Three (3) Precision Drill Bits for Vintage Mechanical Pencil Repair
In my experience, a good 90% of old mechanical pencils that don't work are only jammed. Nothing is wrong with their mechanisms, but lead is stuck inside, freezing everything up. Sometimes it's just a single piece of lead that won't budge, sometimes a piece has broken inside and gone sideways, fragments getting into the propelling mechanism.
Clearing out the jammed lead isn't hard, but it requires a drill bit of just the right size. Too small, and a tube of lead remains which has to be broken up and coaxed out with a sharp pick. Too large, and the fit of the lead in the nozzle and mechanism can be left sloppy and loose.
These precision twist bits are carefully sized for optimal fit in mechanical pencils that use .9 mm lead, which was the most common size from around 1940 to around 1980 (though it is still very much in use today). These drills are only a few hundredths of a millimeter (thousandths of an inch) thinner than the lead they are designed to clear, and they are made with spiral flutes that are sharply twisted, which extracts pencil lead residue far more effectively than the nearly-straight flutes found on standard hardware store drill bits.
You will get three (3) drill bits, all the same size.
Finally, the usual disclaimers: use at your own risk, turn by hand only (a pin vise is recommended), and work slowly and carefully so only lead is removed, not metal.
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About Us
vintagepens is run by David Nishimura (Vintage Pens LLC) based in historic Providence, Rhode Island. David has been buying, selling, and writing about old writing instruments since the late 1980s. He has been on eBay since 1997, the same year he launched one of the first vintage pen collecting websites. David is an active pen history blogger, and a regular presence on pen collecting forums and social media, as well as at traditional pen shows.