Like a lot of folks here, I’m working on my own versions of mini-kits, tobacco tin size and larger. I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas from this site and this forum.<br><br>Looking at Doug’s “Mini” kit, one thing that I wasn’t crazy about was the pencil. I had no idea where to get one like it (golf shop?), it seemed unnecessarily bulky (well, compared to the size of the container, anyway), and I’m not crazy about the idea of having to use one of the craft knife blades, with no handle, to sharpen it before writing.<br><br>Some time ago I simplified my life a bit by buying a silver pen designed to live in a wallet fold; I bought mine from the Herrington catalog, but here’s a good picture:<br><br>http://www.styluscentral.com/walletpen.html<br><br>There’s no real mechanism, it’s just telescoping silver tubes with a clip, but it does keep me from wondering whether I should take a pen with me on the weekends, and for that alone it’s been worth it.<br><br>With luck, this might make storing a writing implement in the kit redundant, but you never know.<br><br>When I ordered it, I also ordered a pack of three refills. It turned out that the pen came with a spare anyway, so I have four. The literature calls them “a stock size refill available from your local stationer”. These things are 2 and 5/8 inches long, and perhaps a tenth of an inch in diameter.<br><br>Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t find it uncomfortable to write (briefly) with the refill alone, but if you do, you could increase the diameter for comfort by wrapping it with something useful- thread, fishing line, or tape. Perhaps the tip could be protected with a bit of the Teflon tubing- not sure.<br><br>I suppose it’s possible that a pencil might write under some conditions where the pen won’t, but then I find that a pen has more contrast and is easier to read under more conditions. Eraseability is not a factor, since the pencil doesn’t have one either. All in all, this seems like a satisfactory compromise that frees up a little space, where space is very precious.<br><br><br><br>