Leadholders - Rotring 800 2Mm

[Tseg]

 

After a number of years of collecting fountain pens I got in a bit of a funk when some orders I've made out of Japan have already been held up of a month and a half during this COVID lockdown, with no shipping date in sight.

 

I somehow stumbled upon the world of mechanical pencils that then led me to the world of Lead Holders. I learned mechanical pencils don't need their lead sharpened because they are typically

 

Rotring has a strong positive reputation in the world of drafting pencils... An old German company bought out by an American company with product manufactured in Japan, but still designed in Germany. Go figure. Interestingly, this flagship model from Rotring is one of the few completely metal mechanical pencil/lead holders still in production in the world, noting that the red ring (rotring) on this pencil appears to be plastic. This hunk of metal oozes quality, attention to detail and minimalism. Lots of pencils have various "features" like lead hardness indicators, retractable lead mechanisms, built-in sharpeners, etc... This pen has none of that, yet artistic professionals still recognize this is the lead holder to have. Pick it up in hand and you'll just know.

 

I'm not sure why there are not a lot of reviews on this lead holder? Rotring also makes a .5mm and .7mm retractable 800 mechanical pencil, but those are a bit of a different animal altogether, at half the cost or less to this lead holder. Anyway, I'm happy with the purchase. Its a beautiful piece of engineering and machining.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Tseg

[flatline]

2mm lead holders have been my favorite writing utensil for a while now. The Rotring 800 has never interested me because I don't like my 2mm holders to be incremental advance. I prefer the "drop clutch" mechanism since it makes sharpening much easier. I think the Rotring 600 2mm is a drop clutch, but I've never seen one in person.

 

I have a dozen or so 2mm lead holders, but my favorite by far is the Staedtler Mars Technico 780.

[Estycollector]

Kitaboshi 2.0mm Mechanical comes with a sharpener for $13.I like that the barrel is made of wood.

[AmandaW]

I'm a fan of 2mm lead holders too, but prefer the all plastic Faber-Castell TK9400 clutch pencil for it's clean simple body. I like to sharpen my pencils, of all kinds, to a long sharp point to be able to draw both a fine line and lay it down to shade so a clutch that can drop a lot of lead out is great. Being able to drop the lead back inside the body to protect it when not in use is a practical bonus.

Edited May 18, 2020 by AmandaW

[flatline]

So what lead are you running in the Rotring 800?

 

The Rotring HB that came in my Rotring 300 was excellent lead, but I couldn't find more of it and so my Rotring 300 is now loaded with Staedtler HB.

[Honeybadgers]

I really hate that the 800 2mm doesn't have either a clutch or the rotating tail that retracts the point, or a sharpener, or an eraser (one of the other on a lead holder. Don't care, just give me one) or a hardness indicator. Unlike 800 0.5, which I use every day. The 800 0.5/0.7 is kind of a platonic perfect mechanical pencil. All metal, balanced, you twist the body to pop out the lead sleeve, and then click the knock to advance the lead, it manages to squeeze an eraser in there and overall is just everything one would want in a mechanical pencil (there is a tiny bit of play side to side on the lead sleeve which annoyed me at first coming from a 600, but I quickly got used to it) It'd be cool if it had a clutch behind the lead sleeve, but if the sleeve retracted, I'd be happy.

 

I kinda hate the 800 ballpoint too, since it ONLY retracts/advances with the twist and not with the knock too. I'd love it if I could leave the sleeve advanced and just hit the knock, or retract the whole affair with the twist. I used it for a couple days and just put it back in its box and will resell it or give it away.

 

The next "best" lead holder rotring makes is the 600, which is easily the worst product I've ever held by rotring. plastic tube makes the clutch feel mushy, ugly chrome nose cone that doesn't match the pencil's aesthetic, the knurling even feels cheap, no sharpener/eraser, overall it was a terrible disappointment. There's a knockoff version that's like $25 and is way better, but my one issue with it is that if you put a long point on it with something like a staedler rotary sharpener, the clutch doesn't hold the lead far back enough so the point pokes out about 0.5mm and breaks in my pocket.

 

The closest I have come to perfect is a bit of a frankenstein that I made from two koh-i-noor pocket lead holders. This one has a knock advance which I hate in lead holders and a plastic inner barrel but the ergos are way better, I much prefer knurling on pencils.

 

 

And this one has a metal lead sleeve and clutch, but the overall fit and finish is much cheaper feeling.

 

 

But with some fiddling I realized that I could screw the nose and barrel/clutch from the bottom one into the top one, all I needed to do was clip a washer, remove it, and reapply it in a different spot, and boom, I have the top pencil with a full metal clutch advance and a good sharpener in the tail. My only issue is that it can sometimes feel a bit short in the hand since it is a pocket pencil, but I do find myself using it more than anything else apart from my 0.5 800, and it fits the staedler rotary sharpener. It's currently the best lead holder design I have, and nothing else on the market is even close. They're either cheap feeling or badly made or not all metal or knock advance, so my frankenstein holder is as good as I think I may ever get.

 

As for lead, I'm firm in the Uni and Staedler camp. Koh I noor lead feels like writing with gravel. I use 2h and 2b mostly.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Honeybadgers

[flatline]

I'm not sure I'm willing to give up my 5228 in order to have a drop clutch version of the 5608, but I love the idea. How did you get the 5608 innards out of knurled grip section? Did you cut the lead tube or were you able to slide it through the knurled section?

 

--flatline

[Tseg]

So what lead are you running in the Rotring 800?

 

The Rotring HB that came in my Rotring 300 was excellent lead, but I couldn't find more of it and so my Rotring 300 is now loaded with Staedtler HB.

 

I still have the OEM Rotring Tikky HB (I assume) in and it is soooo smooth. But I would prefer something darker, so ordered Uni 2.0mm 4B (ULN4B). This Mitsubishi lead is supposed to be as smooth as the Tikky and is more like a western 6B darkness. We'll see how it holds a point. It should arrive in 2 days.