Hack born of frustration- my pencil will no longer roll off the table on to the floor breaking the tip.

Hack born of frustration- my pencil will no longer roll off the table on to the floor breaking the tip.

Posted Jan 24, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

1.5K112
[deleted]•

Is….is your table that slanted?

71
RexianOGOP•

Guess so!

24
OrginalPeach•

Could be a drafting or aka drawing table. You can buy them slanted.

4
VudOni•

It....it could be.

2
Ok-Resist-556•

Place a piece of tape and make a little "flag" near the top, won't roll off the tape and not as cumbersome as binder clip i do this for my pencils i use for project layouts

52
RexianOGOP•

Here’s the real life hack! The binder clip actually hasn’t been cumbersome at all but i like this too!

17
thetwelvegates12•

For mechanical pencils, just glue tiny magnets to them and add piece of metal to drawing table frame.

3
boston_nsca•

I like to attach a small motor that controls stabilizing gimbals that adjust to the gravitational pull of the earth to keep it from moving. But that's just me

11
RexianOGOP•

The real life hack is always in the comments

4
Ok-Resist-556•

So what do you do for pens? The magnetic fields of the motor may introduce eddy currents that may affect the steel ball point of the pen.....rendering it unable to allow ink to flow 😳

1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
whoknowsuno•

The clip on your clipboard literally serves the exact same purpose

44
RexianOGOP•

Yeah, I put it there when walking around with the board but when im picking up and putting the pencil down a lot, this is easier

7
Melodic-Map-669•

Does the eraser already stop it? Pencils like that don't usually get far

14

The eraser probably makes it worse. The ridges on the pencil are designed to stop it from rolling away. By adding the eraser on the end, it lifts the ridges off the table, interrupting the anti-rolling functionality.

14
RexianOGOP•

If I didn’t have a problem I wouldn’t have sought to solve it.

9
Irishjohn831•

But now your paper stack is blowing all over the place, heavens to mergatroid

11
RexianOGOP•

I’m sure there’s a life hack for that

8
Irishjohn831•

I know, we can put our pencils on top of the paper.

4
RexianOGOP•

Brilliant!

3
Irishjohn831•

Well my friends don’t call me Einstein for nothing, they must think I’m funny too because when they walk away they are always laughing.

2
reillyenns•

If this is really such an issue for you, another way around this would be to use a carpenters pencil.

10
RexianOGOP•

I think the tip may be too big on those, but I don’t have one handy to look at.

3
Megatronus73•

It wouldn't cost much to try one out. Remember, you can whittle the tip down to nearly nothing, they're very versatile!

2
RexianOGOP•

Not a huge issue at all, I use a pencil maybe 4 times a month and it’s at work so I definitely am not putting my money into it.

1
Megatronus73•

Was gonna say this, they're built for such situations.

2
yukon-flower•

If the pencil has fallen multiple times, odds are the lead inside has already been shattered. Just preparing you for down the road.

7
RexianOGOP•

Thanks for the heads up, what does this mean for me?

2
yukon-flower•

You may find that the graphite is in little chunks inside the pencil. So maybe you sharpen it a little and the point falls out right away.

It can be an issue with fancy prismacolor colored pencils.

3

Protip: an elastic band warped around the metal eraser base does almost as good a job, if you're just placing the pencil down on a slightly less-than-flat surface, like a slightly angled desk. The band rubber better grips the surface of the desk, and it's less cumbersome and heavy than a relatively larger clip.

3
RexianOGOP•

Professional what?

0
LoadsDroppin•

I once broke my tip in a bicycling accident.

3
ScazBaz•

I thought pencils were shaped hexagonally specifically to stop them rolling?

2
RexianOGOP•

This one didn’t want to stay on the table. Maybe the addition of the other eraser made it rolly-er

2
Pudding_Hero•

The rounded point of pencil balances on the circle shape of the eraser

2
1CocteauTwin•

Buy the flat carpenter pencils, they won't go anywhere.

2
RexianOGOP•

I think the tips are too big, and no erasers. I only use a pencil once a week, this works for me but thanks!

1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
Dalamud_Red•

Oooh the desks in my elementary school are slightly slanted down—idk why. So we schoolchildren used to have bundles of rubber bands to wrap around our pencils and they never roll down. And then we use the rubber bands to flick the pencils at each other lol.

2
TheGottVater•

What’s a pencil?

2
_-savage_-•

U know how much better my life just got man. Thank you for this Reddit post

2
_-savage_-•

U know how much better my life just got man. Thank you for this Reddit post

2
SamMaghsoodloo•

You could even just take the arms off of the binder clip too.

2
RexianOGOP•

Arms have been removed, life hack improved.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
tedcruzrileycurry•

Damn, I just realized I haven’t use the pencil in like 20 years

2
RexianOGOP•

I hadn’t in a LONG time. I was surprised to receive one when I started keeping track of the inventory of our office supplies. Pencils aren’t even one of the office supplies we keep on hand, not sure where my boss got it.

1
PappyVanPinkhole•

I used to do this as well - but it ends up being a huge distraction for me because it is to fun to bounce it using the clips like a spring…. …. I still don’t get anything done at work and I don’t have a fun pencil anymore :-/

2

Is this a picture from like any time in the last 75 years?

2
mh_sux•

A.R.T. - Anti-Roll Technology

2