The World Runs on Pencils
“Every woodworking shop runs on pencils, tape measures, and coffee — and this ramble dives into why the smallest tool on the bench matters more than anyone admits.”
Read Time: 5 minutes
Have you ever looked at a pencil and thought, “Damn, now that’s a mighty tool”?
Yeah, me neither. But my goodness, when it’s lost and you need it… the world stops until it’s found.
In the shop—every shop I’ve ever worked in—there have been pencils on every bench of every craftsman I’ve seen. In offices and toolboxes, trucks and vans. I’ve found pencils buried in dust piles, sitting on saws, wedged in lumber stacks, behind ears, sticking out of hats. Once I found one floating in the toilet.
With that many pencils around, that many people dulling tips and building the cabinets that fill our world, you’d assume a healthy supply of good pencil sharpeners would be stationed all over the shop.
Yeah… you’d think.
I worked in a shop with fifty people, and the whole place had one proper sharpener. It lived in the back room, seven hundred steps from my bench—because of course it did. A lot of things didn’t make sense in those shops, and that’s just the way shop life is.
Most of us used an Olfa knife to sharpen them, but when the point needed to be perfect, we’d make the pilgrimage to the big 6" × 108" belt sander. This machine was powered by a three‑phase, five‑horsepower motor that took three seconds to get up to speed, and you needed earmuffs just to stand near it. To give you an idea of how big this unit was — if we needed to shift it a few inches to one side, it took two guys straining and a handful of bad words drifting across the shop.
We’d fire that monster up to sharpen one pencil, walk back to the bench, start writing… and snap. Back to square one.
We spend a lot of time as craftsmen honing our pencils like fine chisels—and great dad jokes.
My buddy used to bring Walmart pencils up from the States. They said “World’s Finest” right on the side. He loved telling us his pencils were the best, and the branding proved it. He gave me one once. It really was a fine pencil — the best — until I sharpened the “World’s Finest” off. Then it was like all the others. Without the branding, I couldn’t tell the difference. Who knew.
Even the short ones get saved, because somebody always loses theirs and comes around asking for an extra. You give ’em the short ones because lent‑out pencils never come back.
Some guys would have just one pencil. They’d carry it for weeks and store it overnight in a little cabinet made of mismatched scrap boards saved from old jobs. They’d drill a custom hole through it to identify it if someone “borrowed” it. He knew who could be trusted. Of course I’d take it and leave it on other people’s benches, then stand back and watch the show.
I have a small shop now, and Leo and I are the only two there. We’ll have ten pencils on the go and still lose them in the day’s chaos. Usually we find the pencil hanging out with that missing tape measure. But really, the pencil is the tool that starts the day, and nothing gets done without it. If all my pencils went missing, I’d shut down, head to Staples, and buy a box.
The world really does run on pencils.
To finish this, here’s a riddle. I bet you’ll get the answer.
I start every project but finish none.
I leave a trail, yet weigh almost none.
I grow smaller with every idea you make,
But without me, no plan can take shape.
What am I?
Funny thing is, for a tool nobody thinks twice about, the whole shop falls apart without it.
The world is built with pencils, tape measures, and coffee — and I seem to lose all three on a regular basis.
Continue this story and read Old Machines, New Machines, and the Quiet Math of a Working Life
If you’d like more stories about wood, craft, and the history hidden in everyday materials, you can join my mailing list below. I send new Shop Rambles as they’re finished.
Written by David Flather, Red Seal cabinetmaker and founder of Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking — a Manitoba shop rooted in heritage restoration, storytelling, and real craft.
All photos shot by David Flather — in the shop, on the road, and in the places where craft and story meet.
Related stories: SHOP LIFE, Old Machines, New Machines, and the Quiet Math of a Working Life
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