Rotring 800+ vs Pentel Graphgear 500

Check out the Alvin Draft-Matic for an example of what I consider nearly ideal knurling (also, best pencil ever if you don't care that it's not pocket-safe). - The pencil is WEAK! I had it in my front pants pocket and I sat down. I didn't feel the pencil reminding me that it was encountering difficulties in there, but later I found that the force, while not enough to alert me, had been enough to snap the knurled lower part of the barrel off the hexagonal upper part. They did screw together again and the pencil still works, but the threads are awfully small

This is a nice pencil for the money. Nice weight towards the writing part of the pencil. Smooth action in advancing the lead. The metal knurled part feels nice in your hand, much better than common cheap mechanical pencils do

Rotring 800: Definitely a problematic pencil. The mechanism is problematic and breaks too many leads.

The $3.50 price swayed me. And, happily, the leads don’t break more than my 0.5mm pencils

What I found is constantly retracting the tip whenever I set the pencil down (which could be every few minutes while I pick up reference material), was causing the lead to break (see more on this below). Eraser - The eraser has a metal poker attached to it to help clear lead jams in the thin tip. Others have said it uses standard Pentel eraser refills, but I haven't tried this yet. I use Pentel Hi-Polymer erasers since they're the same material, cheaper and faster to use than removing the eraser protective cap

None of those worked for me. What did work for me was the Prismacolor Magic Rub erasers and I keep one in my apron. They aren't perfect but they do a good enough job that some light planing or sanding can clean up easily.

I know it's typical and normal, but I mess up a lot and blow through little erasers like this. The grip is fantastic. It always feels secure and is a comfortable girth for my somewhat undersized hands. The lead feed action is satisfying

After I slipped one of my empty ballpoint ink pen's foam sleeve onto this mechanical pencil it went from being a good pencil to a great pencil. Very easy to hold and use for writing notes or drawing forms. I am a wannabe woodworker so I draw many different shapes and forms for something I am trying to make and this pencil is very good for this type of work. Before the use of that foam sleeve I mentioned, your fingers would be holding onto the ribbed metal barrel and is somewhat uncomfortable to hold while doing my thing