Pencil sharpener pencil in position, although they then sharpen them to the usual conical point as for a round pencil, abandoning some distinctive aspects of the carpenter's pencil. Sharpeners with a single blade for use on wax crayons are available, and sometimes included in boxes of crayons. These often have plastic blades, which are adequate for the soft wax. Mechanical pencils dispense the graphite lead progressively during use and thus do not require sharpening; such pencils are sometimes called "self-sharpening". A type of mechanical pencil has a rotating gear mechanism which rotates the lead slightly every time the lead is lifted off
Lead of primary production in either a blast furnace or a rotary furnace, with the essential difference being the greater variability of yields: blast furnaces produce hard lead (10% antimony) while reverberatory and rotary kiln furnaces produced semisoft lead (3–4% antimony). The Isasmelt process is a more recent method that may act as an extension to primary production; battery paste from spent lead–acid batteries has sulfur removed by treating it with alkali, and is then treated in a coal-fueled furnace in the presence of oxygen, which yields impure lead, with antimony the most common impurity. Refining of secondary lead is similar