Usually painted in a pleasing color and embossed with their name and grade, they cut a striking figure in one’s art box. Of course, you can’t judge a drawing pencil (solely) by its beauty ...

The middle of the scale shows the letters and numbers that correspond to everyday writing tools: B = No. 1 pencils, HB = No. 2, F = No. 2½, H = No. 3, and 2H = No. 4 (although exact conversions ...

What makes a pencil a pencil is graphite, of course, ... Today, that scale includes 21 different grades, but No. 2 pencils are still the ultimate “tweener” pencil: ...

Man's photo of pencil graphite stuck in finger sparks bizarre debate on 'things stuck under skin' ... second grade, while balancing a pencil on my desk. "Brought my head down and just stabbed myself.

The pencils are graded by their ratio of graphite to clay. Grades ranged from 9B to 2H, where H denotes the hardness caused by the pencil’s clay content, and B denotes the blackness due to the ...

9. The No. 2 pencil is most popular because it uses a medium-grade graphite which makes it best for writing.. 10. A No. 1 pencil has a softer graphite, which smudges easier. Engineers and drafters ...

While we number our various grades of pencils in the U.S., ... By the middle of the 19th century, the Thoreaus were selling pencils with varying graphite hardness, ...