I have been stubbornly avoiding these Nicpro carpenter pencils, but need to admit it looks like very good buy.
This set, which comes with two long-reach mechanical pencils, lead sharpener, and 26 refills (a mix of black, red, and yellow), is just $9 at Amazon.
A Pica-Dry pencil, just one, is $15. Ox Tools has a marking pencil too, and it’s also $15.
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I posted about readers’ Amazon deals and finds a couple of months ago, and a reader mentioned buying a Starbond pencil for $15. I looked it up, and it seemed to be a rebranded Nicpro bit with a markup.
The Nicpro set looks to have great reviews (83% 5-star, 12% 4-star).
Nicpro advertises these as being a deep hole marking pencil for construction, woodworking, and other applications. Everyone seems to like them. The price seems very fair. Is there a catch?
There’s also a single pencil with refills for $7, but the jump to $9 gives you a lot more.
If you’ve tried these, please let me know what you think! For the price, I’m likely to include a set in my next Amazon order.
I’m happy with my Pica, but I also like the idea of having more construction and wood marking pencils at a much lower price.
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Amazon also has this more colorful 4-pack for a lot of refills for $16.
As a reminder, you can load any of the pencils with the black lead, or any other color refill, as they all seems to have a 2.8mm lead size. Meaning, you can go with color-coded pencils as depicted, but you don’t have to.
jorhay
I got a similar set for Christmas a year ago. Haven’t used them enough to give a valid critique. Seems to work fine, but doesn’t seem too high quality in the hand.
Had an actual Pica pen, but used it so infrequently that it dried up on me.
Cubbie
But can they hold back the blade guard on my Skilsaw?:)
Josh R
I’ve got the Hultfors marking pencil and I really like it. Similar pricing to the Pica, but the ergonomics just feel really nice to me.
Stuart
This one? https://www.amazon.com/Hultafors-Tools-650100-Dry-Marker/dp/B07L22N2WD/?tag=toolguyd-20
fred
Gotta luv Amazon – they say that the recommend use for the one you link to is: “Moisturizing”
Matt_T
I bought a 4 pack of the Pica style with the sharpener in the bottom of the sheath as a proof of concept. The pencils, and graphite leads, work fine. My main dislike is having to remove the sheath to sharpen them. So I’m glad I didn’t buy a Pica to find that out.
The colored leads I’m not impressed with. They’re better than graphite on some surfaces but don’t mark well IME. Will probably try some name brand colored leads at some point.
Blocky
I keep the pica clipped to the outside of a pouch. Touch it up only once in awhile when my toolbelt is off. I agree having to remove the sheath would be super annoying.
TomCat
I have a set of these and I like them a lot. I can sharpen them up if I need finer lines, but mostly I need them thick enough to withstand rough marking. They are rugged enough to withstand a toolbox.
Marco Lima
Pica all the way. I got the Ox Tools 2 years ago. After a week the lead would not advance. Take it apart, mess with it, new lead it would advance sometimes then nothing. Got a warranty replacement again but same issues afterwards. They’re junk. Tried a similar style to this Nicpro and the lead are very weak marking wise.
Pica has never had an issue in 4 years.
Katie
I had a long nose marker and a long nose pencil. However, I couldn’t find the pencil so I use the marker on my current project but I would rather use pencil. These look great. I just got a four pack. It was Not that much more for the double set. I also like that they are in different colors. Right now I’m making drawers and had to use different colors of masking tape so that I didn’t get the parts mixed up. maybe I can use these pencils in a similar way because I got the multicolor
Arthur
I had a set of those but they didn’t seem to reliably advance when I needed more lead which was frustrating. I also slowly lost all the tops as they twisted themselves off from random friction throughout the day as I wore them clipped on to my pocket or my pouches and they rubbed up against sleeves or work benches or whatever. Sticking with the Picas.
Berg
I have a full color Nicpro set of the style with screw off grips instead of the holster/sleeve thing. I don’t know who used the design first, but the Sola TLM2 is the most “name brand” version of that style I’ve seen, I’ve always assumed the Nicpro ones were a knockoff of it.
I’ve mostly used them occasionally for some diy stuff where my black Pica pencil wouldn’t show up well on the surface and so far they’ve worked fine, no complaints from me. The colored leads don’t seem super durable but I’ve never tried more premium ones so I don’t know if they could be better or that’s just how colored leads work. I definitely prefer the ergonomics of the removable grip but if you’re moving around a lot and don’t want to lose it then the holster is probably worth it because the clips do not go on and off easily.
If I’m just doing woodworking at my workbench I have sometimes grabbed the Nicpro one instead of my Pica because of the grip, but I usually prefer the Pica Fine 0.9mm version because it’s precise enough without needing to be resharpened and if I need a super precise line I’ll probably use a marking knife anyway.
Flooring
I use Pica everyday and love it. I keep one on me and one on my tool belt. Bought a big pack of knock off replacement lead for cheap. So far so good.