Intrigued by @Pdunc67 ‘s Sharbo video, I decided to get a Sharbo Nu. While I was in a Zebra mood I added the recent Filare 2+S.
The latter was somewhat disappointing as the mechanism is enclosed and probably difficult to access without breaking anything so my hopes of adding an eraser component were dashed.
The pencil component is identical to the Sharbo X so if you wish it’s easy to change the default 0.5 mm to 0.3 or 0.7.
For those who didn’t watch the video linked above, the distinctive trait of the Sharbo Nu is that the lead can be refilled from the back like most mechanical pencils instead of from the front as is usual in multipens. I was curious of the mechanism used to allow this.
It turns out that there’s no huge secret, just a clever trick: the Sharbo Nu uses a very common selection mechanism and takes advantage of its large diameter to keep the pencil component centered at all times.
Very simple and elegant.