This weekend I picked up a Listo Pencil for $2.00 at my favorite variety store. The Listo is a marking pencil, sort of like a grease pencil. Like a crayon, it'll write on nearly anything - paper, plastic, metal, wood, etc. It's not particularly permanent, but that can be a good thing too.
Naturally, I couldn't resist taking the pencil apart to see the guts, and realized that the "lead" is relatively small. That got me thinking, could I turn this guy into super compact writing implement?
Here's what I did:
- Popped out the pencil lead
- Cut a piece of plastic straw the same length of the lead
- Sliced the plastic straw lengthwise
- Slid the lead into the straw
- Wrapped the straw tightly around the lead
- Every so gently, took a lit lighter to the straw, melting and sealing snipped seam of the straw (my gosh that melts quickly!)
Here's a few snapshots of the process:
The whole process took less than 8 minutes to do, and the result is amazingly usable.
To finish off the project, I grabbed a few index cards and cut them to fit my Urban Survival Kit. The cards and pencil effortlessly fit in the kit:
As hacks go, I'm especially pleased with this one. Now I've got this handy write-anywhere pen on me whenever I grab my Altoids Tin (which is whenever I've got pocket space for it). And $2.00 is actually the high end for this project, apparently I can buy a box of 72 Listo refills for $9.00, which means that these can be made for about $0.13 each.
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