Hello friends two question please
1.- Regarding the noise produced by lead on paper, what are the quietest mechanical pencils you know?
2.- What mechanical pencils do you know that do not have anything printed on the body? (may have engraved or embossed text, for example PD335 QC)
Most of the Pentel S15/19 don’t have anything on the body. The clip does have some thing impressed/engraved on them. Early S5/7/9s, ML5, P505s also. So actually many Pentel pencils are like that. There are too many to list.
The early P325/7/9 do not have anything on the barrels except molded into the cutout.
I think your first question mostly doesn’t have much to do with the pencil - it’s the lead that counts. In general softer and smaller diameter (smaller contact area) lead will be less noisy. It also shouldn’t be too sharp - sharp edges make more noise. The pencil does matter a little in that it should be able to handle smaller softer lead.
I would try the Orenz Nero in 0.2 or 0.3 with HB/2B leads. For lead brands, I would recommend the Pilot Neox. I find them to be the smoothest in comparison to other major brands.
Try this, put the same lead in a small variety of randomly chosen pencils, write with each one, and you’ll notice that the volume of sound is different.
I don’t think I can answer about noise, since I don’t mind it at all. I do prefer “muted” noises to “metallic” noises if that makes sense. Parts rattling around are quite annoying. I always liked how the Pentel Kerry sounds with a soft lead.
You can modify pencils to make them less noisy. If the clicker is rattling around, you can wrap one or two layers of cello tape to improve the fit. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say that thinner materials would lead to higher pitch noises, while thicker ones lead to lower pitch ones. If you write on a notebook instead of a single sheet of paper, the noise should be reduced considerably since most comes from the lead hitting a hard surface.
About text on the pens, I’m not sure if you want to modify them but you can easily erase printed text on any plastic. Acetone/nail polish will wipe any print almost instantly. Beware, some plastics get damaged by doing this. A less intrusive method, but more time consuming, is rubbing it off with an eraser. It takes more time and if the print is hard to remove it may not come off at all, but that’s another option.
Yes, the Kerry is in the group of quiet pencils (note that we are referring to the noise that is produced when the lead rubs against the paper, always using the same lead in each pencil, in our case we have Pentel Hi Polymer 100 2B 0.5 in every tested pencils). If you put in a Techniclick (PD105) the same lead that you used in the Kerry, for example, the volume of noise increases remarkably. To illustrate with three similar pencils, the PD335 is quieter than the Berol SK-5, which in turn is quieter than the PD105 (all of them are side button plastic pencils).
A well balanced, good grip and quiet pencil is a rare and lucky find (in a zombie apocalypse you don’t want to get caught for making noise while writing).