Mechanical Pencil Month – Day 4: The Eversharp 4 Square
Day the fourth be with you! On that note, it's hard to think of a more quadratic pencil than the Eversharp 4 Square. This was a mechanical pencil of square…
Mechanical Pencil Month – Day 3: Nestler’s German silver screws
As promised, today's entry brings together Slide Rule Saturday and Mechanical Pencil Month in the hope of fostering a new spirit of love and cooperation between the two rival kingdoms.…
Mechanical Pencil Month – Day 2: The life cycle of the pencil
Today's post follows our plucky lump of graphite as it embarks upon the long journey of metamorphosis into a fully-fledged pencil. Issued by the Cumberland Pencil Co. Ltd. of Keswick,…
Mechanical Pencil Month – Day 1: Borrowdale Plumbago
Object number one is not actually a pencil at all, mechanical or otherwise, yet without it the history of drawing would have turned out very differently. Said to have been…
Mechanical Pencil Month
While digging around in the Repertory of Arts for Brunel patents, I came across a familiar design from the early 19th century. Granted to civil engineer John Isaac Hawkins (inventor…
Stanley vulcanite railway curves
I recently came by a set of W.F. Stanley railway curves made of vulcanite (also known as ebonite or hard rubber), included almost as an afterthought to an ebay listing…
Sketchy calculation
As a bit of weekend fun, here's something called a Rechenstift - German for "calculating pen" - by the venerable Hamburg firm of Dennert & Pape, erstwhile inventors of the…
Fan scales
A recent discussion with Peter Hopp of Slide Rules fame, prompted by an item in the latest UKSRC Newsletter, finally encouraged me to photograph some of my fan scales. This type of…
OK Computer
It is a well-worn truism that nothing is certain except death and taxes, and certainly throughout history much effort has gone into making sure that the latter is as inescapable…
Class of the Titans
A recent discussion about instruments named after mythological figures brought to mind the "Titan" Combination Compass, a simple design that aimed to provide a full drawing set in a box.…