![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif.pagespeed.ce._hfWAz_QHO.gif)
So why did you supposedly ask for alternatives?
Well, technically they didn’t, they just asked whether their dream concept exists. It doesn’t, and it’s fairly clear why, but clearly OP doesn’t want a proven solution, they just want confirmation of their idea.
There is a 100 year history of various pens and pencils, something might exist. could be a drafting tool or something for fitting. their usually hard to find because the industry of hand fitting mostly went away. There is a very large amount of unique scribes and such that became obsolete for anything but modding because parts improved and became more standardized.. just like watch making. CAD killed the general interest in all of this type of technology. Or lathe attachments, drill attachments , mold making tools, special clamps, slide rules, etc. I hear this stuff all the time when you are browsing something old and it shows up. Someone might have seen it.
For instance it might feed graphite with a screw instead of a collet and got invented in 1950.
I assume the people are getting mad because it will cut into some side business of someones selling or designing some kinda templates or stencils that these types tools threaten? or cad services? I seen this before, someone gets mad they don't get a assignment to work on some dumb template so they can delay a prototype design for 3 weeks before they can drill a switch hole lol
I know there have been many clever things made. But mechanical pencil leads certainly weren’t stronger in the past than now, and long, very thin leads are just going to be delicate, it’s the nature of the beast that is graphite pencil leads: the softness that lets them rub off onto the writing surface is the same softness that makes them fragile.
Earlier you said this:
You don't get that much strength even from a thick graphite (wood 'mechanical pencil' that uses a thick graphite core).
I don’t know what you mean by the “wood ‘mechanical pencil’” — a pencil is functionally either woodcase or mechanical, not both. The leads in woodcase pencils don’t need to be quite as strong as mechanical pencil leads — even of the same thickness — because the wood is there specifically to provide mechanical support, especially if the lead is fully glued in with a quality glue, as high quality pencil manufacturers do.
What I can tell you is that going thicker most certainly
does add a ton of strength. I happen to like very soft pencil leads — 2B to 3B, depending on manufacturer — and 3B is absolutely no problem in 2mm mechanical leads (i.e. drafting pencil/lead holder leads), whereas 0.5mm and 0.7mm 3B requires
extremely rigid, precise mechanical pencil mechanisms; most mechanical pencils have enough play in the clutch mechanism that 3B leads simply snap constantly. (And I do mean
constantly. Literally letting the pencil drop on its side, with the lead retracted, 6” onto the desk is enough to break a 3B lead in a typical mechanical pencil.) So far, I have found just one model (a Japan-only Staedtler model) that can handle 0.5mm 3B. But even with standard HB (~#2), a 2mm lead is way more robust than a 0.5mm or 0.7mm lead. There’s a reason they only sell the thin ones in 6cm lengths, whereas 2mm mechanical leads can be 13cm or more.