Anyone Need a 76-Foot, 21,000-Pound Pencil?

World's largest pencilThis is the world’s largest pencil although it has yet to enter the record books.

A bunch of guys from about 15 countries spent 2 weeks building the world’s largest pencil. It wasn’t easy. We had to make the pencil to scale, it had to look precisely like a normal pencil and it had to be made out of exactly the same materials. We used over 8,000 board feet of wood, 4,500 pounds of 10-inch graphite, which ran the length of the 76-foot (23 meter) pencil, and we even manufactured a 250-pound eraser. It took our two main carpenters a full day to sharpen the point of the pencil using a Sawzall, axes, and a grinding machine!

The pencil was designed to commemorate Sri Chinmoy’s 76th birthday. Sri Chinmoy is a highly prolific writer and artist, so we thought presenting him with a giant writing instrument would be appropriate. About 10 years ago, we built a 20-foot (6 meter) pencil for Sri Chinmoy, but, a few years later, the European pencil company, Faber-Castell, constructed a 64-foot (19.5 meter) pencil to erase our record.

After the pencil got lifted, two New York policemen called on us. It seems that our pencil showed up on satellite surveillance photos and the officers were told to come over immediately and investigate. When the cops showed up and saw that it was only a pencil, they broke up laughing.

The following video shows its making.



Video: Break via GiggleSugar
Source: Ashrita
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