The pencil holder is a nice feature in the event you don't want to mar your work surface, but the hardened steel points are sufficient in most instances.

Easily shaped to a fine pointed with a file

It does have some spot welds that would be the vulnerable points, but out of the bag, I just give it a little twist here and there and nothing came apart (nice thing about Amazon is that if the product fails, easy to replace), so I expect reasonable life for normal service.

The points did not appear very sharp, but it did not slip when used on painted steel.

The points on the arms were fine for woodworking applications as is stated in the product description that this is a "carpenter quality" devise, but not quite pointed enough for metal scribing or precision measuring

Needed this to make a perfect 5 pointed star...works