Customer Reviews

Alvin Draftmatic Technical Pencil- 0.3mm

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been using this pencil for seven years now and have no intention of stopping. In college and grad school for physics, I have found it invaluable when I want to fit a long equation on one line and still read it clearly, and innumerable other situations where compact writing is useful. It has a good heft to it, unlike other 0.3mm pencils I have tried, and it is overall a very pleasant writing utensil. I could go on, but if you're looking for a recommendation, here it is: buy this pencil. If buying a few gets you free shipping, then buy a few.

Weaknesses, ranked from greatest to least (none of which keep me from buying this pencil again):
Non-retractable tip bends easily if pencil is dropped, and may deform and render pencil unusable.
Eraser is very narrow; I always accompany this pencil with a separate (bigger) eraser.
Slender lead breaks easily if more than 2-3 clicks' worth protrudes from the tip, so relatively frequent advancing is necessary.
Exhausted lead may not drop free easily and might not be pushed out by its successor: often necessary to pull it out.
Printing on yellow pencil shaft may smear or fade.
As another reviewer mentioned, the lead-hardness indicator spins too freely (and is a great target for fidgeting) to be reliable.

Problems shared by all 0.3mm pencils:
Filling in bubbles completely on computer-scanned sheets takes quite a while; if you're taking a timed multiple-choice exam, you could shave a few seconds off the total by bringing a fat-tipped pencil as well.
Replacement lead is difficult to find: I've had to get it at art-supply stores rather than office-supply stores.
In my whole seven years, I've only run into one other person who uses 0.3mm without being one of my own converts. Consequently, I need to make sure the pencil is well loaded, because if I run out of lead in class, no one has spare lead that will fit and I need to borrow a whole pencil.

The Alvin is a heavyweight of a pencil weighing 17 grams, with its balancing point being 82.5mm from the top of the pencil. This makes the Alvin bottom heavy, which helps it rest comfortably in my hand. The finely knurled diamond pattern on the chromed grip affords my fingers a good hold. Both features help make writing with the Alvin a delight, it almost writes for me. Three clicks of the push button produces enough lead to write or draw with, about 1mm. The lead reservoir is not large, being small in diameter, but it will hold a couple of dozen pieces of lead. The lead grade indicator at the top of the body spins to freely and can move during normal handling. The bright silver characters of the lead grades are set against a gloss black background making them hard to read due to glare. However the push button can be replaced and the eraser used without causing lead projection.

The Alvin Draft/Matic DM03 was designed as a drafting tool but serves well as a freehand drawing tool or as a fine writing instrument. Its balance and feel make it suitable for anyone who wishes to use it in any respect.

I've been using the Alvin Draftmatic pencils for the last 4 years. The weight, shape & all around feel is perfect. I am a gentle & careful user of my pencils but these keep breaking (the mechanism), jamming, etc. I've replaced my .3mm 3 times and I'm done. The last one has finally stopped feeding the leads correctly. It's so unfortunate. I love everything else about these pencils but I can't afford to replace them constantly. The break downs are so random.

I have used this mechanical pencil on a daily basis for three years. I bought two initially, in case one quit on me. I'm still using the first one. I have never had a single problem with this pencil. I use it for everything from sketching to fine detailed ship drawings. It is the best of its kind, and I have used many over many years.

This is a very nice pencil. The only down side is that the majority of it is yellow. Very nice grip, very light weight. Very nice pencil. I may end up buying another one, because its so nice.

i adore this pencil, you do have to be very carefull when handling this delicate pencil but it is worth it, if you are someone who presses hard with pencils this is NOT for you & i dont recommend sharing unless you know they do not press to hard as it is easy to snap the metal tip off, the average person will struggle to keep this lead from snapping but once you get used to it this may be your favorite pencil, even a .5 looks bulky on paper now. tough to get lead so stock up when you order it

I'm a Civil Engineering major in college. I got the idea to buy a .3mm pencil because I had an instructor who allowed us to use a 3x5 note card for tests. I wanted to have a pencil to be able to write extremely small, legible notes. This allows you to do just that. This is now my lucky pencil that I use for tests and such.

About the pencil: This is my second brand of .3mm pencil. I originally purchased the Pentel GraphGear 500 .3mm pencil. I liked the Pentel but I slammed it against something and bent the tip. I got another Pentel and that one simply stopped feeding lead. Then I got the Alvin.


The Alvin has a thinner, more knurled grip when compared to the Pentel. The grip on the Alvin is slightly thinner than the pencil barrel which gives better control. The Pentel's grip was much fatter than the barrel and more slippery which made it hard to find the perfect position to write. With the Pentel, all the weight was in the tip, making it easy to drop. The Alvin is slightly tip heavy, but not nearly as much; the center of gravity on the Alvin is about 3/4" back from the grip, while the Pentel's center of gravity is just at the end of the grip.

To prevent tip destruction, I placed a black pen cap (from a standard Papermate pen) on the Alvin which fits perfectly--the knurling prevents it from falling off. I couldn't do this with the Pentel because the grip was too fat. I recommend this pencil; just make sure you protect the tip.

I enjoy this pencil immensely and have bought it on several occasions. I have not seen anyone else typically use 0.3mm lead but have found that if I leave this pencil somewhere it is quickly picked up and used by another person, causing me to have to frequently replace it.

If someone is not use to writing with 0.3mm lead it can be quite a pain to get used to but the clean, small and efficient writing helps to create engineering notebooks which are easy to read and pleasing to the eye, keeping records usually dedicated to one page of notebook test.

I highly recommend this pencil, it is well designed and built and you can't go wrong with any Alvin Draftmatic pencil.

This has become one of my favorite pencils. I use this and a 0.5mm pencil quite heavily. The pencil is nicely weighted to rest well in your hand. It has a nice feature which allows you to rotate an indicator which tells you what grade of lead you have loaded in the pencil. It does, however, have a very thin tube where the lead comes out. I have dropped this pencil and that tube hasn't bent, but I do worry about it bending one day. This pencil isn't cheap, but it's great for heavy physics, engineering and advanced math work. Recommended.

used it for 10 minutes the lead broke off spend 30min pressing it to get the point back and no point came up! opened it up and saw that 3 pieces of lead were protruding from the feeder and wouldnt move tried taking it apart emptying it and putting it back together and still nothing. Biggest waste of money ever DO NOT BUY THIS