Soapstone Pencils

The other white pencil.

Many old texts describe the “white pencil,” which is used to mark dark woods. I’ve always wondered what they meant. From their description it sure didn’t seem like chalk.

Earlier this summer, Rudy Everts and I figured it out. We were at the gift shop for an open-air museum that sold some curious stones that looked like pencils. The pencils were next to a blackboard. So we took the pencil and marked on the blackboard like monkeys trying an iPad for the first time.

These things sure didn’t seem like chalk.

They were soapstone pencils. I’ve been working with them for about a month now and really like them for marking on mahogany and walnut. You can sharpen them to a point on a little piece of sandpaper, and they leave a crisp and bright white line.

This is much better than any alternative I’ve encountered so far, including talc in a pounce bag, ceramic pens and etc.

Soapstone pens are cheap and readily available online. You can find them as cheap as $27 for 150 soapstone pencils (that’s probably enough). They are used by people who sew, welders and other trades. You can even buy them with a lead holder (I’m not going to bother with that).

In case you think I’ve been bought out by the Interior Surface Fabricators Association (ISFA), read this.