Time is running out to get your name into the drawing for a chance to win one of 3 sets of Artline drawing materials. If you haven’t already, make sure you check out the contest to learn how you can enter.

It appears that mechanical pencils have been around a long time.  Apparently an early example was found amongst the wreckage of HMS Pandora.  The Worther Shorty definitely belongs in the 21^st century.  This clutch pencil holds a 3.15mm lead & the plastic hexagonal design sits comfortably in my hand.  The lead retracts easily at the push of the button on the top.

Founded in 1985 the Worther company aim to stand out from the crowd, they manufacture their products in house & some are even made by hand, design & quality are a priority.

Now I’m certainly no artist, my drawing skills just about manage matchstick men, believe me there’s no comparison to those that Lowry created.  Neither has my career path taken me down the technical drawing or carpentry route, therefore I haven’t had much cause to look at mechanical pencils, until now.

I decided to find out the benefits that a Worther Shorty may have over the pencils I was used to chewing the end of whilst concentrating during my junior school lessons.

Refillable – made of top quality plastic, this pencil will be long lasting.  The shorty comes in a box with 3 7B leads in a handy cardboard tube.  When required you can also purchase replacements in a variety of colours, including red, orange & blue.  Should you choose to, you can even swap the lead for a ballpoint to turn it into a pen.

No need to sharpen - The tip is said to taper whilst being used.  It seems that some people still prefer to use a sharpener to make a finer point, I suppose it depends what you are using the pencil for.

Consistency – for those that use a pencil for engineering work, it is reported that mechanical pencils held upright will produce a predictable line the same width of the lead, whereas the wooden case type cannot.

I found the shorty comfortable to use, although only 4.5 inches long it was still long enough to rest well between my thumb & forefinger.   I wanted to test the claim that this pencil can write on almost all surfaces, even x-rays.  I compared a standard pencil with the Worther Shorty on metal, wood, glass & plastic coated folders, it did perform well.  In all cases it was visible, the standard pencil was much fainter on wood, I was unable to detect it at all on plastic.

I can see that the Worther Shorty could have a variety of uses for a wide range of people.

Worther Shorty Review

Tiger Pens would like to help 3 of our readers get ready for fall with back-to-school kits of pens and pencils.

This month, we’re giving away the Pentel School Essentials Pack.

The pack includes:

• 1 Pentel Energel liquid gel ink rollerball pen
• 2 Pentel ballpoint pens
• 1 Pentel Fiesta automatic pencil
• 1 Pentel Highlighter
• 1 Pentel Hi-Polymer Eraser
• And, 1 ruler

As usual, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment below. We’ll randomly select three names and announce the winners on August 27.

Meanwhile, the Pentel School Essentials pack is also on sale at the Tiger Pens store at a special price of £3.99.

Good luck and thanks for visiting the Tiger Pens Blog.

Pencil Talk recommends the walnut pencil box from Kozo Interior Studio.

Peninkcillin gets down to the nitty gritty of refilling the “disposable” Pilot Varsity fountain pen.

Julie at Peaceable Writer shares her passion for brown fountain pen inks.

The Gadgeteer serves up a detailed review of the Monteverde One Touch Stylus/Pen.

Rants of the Archer dissects the Lamy Safari Aquamarine with exquisitely detailed photos.

Nifty at Notebook Stories explains why we should buy expensive Moleskine notebooks.

Dowdy at The Pen Addict makes the case for the Top 5 micro tip gel pens.

The OfficeSupplyGeek gets to kung-fu fighting with a review of the Schrade Tactical Fountain Pen.

Heather at A Penchant for Paper explores her new Rhodia Dot Grid Webnotebook.

Diane at Pocket Blonde shares her impressions of the Paper Mate Profile ballpoint in 1.4 mm.

Looking for some great pen and paper reading? These are some of the recent posts we recommend:

No Pen Intended gets down to the details with the Pentel EnerGel Euro Needle-Point gel pen.

Artist Jim Leggitt opens up about his favourite ink pens for drawing, including the Pentel Sign Pen and the Staedtler Lumocolor.

Seth at Good Pens shows us his newest find, an awesome sterling silver mechanical pencil from 1921.

The Pen Addict has announced another fantastic giveaway: Uniball Kuru Togas and Doane notebooks.

Does this Pen Write shares our love of novelty pens, as you can see in this review of a pen with a built-in laser pointer and 1GB flash drive.

Diane at Pocket Blonde gives us a glimpse of the restoration she’s having done on her sleek Esterbrook Dollar Pen.

Matt Hickman from Mother Nature Network continues his series on eco-friendly office supplies, this time recommending the Pilot B2P and DBA 98 pen, among others.

Over the last year, we at Tiger Pens have come to count as friends many of the wonderful people that work in the UK offices of Japanese pen makers such as Uniball and Pentel. As you know, Japan is now struggling with incredible tragedy in the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami. We would like to take this moment to say that our thoughts are with our Japanese colleagues, their friends and family and the people of Japan at this very difficult time.

If you would like to help the victims of this disaster, donations can be made to either the British Red Cross or the American Red Cross.

Head over to Notes in a Book to check out this month’s pen carnival. There’s lots of good reading, including one post we particularly liked from Writer’s Bloc called “If Fountain Pens were Cars.”

And, while we’re recommending links, here’s one that was not in the carnival, but still makes for an interesting conversation. Check out Does this Pen Write and the post, “Fresh or Tired: Uniball Signo.”

Really enjoyed this post by Nifty at Notebook Stories about the three notebooks every writer should keep.

Normally, we save random pen-related stories for one of our Totally Random Pen Stuff features, but this one, about a POW with a fountain pen and a journal, seemed like it deserved its own space, especially with Veterans Day coming up in the US.

According to CNN, Tony Acevedo was just a kid right out of high school when he was sent to Europe as an Army medic during World War II. He was captured by the Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge and sent with about 350 other soldiers to the Berga slave labor camp, where they were brutalized and subjected to forced labor.

Acevedo felt it was his duty to keep records of each POW death. The lengths he went to were extraordinary.

He used a diary and a Sheaffer fountain pen that came as part of a Red Cross care package. He had to hide the journal from the Germans by tucking it into his pants because he was afraid he would be killed if it was discovered. And he had to really stretch his writing materials by mixing snow, among other things, with his fountain pen ink to make it last.

It’s a moving story, and we recommend it to anyone interested in the power of journals to chronicle history, small and large.

Readers, you may have noticed that the blog has been a little quiet lately. Your Tiger Pens blogger has been sickly for a bit, but now seems to be on the mend. Look for lots of great new content coming this week, along with news of giveaways and other great stuff. Meanwhile, a special thanks to The Pen Warrior for carrying the load. The post on keeping a notepad and pen in your car was super!

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