Uni Kurutoga Mechanical Pencil Standard, 0.3mm, Black (M34501P.24)

Yes, I'm spending time reviewing a mechanical pencil because I've destroyed so many others. This one works as they say it does and quite frankly it's really hard to find one that doesn't break. I both draw and write for long periods of time and I've bent pencil tips, snapped countless graphite sticks, and had one wooden pencil snap in my hand. I had to dig wooden splinters out of my cuticle section after sharpening a regular wood pencil that was a piece of junk and this was after being awake for two days. Exhaustion did play a role. I only use Ticonderoga pencils and Faber-Castell graphite holders - then these babies for fine detail on drawings! If you need something for notes or drafting then these are perfect!While I also use a computer much of my preliminary work is done by hand through drafting and writing. The way your brain functions using a pencil/pen instead of a keyboard has been researched and I just love this pencil. The mechanism that spins the graphite is wonderful and at first I thought it was too good to be true but I'm not twisting the mechanical pencils by hand at all. I do have all three sizes 0.7 mm, 0.5 mm, and 0.3 mm as well. Why? Because I love these mechanical pencils! Definitely get the Japanese made ones if you can and the graphite is like writing or drawing with silk.I swear if you are a Southpaw you won't end up with graphite all over your hand! They erase just fine and feel great in your hands. It may seem like a stupid thing to purchase but I have to deal with hand cramps and this has saved my hands that I use for drafting, drawing, sketching and note taking. If you have the same problems I did then take more breaks as well. It helps but when you use the same instrument all day every day then it needs to work reliably. So far these mechanical pencils are great! I really like the 0.3 mm because I can write very small and consistent letters without the lead breaking. Yes it's a small writing utensil with what most people call an extravagant feature. Who cares? Get what you need and use it without apology!

this pencil is unrivaled. i always carried it with me from school, home, grocery trips, and more. i would always carry this pencil with me—until we were forcefully separated by the bridge between life and death. i was in a hurry to pack my things from school, when i dropped it on the grass to get home. i had my teacher look for it to no avail. when i went to find it after school the next day, i heard there had been a rampant lawnmower wreaking havoc that morning. in distress, i searched the grass, only to find a sole piece of evidence, crushing my heart as i did: a single piece of plastic, listing “uni kurutoga 0.3mm”. i cried all the way back home. a month went by, and i hoped that time would heal the cracks in my heart, only to no avail. it was a one-of-a-kind pencil. i tried replacing it with your standard 0.3 mechanical pencil, but the thick lines it would consistently produce only had me thinking, “kurutoga would never do this to me.” i then switched to a more beautiful, 0.5 automatic kurutoga. it had stronger lead, it didnt break with a slight change of pressure, it turned as it should’ve. but all i could think about while using it was, “0.3 lead would bring this pencil to perfection.” it was my dream pencil. a beautiful purple-white, mechanical and firm in my hand. if not for the lead size, she would’ve been my trophy pencil, i would’ve been content, but with her resting between my fingers, my thoughts raced: “i still miss him.” my uni kurutoga, black in 0.3 lead. he ruined me for any future pencil, i must have him back. he was my rock in all of my artistic endeavors, he rekindled the hope in my eyes and showed me the stars, but all i had was fragments of him, scattered between my stationary with no hope of piecing them together and recreating the way he felt as the bridge between my body and paper.he wouldn’t—couldn’t leave my mind ever since his death. so i reordered him and hes coming back on friday.tl;dr: pencil was so good that after he died i bought him again.

You probably already know that Uni's Kuru Toga pencils ingeniously rotate their lead slightly each time you press down to write, keeping the lead from developing the elongated oval tip common in other mechanical pencils.Kuru Togas come in a variety of lead sizes: .3, .5, and .7mm. This is the .3mm pencil, and I've noticed a few distinctions with the extremely small diameter lead relative to the .5mm and .7mm pencils.I use the pencil to make notes in books and documents, and the small diameter lead lets me underline and write more notes in margins. It's great for this purpose. But there are several drawbacks you should be aware of with the .3mm lead.First, the lead runs out fast. You don't think about it when buying the pencil, but .3mm is really thin, and you're constantly clicking the end of the pencil to advance the lead when you write with this pencil. You would think it would just make a thinner line and not be consumed any faster. Nope. The lead and the line it makes are thinner, but it's at the cost of the lead being consumed fast--over twice as fast as lead in the .5mm pencil in my experience.Second, weirdly, one consequence of the really thin lead is that it gets so sharp you often tear or puncture your paper when starting up with this pencil--something that really doesn't happen with the .5mm or .7mm pencils.On a final note, the pencil is fed by removing the cap and the eraser underneath and placing lead pieces in the hole exposed when the eraser is removed.