Customer Reviews

To the previous reviewer:

This pencil does not release more lead from the cartridge into the lead advance mechanism. The cartridge is actually just a portable lead container that is conveniently attached to the eraser and inserted into the body of the pencil. Now, for advancing the lead, it will automatically advance when worn down as well as by manually pushing in the black sleeve as betolung described. Once your piece of lead is nearly exhausted you will need to refill the advance mechanism with a new piece of lead. Here is where you said your had a problem. With this pencil you can't simply keep pushing the black sleeve for lead to come down from the cartridge. As I said, this is simply a container so you need to detach the cartridge from the body of the pencil and open up the black cap and remove a piece of lead. Please do NOT load from the front of the pencil! You will notice that if you try to do so, you might experience from slight pressure and you may even break your piece of lead. This is because of the way this pencil was designed, to only advance a small amount of lead at a time. So, instead drop the new piece of lead into the body of the pencil. I find that if you discard the tiny bit of lead left from your previous piece, you will experience less jamming. So the reason the cartridge is not as long as the entire body of the pencil is because the cartridge is what helps to secure the new piece of lead when you first push it out. This feature may make this pencil quite a hassle but I find that this pencil does not jam as you only use one piece of lead at a time. Hope this helps.

Putting Lead Through the Front is NOT Possible! (as stated by description)

I just bought one and took me a few minutes to figure it out. I wanted to use blue lead instead of graphite so I bought some 0.7 Blue Eno lead from Pilot also sold in Jet Pens. I will use it for some preliminary draws before I ink or draw on top of. My review is to facilitate people who want to change the leads. It's not as easy as regular mechanical pencils, but it's not too bad. First you have to pull out the lead from the from by pushing back on the grey plastic tip that is suppose to look like the tip of a pencil. The you can pull the lead, but nice and slowly always retracting from the place it's coming out and not simply pulling from the end out (that will snap the lead). The you twist off the eraser holder (not eraser) until you pull out the container that is filled with extra lead (2). I removed them and the one the pencil came with and stored it for another mechanical pencil later. I grabbed the blue leads and unlike how it states you put by the front it's not possible. You can only add 1 lead through the inside. You have to let it slide in the hole (you can see it) and then you basically begin to draw on a scrap piece of paper until it comes out. If you do this for less than a minute it will come out. Once it starts drawing you can simply pull the lead out and pushing the pencil tip in a little to desired length and you are set.

i love the pencil, but the lead won't advance any more! please, can someone help?! it worked fine and then at the end of a 2.5 hour lecture, no more lead advanced though there are 2 more inside the cartridge.

The Knock Free Sharp Pencil automatically advances its lead, but its tip tends to drag when the lead grows short and the plastic sleeve starts rubbing against the paper. Though the lead can be advanced a bit manually by pushing down on the black plastic sleeve around the exposed lead if you don't like the speed of its automatic advance feature. Personally I have yet to meet a mechanical pencil with an automatic advance mechanism that I like, for I did not care for the Kuru-Toga or the Faber Castell Grip-matic 1375 either. I suppose the auto-advance feature would be more appreciated by people that use their pencils more for writing, but I just find them annoying when attempting to sketch quickly with them. The non-replaceable pink eraser on the Knock Free Sharp Pencil cap does a fair job in removing graphite from the paper in a pinch, but it would be advisable to rely on a dedicated vinyl eraser instead to preserve the pencil's pristine look. While not certain about the durability of this pencil, it is fairly inexpensive and should perform well enough to meet a child's writing and drawing needs during a school term.

I wouldn't get this if I were you. )=

Not that great!

Its cute and fun to use but sometimes I found it did get scratchy when using it. I usually ending up pulling the lead out a bit more than what was advanced by itself. It was annoying because if the lead didn't advance once it had gotten shorter I had to take it apart and put in a new piece of lead to push it forward and then put the new lead back in the container since there was no room for more than 1 piece of full sized lead.

I found mine got jammed with pencil lead and would stop advancing. Its a pain in the but to clear jammed leads as I found it difficult to remove the brown "wooden" part of the pencil from the advancing mechanism without breaking it. Pushing something in through the black sleeve doesn't work and will make the situation worse!

Kind of a let down. Though I love that no one can really tell its a mechanical pencil. Also it would be nice to have eraser refills/replacements

It's a good basic, fun pencil that looks like a wood pencil. For the price, it's the perfect thing to get to bump you into free shipping.

To summarize the long "how to load it" post before mine:
1. unscrew the back.
2. Put a lead into the chamber.
3. Screw the back on. This'll push the lead into the tip.
4. Write or just press on some paper until the lead gets down there.

Good pen. Mucho recommended, especially to get the free ship. Not my main pencil though. :D

Putting Lead Through the Front is NOT Possible! (as stated by description)

I just bought one and took me a few minutes to figure it out. I wanted to use blue lead instead of graphite so I bought some 0.7 Blue Eno lead from Pilot also sold in Jet Pens. I will use it for some preliminary draws before I ink or draw on top of. My review is to facilitate people who want to change the leads. It's not as easy as regular mechanical pencils, but it's not too bad. First you have to pull out the lead from the from by pushing back on the grey plastic tip that is suppose to look like the tip of a pencil. The you can pull the lead, but nice and slowly always retracting from the place it's coming out and not simply pulling from the end out (that will snap the lead). The you twist off the eraser holder (not eraser) until you pull out the container that is filled with extra lead (2). I removed them and the one the pencil came with and stored it for another mechanical pencil later. I grabbed the blue leads and unlike how it states you put by the front it's not possible. You can only add 1 lead through the inside. You have to let it slide in the hole (you can see it) and then you basically begin to draw on a scrap piece of paper until it comes out. If you do this for less than a minute it will come out. Once it starts drawing you can simply pull the lead out and pushing the pencil tip in a little to desired length and you are set.

