Pencil Restoration 101
I don't know why I did this. Maybe it was Mount Everest Syndrome (Because it's THERE). Maybe it's just to see the incredulous looks on people's faces. Maybe people don't think I'm unbalanced enough and once in a while I have to do something like this to remind them that I am indeed odd. Maybe I do something silly like this so the other projects I tackle seem normal by comparison. Or maybe I do it to prove that most anything, no matter how seemingly worthless, can be brought back to a serve a useful purpose if there's a little bit of work involved. Seems like we have a religion that has that thought as one of it's basic principles, but I don't see too much evidence of it being practiced.As I was walking over my driveway the other day I spotted a pencil laying there. I'm pretty sure it had been there for several months, maybe longer. It had been trod on, driven over, crushed, and exposed to the weather. It was split along it's seam, the eraser ferrule flattened, and a chunk of lead was hanging out. Here it is, as found:
I took it inside, carefully reinserted the lead, glued it, wrapped it in tape, and clamped it in a vise while drying to hopefully correct some of the warp.
Once it dried I scraped the old paint and weathered wood with a utility knife (no sandpaper, didn't want to round off the facets!)
I then reshaped the ferrule (marginally successfully) with a small brass hammer and sprayed it with some red paint I had kicking around.
Here it is in it's restored state:
Was it worth it to spend two hours restoring a ten cent pencil? No, probably not.... but it was fun.