden graphite pencils it can sometimes be difficult to find out which pencils have the darkest lead?
Finding the blackest lead pencils is not quite as straightforward as simply choosing a graphite pencil with the highest B number on the graphite scale (also known as the lead grade scale).
While researching for a post about the different types of wood that are used to make pencils with I realized that there was not a directory or blog post that lists all the different pencil brands & their pencils. This is why I decided to create this guide which took several weeks and 17,000 words to put together.
