Faber Castell Pitt Graphite Crayon and Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 6B review and doodles

The Faber Castell PITT Monochrome Graphite Crayons are 12.0 cm X 12 mm sticks of pure graphite that come in four grades of hardness suitable for sketching in large scale: 2B, 4B, 6B, and 9B. According to the manufacturer's website, they are of the same quality as the leads in a CASTELL 9000 graphite pencil. Their shape remind me of ninja throwing spikes from manga and martial arts movies. They feel silky smooth on the paper and can easily go from thin to thick lines on the same stroke. Since there is no wood casing or lacquer coating around the graphite and clay sticks, their hexagonal barrels can be used on their long size to shade large areas quickly. For the same reason, they can be rather messy to use. Thus mine have stayed at the bottom of my sketching box for a while.
After spotting the Lyra Hexagonal Crayon/graphite Holder, I realized there was already a similar tool in my supplies drawers that would allow clean handling and the most useful life out of these graphite sticks. The Intus 123 pastel holder keeps fingers clean while working with these thick crayons. Its wide plastic decagonal barrel grip is quite comfortable, and its metal clutch jaws hold the crayon pieces securely in place as they gradually wear down with use.

Trying out the Faber Castell Pitt 6B Graphite Crayon loaded within the Intus 123 pastel holder The 6B crayon marks can be hard to erase completely even with a great eraser like the Pilot Foam eraser. The generous size of the graphite crayon and its smooth performance make it ideal for sketching quickly in a large scale. This batch of 8.5" X 11" sketches for example was completed in under half an hour.
The graphite crayon tip was a tad blunt by this point, resulting in the thicker lines of this last sketch.Another potential use for this 6B crayon is for making a transfer sheet. I discovered it by accident while doodling on both sides of a sheet of card stock. After finishing on the second side, I discovered that the sketches from the first side had clearly transferred to an underlying sheet.
Comparison chart of five 6B graphite pencils showing the expressive range from lightest gray to deepest black attainable with each brand. While all sample swatches might look fairly similar, the Faber-Castell pencils required more strokes to reach that same degree of darkness. All the pencils felt quite smooth on the card stock, but the Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencil felt a bit drier and crumbled the most from this bunch. The Tombow Mono and the Mitsunishi Hi-Uni seemed to glide faster and very smoothly on the paper producing their darkest shades with fewer strokes.
The Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 6B pencil glides smoothly on card stock leaving rich dark marks. Given the softness of its lead core, it tends to blunt quickly. Excellent choice for quick doodling and the final shading stage of a drawing. Would make a nice addition and increase the expressive range of any graphite drawing kit.