Table of Contents
Sharpening A Mechanical Pencil With Fine-grit Sandpaper
| Field | Drafting |
| Went Obsolete | 1980s to early 1990s |
| Made Obsolete By | Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CAD) |
| Knowledge Assumed | Use of a mechanical pencil |
| When useful | If you prefer writing or drawing with a mechanical pencil |
Mechanical pencils or drafting pencils could be reloaded with graphite sticks as needed. When a stick was first loaded into the pencil, it needed to be sharpened to a point to draw a consistent line. As you used the pencil, the point would wear down and would need to sharpened by running the graphite against a piece of fine sandpaper.
As CAD systems became more commonplace, the amount of drafting work that was being done using a drafting table, T-square and other drawing aids started to decline.
