A Triple Mechanical Eraser Review and A New Colorworks Knitting Project

As an avid writer and with my recent interest in drawing and sketching I tend to erase a lot. Maybe that shows I’m being too much of a perfectionist (Could call me a correctionist, someone put that in the dictionary.) but yes erasing is a normal occurrence to me. Erasers can also be used for shading and detailing so having the right eraser for the right job is a must. That brings us to this blog today. Mum put in another art supply order from Blick (Dickblick.com) over a week ago and we finally received it last Friday. Aside from the sweet Winsor & Newton watercolor set Mum got (I’m pretty jealous no lie.) she also got these three mechanical erasers of three various sizes from three different brands. What are mechanical erasers? Basically they’re mechanical pencils but they have a long eraser inside of it, they work pretty much identical to a pen/mechanical pencil. As an avid writer and sketcher Mum has put me in charge of writing a review on these three erasers.

The three mechanical erasers we got are this General’s Factis BM-2 Mechanical Eraser for $2.99 on Blick, this Mono Knock 3.8 MM Mechanical Eraser for $1.79 on Blick and finally this Staedtler Triangular Eraser for $1.99 on Blick. The Staedtler eraser confused me at first, it said triangular so I assumed the actual eraser was triangular but only the pen is triangular the actual eraser is a round cylinder like the others.

My first impressions were pretty good; they’re not too expensive with the Factis being the most expensive. The Staedtler seemed a bit too big but for the most part these could be really good for travel. Of course looks don’t mean a thing when it comes to erasers so I set up a few tests in hopes I can accurately compare all three of these erasers as well as compare them to the erasers I currently use myself, which are this gummy moldable eraser and this standard vinyl eraser.

The first test I conducted consisted of drawing lines with my main sketching pencil, which is this Mirado Black Warrior HB 2 pencil. I drew 5 lines for 5 of the erasers I was testing.

First off I erased using the Factis, then the Mono Knock, the Staedtler, my Vinyl Eraser and finally my Gummy Eraser.

As you can see they all erased the standard pressure lines (All accurate to each other) with ease only leaving an impression but that was because I used thin printer paper. For simple lines they all erase quite well. The Staedtler is pretty chunky but you can still erase small details if you use the side of the eraser, it’s just a bit trickier. So far I feel as if the Staedtler is the smoothest out of the three mechanical erasers and it didn’t take much to erase the line.

On my next test I conducted I drew 5 circles and shaded them all in evenly, this test is where I got to see the true quality of these erasers. From left to right I erased a portion of the circles as if to add detail to the circle, okay I’m not exactly good at that but this was a successful test none the less, take a look.

As you can see the mechanical erasers faulted compared to my vinyl and gummy eraser, sadly these mechanical erasers don’t seem to be very good at all. I erased portions of these circles in the exact same way between all 5 erasers so I’m sure I got an accurate test here. The Factis erased it slightly but it left it awfully choppy and dirty, leaving a bunch of lines when I’m sure I erased completely. The Staedtler is probably the best at erasing out of all three mechanical erasers. It’s chunky yeah but it seems to get the job done, mostly, it still left it a little dirty. The Mono Knock barely did anything but I will say one thing it actually was a lot less choppy then the Factis. This Mono Knock could be good at detailing and shading as you don’t want to completely erase when doing that. My gummy Eraser did it’s magic and erased a portion of the circle as well as leaving a smooth edge between the non erased and the erased, really this eraser is built for shading and detailing but it erases quite well too, probably would of erased better but I shaded this circle quite a bit. My Vinyl eraser is the best at actually erasing.

I decided to do one final test. These erasers are built for art and sketching not writing but I decided to do a writing test regardless and see how it holds up on erasing written words.

I wrote ZAK Entertainment three times using three different pencils. First off my Mechanical Pencil that I use often (I don’t actually know what lead is in this but it comes out a light color as you can see.), next up my Black Warrior pencil (Shouldn’t be using it to write words but ohh well.) and this other mechanical pencil, with HB lead.

First off I’m erasing a portion of all three of these words with the Staedtler.

Not bad actually, it erased my first mechanical pencil pretty much completely, struggled on the black warrior and left a bit behind and erased the last mechanical pencil for the most part. This Eraser is actually quite smooth and doesn’t feel like it’s going to rip the paper apart.

Next up the Factis eraser.

Oh boy this eraser left a lot behind. I kept rubbing at it but no luck this didn’t erase the pencil lines completely. This is my standard handwriting (Thus it sucks.) and I didn’t apply much pressure at all so this should of erased.

Finally the Mono Knock 3.8 mm.

This is actually the worse out of all three, it left so much dirt behind and the text is only faded not erased.

Finally my Vinyl eraser got rid of the text and only an imprint is left behind. I did a test with my gummy eraser as well but this eraser was not made for erasing words, it’s an art eraser.

