Pencil Replacement Parts

Background

I started machining replacement parts for my own Pentel GraphGear 1000s in the spring of 2023 using my high school engineering club’s neglected mini-lathe. After hearing from strangers online that they would really like to buy these things from me, I started selling them via eBay come summer.

I started with a batch of just 10 units, 5 in aluminum, 5 in brass. Those sold in a few hours, so I made more. I had just turned seventeen at the time and was taking concurrent enrollment night classes for Calculus I & II at Pasadena City College.

In between problem sets for class, I would machine parts. I personally machined every unit sold up until late fall 2024, all to a soundtrack consisting of music by Jack White, The Hives, and Green Day. When I moved to Chico for college, I built up my own little baby’s first supply chain. While I still machine some of the SKUs (namely, the more exotic metals) by hand or with my now-operational CNC lathe, the majority of the machining work is done by a handful of manufacturing partners. Despite the help, I still hand-finish and inspect every unit sold.

I got really good at making these things on a manual machine. You wind up memorizing every dimension pretty quickly. Of the 300-odd parts I did by hand, the first hundred or so are noticeably a little messy. But those last 200? A lot of them might actually have better finishing and tolerances than the CNC-turned versions.

Right Now

I am working on expanding my ability to keep up with demand. I've steadily improved my shipping flow to bring down how much hands-on attention each order needs. New packaging, a new database, new packing slip software, written QA standards, et cetera.

I owe everything to my incredibly supportive customer base. The praise and positivity that radiate from my eBay inbox and reviews are downright incredible. My customers have product ideas, they have feedback, they have questions, and it's my job to pay attention. I love it!

Oh, and uh, fountain pen! I am doing a fountain pen. It will be pink. It's real, I have prototypes; hopefully, it's something I can get into people's hands soon.

@unsharpen.com Super cool Pentel GraphGear 1000 upgrade part. This makes your favorite mechanical pencil even better. The GraphGear is a great pencil but this upgrade fixes the Blanck and makes it even more fun to use. #pentel #mechanicalpencil @Pentel of America #stationery ♬ original sound - unsharpen

Marketing

I have pursued a limited marketing strategy thus far. My forays into reaching new customers have been more successful than my will to actually fulfill demand. I've kept my little pocket-sized business small because I don't want to create a job for myself. I use this project as a creative outlet, and that's how I want it to stay for the foreseeable future.

I made a YouTube video back during the summer of 2023 that has driven a moderate number of sales. My primary goal, however, was to expand my digital footprint and take up as much Google search space as possible. At this point, Reddit has learned my name, and will reliably point troubled pencil owners to my eBay page. In combination, this means that you can pretty much ask the internet about a problem with your GraphGear pencil, and it will bring you to my product all on its own—no ad spend required.

The Unsharpen videos were an interesting lesson in the value of sticking to eBay as a sales platform. For one, they do my taxes, but also, Unsharpen was able to create their own affiliate links to my product, at no additional cost to me. I guess this is just rolled into eBay's usual fee and is a neat perk considering that eBay's fee is measurably lower than my selling costs off-platform.