#GREASE PENCIL BOARD HOW TO#
#GREASE PENCIL BOARD MANUAL#

The sheets are more rigid than typical laminated posters and stuff. He just had it done at Kinkos, and the laminate seems quite thick to me. I’m not sure about the type of lamination. You write on the back so that you’re not in the way of people trying to see what’s being written and/or so people passing by won’t accidentally wipe the writing off.You can also use rubbing alcohol, hair spray, or vodka to erase Sharpie. (Of course, this works quite well in a dark environment like the combat center on a ship.) You might have seen displays like this in some restaurants.

The boards are plexiglas, edge lit, so anything written on them sort of glows from the light but the surface itself remains transparent/dark. We used a color-coded scheme for the info so had several different colors in use.

I did the same thing to a lesser extent in the late 70’s-early 80’s while in the Navy, plotting out the location of shore-based radars against map outlines.

#GREASE PENCIL BOARD HOW TO#

They had to learn how to write backwards. If you’ve ever watched some old Navy war movies, you might have seen guys standing behind clear plastic boards plotting out the movement of ships or planes on the reverse side. I don’t know if they still do things this way in the Navy, but I suspect they might. I also remember going on a school visit to the local newspaper office and seeing the proof-sheets of photographs printed in black & white being marked with a generous circle of yellow china graph pencil – could have been something to do with Kodak?

#GREASE PENCIL BOARD MANUAL#

There was a choice of two types: the paper wrap and pull string version and the standard eraser pencil with a fan shaped brush on the tip to brush away rubber pieces from inside the manual typewriters (this was before the days of Tipp-Ex/WhiteOut). Then, when I was in secondary school working through my 4th/5th year option subjects studying Typewriting and Office Practice these paper wrapped pencils were a type of eraser. The first one I saw was when my mum got a brand new chest /trunk freezer in the late 1970s accompanied with a frozen food recipe book, a selection of suitable foil and plastic containers to be used for freezing and a set of three coloured china graph pencils/markers: red/green/black The ‘grease’ in these markers was ideal for writing on the lids of plastic containers that could withstand the rigours of a deep freeze without smudging or being obliterated – handy when you consider that frozen foods could be kept for up to 4 months plus. Hi – I remember these pencils from way back – well the late 1970s onwards anyway. They come in bright colours, no subtle forest shades here! A simple solution that works well! I think it would be very interesting if the paper had fortunes or small quotations printed on the coils, but that might be a bit distracting. To reveal more lead, one pulls the string, breaking the top layer of the coloured paper. This article from Stanford credits Blaisdell with inventing this format of grease pencil.Īlso shown is a cousin, the Klenzo Ink & Type eraser.

The box says they were made by Eagle/North-Rite, a division of Berol of Canada. These particular ones date from perhaps the 1980s, and are branded Blaisdell. Still manufactured, I’ve seen them used for traditional purposes such as marking glass and ceramics, but also for more modern tasks such as marking laminated calendars and restaurant seating plans. I remember these always being around the house when I was growing up, yet can’t recall what they were used for. Known as grease markers or china markers, these pencils have wax colour cores, and are wrapped in paper that one tears off link by link. Does anyone remember these? Or still use them?

Grease pencil board