Eraserhead
October 17, 2025 at 8:20 PM by Dr. Drang
I was talking to a friend about pencils a few weeks ago. I noticed she had a Blackwing 602 and asked her about it. She told me she never got along with mechanical pencils. The leads break too easily and the erasers don’t last—once they’re worn and need to be adjusted outward, they tend to slide back into their crimped metal holders when you press on them.
I had the same lead-breaking problem before I switched to Ain leads. But the second problem was vexing to me, too. I’ve often gotten around it by using separate erasers, either block or stick,1 but sometimes you just want to use the eraser on the end of your pencil. Its tiny diameter makes it better for small erasures.
I could, of course, squeeze the little metal holder with a pair of pliers. That would probably provide enough grip to keep the eraser from sliding, but I didn’t like the idea of ovalizing the holder.
It was on a Monday morning, as I was adding the upcoming week’s tasks to my notebook, that I thought of wrapping a bit of the washi tape I use to make notebook tabs around the eraser. By increasing the effective diameter of the eraser, the holder could grip it better, and it wouldn’t slip.
The thin red lines you see in the holder’s gap are the design on the washi tape I’m currently using. Because everything is small and tape often sticks where you don’t want it to, it was tricky getting a smooth wrap, but I managed. The eraser hasn’t slid since then. (It looks like I’ll need to push it out a bit more pretty soon.)
I don’t want to suggest that washi tape in particular was necessary for this operation—it was just what I had in front of me when I had the idea. But I do think a thin tape is best. If you build up the diameter of the eraser too much, it won’t fit nicely in the holder anymore.
-
If you’re wondering, I stopped using Amazon affiliate links quite a while ago. I have, however, edited the links in this paragraph to remove the voluminous cruft Amazon typically attaches. I assume that junk is tracking you—or worse, me—and there’s no need for it to be there. ↩