After reading the reviews...,
April 16, 2009
After reading the reviews I decided to snag a Boxy myself and test it out,
here's what I came up with -
Test 1. H Pencil lead, standard everyday smooth copy paper.
- The Boxy Eraser or the foxy boxy as I call it tends to leave clumped shavings
which is great because you can just blow them away as opposed to wiping them
away with your hand and potentially smudging pencil lines. There were however
some stubborn teeny tiny shavings that required a quick hand swipe.
- My long time used Magic Rub eraser tended to leave more tiny shavings which
required my hand to brush them away in several swipes. It should be noted
however the Magic Rub is not advertised as a lead/graphite eraser but is used on
film and such.
- The oldie but goody Pink Pearl Eraser left many tiny shavings all over from
the get go and easily performed the worst concerning hard to blow away tiny
shavings.
- The latex free Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser performed barely better than the
Boxy leaving almost tiny shavings. Those that were left were easily blown away.
- The best performer amongst them all was the Kneaded Rubber Eraser which of
course left no shavings behind. However a definite downside to the rubber eraser
is that it tends to crimp or wrinkle standard copy paper if you aren't very
careful about the force you use and where you place your free hand to prevent
that.
Test 2. H Pencil lead, 100lb heavy vellum illustration paper. Vellum is a more
textured art paper as opposed to smooth which is well... Smooth.
- Foxy Boxy did better on actual art paper with most shavings be blown away in
one breath, all the rest being blown away with the second breath. Very nice.
- The Magic Rub performed average leaving behind a host of very tiny very hard
to see shavings that would definitely affect drawing in that area. It also
collects a lot of lead leaving the eraser somewhat dirty.
- The Pink Pearl performed in the area of what I would call hideous leaving
small shavings everywhere from the get go. I needed three good breaths to blow
away the common shavings and three wipes of the hand to remove the tiny
shavings. If I had been using HB Pencil Lead I would have left streak marks
everywhere like a toddler in their diapers.
- The Mars Plastic Eraser matched the Boxy blowing away most shavings in one
breath and clearing all the rest in the second breath.
- The Kneaded Rubber Eraser did the best again leaving no shavings and because
of the thickness of the paper I was not in any danger of wrinkling my art.
Recommends:
Using H Pencil Lead or lighter I would say go for a rubber eraser and if you
want something solid in addition to that go for the Mars Plastic Eraser as it is
almost twice as big as the Boxy at a similar price. However I would recommend
the Boxy if you want something slightly more stylish or an eraser that is able
to fit smaller hands more comfortably. Stay away from the Pink Pearl as it is
strictly amateur hour and best left for grade school. It's cheap for a reason.
Even the Magic Rub outperforms the Pink and it's not even a pencil/lead eraser.
The Kneaded Rubber Eraser does better with light lead however it becomes less
effective with darker leads. For darker leads (2B-6B) I would lightly "dab" the
area with a rubber eraser then attack the same area with a plastic eraser.
- Rogers -
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