I used to have an old-fashioned carpenter pencil in my toolbox but grew tired of sharpening it with a box knife and being too bulky to mark recessed holes. The (partial) solution: the “Pica-Dry 3030 Longlife Automatic Pencil.”
Think of the Pica-Dry as an oversized mechanical pencil with a sheath containing a sharpener. It’s that simple. Because of having the sharp tip in the middle, it’s way more precise than regular carpenter pencils. It can also mark small-ish holes that wouldn’t fit a square pencil, though often I find myself with a hole that’s still too narrow to fit the metal rod that holds the lead.
PS: I also have the Pica-Ink marker, which is good for marking plastics and metal.
Pro
- Very good belt clip
- Built-in sharpener
- Replacement lead sold separately
Con
- Still a bit too “fat” for me
- When putting the pencil in the sheath, it’s (too) easy to press the button