This is to say that a number of lead hardness levels are sold in mechanical pencil lead, but not as wide a range as in wooden pencils. Yes, mechanical pencils do use lead grades. Here are samples of the Staedtler Lumograph drawing pencil’s lead grade range…įAQs Do mechanical pencils use lead grades?
Artists: An art set like the Staedtler Mars Lumograph will include a 6 pencil range (8B, 7B, 6B, 4B, 2B, and HB). Much of the choice of a pencil’s lead grade will come down to individual preference, but here is some guidance that might help you by providing a starting point. Lefties will benefit from moving from an HB up a few H grades (like 2H) in order to reduce smudging. The lines on the page will get very light, with the grey color getting harder and harder to read as you move up the scale. High count of Hs (like 8H) will have a hard lead that scratches when you write with it and has a brittle feeling to it. This is a good middle ground between legibility (which increases as you add Bs) and limiting smudges (which increases as you add Hs). The most common grade in the US (sometimes seen as F in Asia) is the equivalent of the American #2 pencil, the one we all used on the ACT, SAT, and other similar tests. The pencil strokes will have lots of smudging, making them worse for lefties but they will be easier to erase. The writing will get increasingly smoother and the lines will get darker. You’ll know the color is going to be blue, but you don’t expect they will be exactly the same shade of blue.Īs you move from HB up the B scale, you can expect the lead to get softer feeling and smoother as you write. This scenario is similar to the color of a pen - buy a blue pen from Bic and then a blue pen from Paper Mate. This means you can look at the grade on a pencil and know roughly what to expect from it, you just can’t expect it to be exactly the same thing another company would order. Keeping in mind that the grades are not necessarily equivalent from one company to another, they are directionally the same. Lastly, HB is the same as the American standard #2 pencil, the one you are supposed to use for taking standardized tests which are read by scanners. Some manufacturers, usually those in Japan, use an “F” for firm, which is similar to an HB, but then will continue with the stacked Bs and Hs. If you think of it as a spectrum you have 10H on one side, HB in the middle, and 10B on the other side. 
For example 2B is short for BB and it’s a pencil that is more black than a HB but less hard than a 2H. You will see the number of Hs increase as the pencil gets harder and the number of Bs increase as the pencil lead gets blacker.
#Best pencil for writing code#
Most pencils makes will add a code to the pencil that uses:Ī common, everyday pencil you’d grab from the store is an HB - it’s hard and black in the expected levels.
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