Taiwanese pencil carving artist Lee Chien-chu (李健竹) announced Tuesday (Sept. 29) that he had set a Guinness World Record for carving 168 interconnected chains from a graphite pencil.
The record, which is officially designated "most chain links carved from pencil lead (graphite)," was previously broken by Lee in 2019 with 101 chain links, but he lost the title when an Indian artist achieved 126 chain links in May this year.
In order to break the record again, Lee decided to build on his previous carving of 101 chain links and use the remaining pencil lead to carve out the rest of the chains.
The end result of 168 interconnected chains measured 36.5 centimeters, and was certified by Guinness World Records Ltd. via video due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lee made the announcement Tuesday at the opening of an exhibition of his works at the National Center for Traditional Arts in Yilan.
At the event, Lee said that he had spent a lot of time working out how to lengthen his previous piece, and finally decided on using an "N-pattern carving technique" in order to maximize the number of chains he could carve out of the pencil.
Lee, a self-taught pencil carving artist, has created about 180 works in the past 10 years, including carvings of cartoon characters, famous landmarks and animals.
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