With all three of these tests out the way I can say these mechanical erasers are not great and are not really that good either. I’ll say the Staedtler is the best but it is kind of chunky. The Factis is actually super overpriced for how bad and choppy it erases and the Mono Knock might not be that bad for details and shading but for full blown erasing? It can’t hold up to a standard vinyl or gummy eraser. Mum and I will find uses for these erasers of course but I’m not sure if I can recommend them to you artists, sketchers and writers out there. You can have a look at the photos I took and take a good look for yourself then decide. I’ll give you guys the links to the products on Blick below.

The Factis Eraser:

http://www.dickblick.com/products/generals-factis-mechanical-eraser/

The Staedtler:

http://www.dickblick.com/products/staedtler-retractable-triangular-eraser/

The Mono Knock:

http://www.dickblick.com/products/tombow-mono-knock-stick-eraser/

Kind of unusual to give such a low review to something I’m a little disappointed. Anyway life goes on and I’m currently working on some new art projects one of them I’ve been teasing on Instagram a lot.

I’ve been working on this full body illustration of Aeris Eclipse after weeks of fiddling with my art style I’m finally going back to this character for a proper art piece. I’m actually really getting happy with my art style lately. I know I draw Aeris often but she’s an easy character to draw for me as she’s one of my oldest characters. I’ll have to do a big timeline of her design changes over the years once this art piece is done, so yeah an Aeris blog is inevitable. I’ve been wanting to get into more backgrounds lately so I’ve actually placed Aeris in an actual location from my Dream Eclipse story, I’ll dive into that later but yeah there’s a lot of bridges and rivers involved. Got some more fiddling around to do before I transfer this over to watercolor but I might be using the drawing of Aeris in this for something digital as well. (I have to make a ref sheet at some point.)

Let’s take a walk away from sketching, art and erasing for a bit because I have a brand new knitting project! Yes I wasn’t going to go too long without starting up something new but this time it’s a little bit of a blast from the past on how I came about taking on this project. This project is going to be a knitted colorworks case that was originally going to be made for an ipad but I also found it fits my sketchbook so I’m basically make it a sketchbook case/cozy. I actually need a case for this sketchbook because it’s not really the best sketchbook in the world and the pages get wrinkled easily because of that, I’ll review that at a later time.

Anyway this project originally was being knitted by Mum. Similar to how my very first project, Chrissie’s Christmas Blanket this was first started by Mum then handed down to me as my first foray into knitting. It’s incredible to think I’ve almost been knitting for an entire year now and ZAK Entertainment was started not too long afterwards. Mum has used this colorworks pattern quite a bit in the past, it’s a really nice pattern and not hard to knit either. This would be my second colorworks project, the first being my oversized beanie I knitted last year but I think I’ve learned a lot since then and this colorworks project should turn out a lot better then that did.

On this project I’m using Knit Picks Palette Yarn, which is 100% Wool and Fingering Weight. This yarn is made for colorworks and comes in a huge variety of colors. I actually do not have the labels for the colors I’m using anymore and it seems like Knit Picks doesn’t carry the colors anymore but the closest colors would probably be French Lavender (SKU: 24575) and perhaps Sweet Potato (SKU: 24249). No matter the color this is the same yarn I’m using but I’m actually doubling it, using both strands together from each skein which makes this more DK weight then fingering weight, making the case more thicker and padded. Each skein of this yarn has 231 yards and 50 grams in it. You can check out this yarn at Knit Picks: http://www.knitpicks.com/yarns/Palette_Yarn__D5420132.html

The needles I’m using are not too unfamiliar to me they’re Addi Turbo needles which I used on my first sock project last year. Unlike that sock project in which I used Size US 3 Addi Turbo these are actually Addi Turbo Lace Needles US Size 6 / 4.0 MM. I’m actually not sure what the difference between Addi Turbo and Addi Turbo Lace but they’re supposed to be perfect for lace knitting. This is not lace knitting however. This project is coming along great so far so I’ll keep you guys updated!

Before I wrap apparently I think we’re getting invaded. We’ve always had a wide variety of birds in our backyard but we recently got a visitor that I normally only see when we’re out traveling, Cattle Egrets. There’s this one specifically that seems to love the worms in our backyard.

His name is Eric and he’s been hanging around with some other of his kind for about a week now. We have a farm nearby so it’s not too out of the question for this to happen as they love cows and horses but I’ve never actually seen them in our backyard before and this often. He really loves worms and he’s constantly eating every worm that comes in his sight, apparently our backyard is full of them. Oh yeah and frogs, that’s probably not something you wanted to hear bit yeah apparently these guys eat frogs. Anyway I actually recorded a video of this guy wandering around so I’m going to see if I can get that edited up soon, I have a backlog of videos to edit so I guess I should work on that. Until then however…

That’s a wrap folks!