Well, we did it and we had a blast! 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 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 pencil for Sri Chinmoy, but, a few years later, the European pencil company, Faber-Castell, constructed a 64-foot pencil to erase (pardon the pun) our record. I wouldn’t have thought of getting the record back except, this past December, I happened to meet the renowned Count Faber-Castell at a vacation resort in Turkey. We became friendly and I mentioned that I had the hope of someday regaining the pencil record. He suddenly became very serious and retorted, "Impossible, you’ll never do it!” That was a challenge I just couldn’t ignore!
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 pencil for Sri Chinmoy, but, a few years later, the European pencil company, Faber-Castell, constructed a 64-foot pencil to erase (pardon the pun) our record. I wouldn’t have thought of getting the record back except, this past December, I happened to meet the renowned Count Faber-Castell at a vacation resort in Turkey. We became friendly and I mentioned that I had the hope of someday regaining the pencil record. He suddenly became very serious and retorted, "Impossible, you’ll never do it!” That was a challenge I just couldn’t ignore!
Post a Comment