Featured Ambassador Mechanical Pencil - How Does It Work?

Hi, I hope there are a few members who are familiar with the mechanisms of old mechanical pencils.

I recently picked up this neat old mechanical pencil marked Ambassador.
I have NO idea how it's meant to work - how to load it, etc. Maybe it's broken?

When the brass tip is twisted clockwise a metal rod is propelled forward. I can understand how that would work to propel a piece of lead forward - but only if the mechanism was positioned a couple of inches further from the brass tip. (There is no room for the lead.)

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

When it’s working right you push on part of it while holding the other and gravity drops the lead down and the little claws hold it when you let go. Lots of drafting pencils work this way.

 

Thanks. I've used that kind of pencil in the past. This appears to be a solid rod rather than a claw - unless part of it has been broken off

 

@Shangas is our whiz kid when it come to writing implements.He's posted mostly pens, but may also deal in pencils ?

 

Ah- I saw the little jaw like things and assumed that's what it was. Maybe try a piece of lead in it from one end and then the other and twist/push- maybe its non-obvious how it works (until you see it work)

 

Yep. I certainly have to play with it. (Nothing to lose.)

 

These old ones often use a size of lead that is no longer standard. Do you have the right size of lead for it?

 

No, Actually, I don't have any leads yet. I wanted to see how the pencil would work - if it would work - before buying any lead. Do you think it takes a smaller diameter than standard?

 

In my, limited, experience, they require thicker lead than we use nowadays. The loading procedure Davey describes is the one I have encountered most often.

 

Thanks!

It's a variety known as a propelling pencil.

What the others have said is, regrettably, correct. The vast majority of these pencils don't use the same type (size) of graphite that's available today.

I have a friend who collects pencils like these. One way to do it is to buy thicker graphite, sand it down and then shove it in, but it's not very precise.

 

is it possible to find vintage ...to the pencil, leads ?

 

YES, but it can be a real gamble.

 

Thanks for your help.
Soooo. Does this kind of pencil load through the front hole - and does it use very short lengths of graphite? That's the only way I can make sense of it.

 

I gave my son his great-grandfather's silver propelling pencil some years ago. I think you twisted part of it to propel the lead forward. I found a website that sold various thicknesses of graphite lead for these old pencils.

 

Yes. It's a "muzzle-loader" as they say in firearms circles. Goes down the front. Wind the pencil all the way back, shove in the lead, and then wind it forwards to use it.

Very simple mechanism. Developed in the 1820s by the silversmith Sampson Mordan.

 

Ahh. Thanks! The propelling rod appears to wind only a very short way back - maybe half an inch. I suspect that it's stuck. Maybe I can unstick it.