Friday, July 21, 2017

A Bit of This and That

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

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This one popped out of someone’s junk box at the Raleigh Pen Show:


I was interested in it, warts and all, because it blends elements from two other Eversharps I’ve written about here:


The upper example is a “Wahl Spring Brake” advertising pencil, from Wahl’s bizarre foray into the auto parts business in the late 1920s (see http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/10/wahls-extracurricular-activities.html for the story and http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/12/wahls-car-parts-business.html for this pencil).  The lower one, while a little beat up, is I think a very unusual oversized metal pencil with a tombstone Wahl clip rather than a z-clip (see http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/11/junk-box-nirvana.html for how I put that one back together).  This new find blends the two, with an advertisement for the Wahl Spring Brake on a pencil with that same oversized Wahl clip:


The paint is intact, but once again, the clip was missing.


No worries . . . these are easy to disassemble, by simply unscrewing the tip, to reveal the bushing that was supposed to hold the clip in place:


I’ve got another one of those common utility pencils on hand . . .


I don’t know whether this pencil would have had that flared cap or a straight utility top like this one,but for now I decided to go with the straight top.  I was going to just swap the cap over, but since the mechanism on my junk box find was a little scruffy, I ended up transplanting the whole innards.


Wrapping a rubber band around the top made it easy to pull off the retaining ring and round up a nice clip:


What the heck . . . the tip was nice and shiny too, so I’ll use that . . .


And there you have it.  Two versions of the Eversharp advertising pencil for Wahl Spring Brakes:


1 comment:

Matt said...

Was it difficult convincing yourself to tear apart your first donor pencil for a transplant? Or is the hard part finding an Eversharp parts pencil that isn't already missing the tip or the clip!

Thanks for resuming your regular postings; I look forward to them every day.