I love these pencils! We picked them up for our son, who likes them and uses them in elementary school. The colors are great, and they really look like a wooden pencil even up close. Loading has been covered in other comments. I would just add that if the lead needs to be advanced just a little, all you have to do is push the black sleeve (that looks like the lead) toward the pencil body a little bit and release. The lead will advance a little or a lot, depending on how far you push back the sleeve. Once you do that, it will automatically advance on its own while you write, so this isn't something that you need to do often.

I love this pencil. When I got it, I got a big piece of paper and just started scribbling until the lead ran out. I wanted to see how well it advanced and if it got scratchy. The lead advanced so well I couldn't tell when it did. It did not ever get scratchy. If I held the pen at a very shallow angle, it did scratch a little, but I hold it about 45 degrees.
Refilling was no more difficult than any other pen. I just dropped a lead in the end and pressed on the black tip a few times and it was ready to go.

If this technology was in a normal pencil with a clip and autoloading magazine like the Pentel Quick Dock and hey, how about the lead-breakage preventing technology of the Millino or the Platinum OleEnu, Then pencil lovers could stop fussing and get back to writing the great american novel.

The tip of the pencil pushes in when the lead gets short, and when you lift the pencil it pulls out more lead. It works fine for writing but if you do light sketching it won't work so well.

The eraser part unscrews from the body and unlike normal mechanical pencils there is no lead reservoir. Instead, there is a lead container with a screw-on lid inside the body attached to the eraser end. To change lead, you first eject the current lead by carefully, repeatedly pressing in the tip of the pencil. Then you take off the end and drop in a new lead, make sure the lead falls into the hole, and screw the end on back on. The lead container will push the lead in the pencil down into the mechanism and then you press the tip of the pencil on the paper until the lead comes out the end.

It saves time and trouble from clicking, but putting in a new piece of lead takes much longer.

How I loved this pencil when it first arrived. Now it is next door to useless because coaxing the lead into the proper place is occasionally successful. So it goes into the rubbish bin.

Putting Lead Through the Front is NOT Possible! (as stated by description)

I just bought one and took me a few minutes to figure it out. I wanted to use blue lead instead of graphite so I bought some 0.7 Blue Eno lead from Pilot also sold in Jet Pens. I will use it for some preliminary draws before I ink or draw on top of. My review is to facilitate people who want to change the leads. It's not as easy as regular mechanical pencils, but it's not too bad. First you have to pull out the lead from the from by pushing back on the grey plastic tip that is suppose to look like the tip of a pencil. The you can pull the lead, but nice and slowly always retracting from the place it's coming out and not simply pulling from the end out (that will snap the lead). The you twist off the eraser holder (not eraser) until you pull out the container that is filled with extra lead (2). I removed them and the one the pencil came with and stored it for another mechanical pencil later. I grabbed the blue leads and unlike how it states you put by the front it's not possible. You can only add 1 lead through the inside. You have to let it slide in the hole (you can see it) and then you basically begin to draw on a scrap piece of paper until it comes out. If you do this for less than a minute it will come out. Once it starts drawing you can simply pull the lead out and pushing the pencil tip in a little to desired length and you are set.

It's taking a little getting used to, but this pencil is great. I typically prefer a thinner line with a mechanical pencil, but the ability to just keep writing without having to manually advance lead is nice, especially for something like taking notes. Even though the eraser is not replaceable it seems a decent size and should last a while for normal erasing duty. I'd like to get a few more of these.

My new favorite pencil! Lays down almost as quickly as a wooden pencil. Has the finish and balance as a Staedtler Mars Lumograph. Get this instead of the rebranded Dixon Ticonderogas on Amazon selling for much more.

1. You refill the lead by unscrewing the ferrule and taking a lead out of the container and putting it into the barrel. With the cap back on the lead container, put the pencil back together and the containers concave tip will push the lead into the holder.

2. I don't find this scratchy at all and don't have a mental hangup about seeing a mm of lead sticking out. My gripe is that it only comes in 0.7mm. I'm used to using the Kuro Toga 0.5 that rotates the lead. This pencil is for a thick, casual line, for large note taking, this isn't for something you'd give to someone else. I love the look and will buy more if they get a 0.5 or smaller.

cute pencil. The only problem for me is that the lead in the front is too short, but this doesn't cause real problem in writing and it's not scratchy.

Please restock this item!! I want it sooo badly!!

restock please restock help please ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Putting Lead by the Front is NOT Possible.

I just bought one and took me a few minutes to figure it out. I wanted to use blue lead instead of graphite so I bought some 0.7 Blue Eno lead from Pilot also sold in Jet Pens. I will use it for some preliminary draws before I ink or draw on top of. My review is to facilitate people who want to change the leads. It's not as easy as regular mechanical pencils, but it's not too bad. First you have to pull out the lead from the from by pushing back on the grey plastic tip that is suppose to look like the tip of a pencil. The you can pull the lead, but nice and slowly always retracting from the place it's coming out and not simply pulling from the end out (that will snap the lead). The you twist off the eraser holder (not eraser) until you pull out the container that is filled with extra lead (2). I removed them and the one the pencil came with and stored it for another mechanical pencil later. I grabbed the blue leads and unlike how it states you put by the front it's not possible. You can only add 1 lead through the inside. You have to let it slide in the hole (you can see it) and then you basically begin to draw on a scrap piece of paper until it comes out. If you do this for less than a minute it will come out. Once it starts drawing you can simply pull the lead out and pushing the pencil tip in a little to desired length and you are set.

how do you refill the lead in this thing???