Van Neistat's Custom Pencil
Published May 24, 2024 · 36s · 6,061,955 views
About This Video
Ten years of searching, experimenting, and testing to arrive at a Pentel mechanical pencil, a tool you can buy almost anywhere for a few dollars. Then the modifications start. Van grips it so hard that he wraps it in a silicone grip. He makes more mistakes than the factory eraser can keep up with, so he engineers a replacement eraser mount out of plumber's epoxy. That one took two years.
Every change is earned by use. The silicone grip answers a specific problem: he throttles the pencil. The plumber's epoxy mount is sanded by hand so the replacement eraser fits just so. And then the detail that turns a tool into a record. He dates it. "Can't have a pencil floating around without a date on it." The stock pencil costs almost nothing. The modified one is irreplaceable, because it encodes a decade of practice you cannot buy off a shelf.
This is craft epistemology in 36 seconds. Knowledge that only arrives through sustained use of a single instrument. Van treats a disposable object as a permanent relationship, the same move he makes with the tools he refuses to let migrate between nests. The pencil is the channel in miniature: the cheap thing, used long enough and modified precisely enough, becomes the thing you can't work without.
What Van Uses: a Pentel mechanical pencil chosen for wide availability, lead that doesn't snap, and a good color. A silicone grip added because he holds it too tightly. A custom eraser mount built from plumber's epoxy and sanded to fit. More of his everyday tools live on the things Van loves.
Related: The Tool Van Neistat Can't Live Without, Van Neistat's Essential Tools, Love Letter to Manual Typewriters
FAQ
What pencil does Van Neistat use?
A Pentel mechanical pencil. He chose it after ten years of testing because it's widely available, the lead doesn't break easily, and it comes in a color he likes. He then modified it with a silicone grip and a rebuilt eraser.
Why does Van put a silicone grip on his pencil?
Because he grips it very tightly while drawing and writing. The silicone sleeve makes a hard-held pencil bearable over long sessions. It's one of two modifications, the other being the eraser mount.
What is the eraser mount made of?
Plumber's epoxy. Van wanted a bigger, better eraser than the pencil's stock one, so he built a mount from epoxy, sanded it by hand so the replacement eraser fits precisely, and dated it. He says that solution took two years to work out.
Transcript
10 years of searching experimenting and testing to figure out that this was the correct pencil why it's widely available the lead doesn't break easily comes in a good color but got to put a silicone grip on it because he grips it so tightly needs a better eraser than that of course the number of mistakes this spirited man makes going to need a mount for that eraser make it out of plumbers epoxy took two years to figure that one out got to sand it just right so the Eraser fits just so oh got to date it of course got to put a date on there can't have a pencil floating around without a date on it
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Pentel pencil essential — Van's custom pencil, 10 years of testing
- silicone grip uses — custom addition to pencil
- plumber's epoxy uses — used to mount replacement eraser