We have been using pencils since kindergarten. But few of us know how pencils are made, what kind of wood is used for this purpose. It is noteworthy that the creation of these stationery is carried out in each factory in its own way. But at the same time there are common points that are fundamental to the production process.
What tree?
A classic wooden pencil has an important component - wood, the quality of which depends on the operation of this accessory. It is clear that not every tree is suitable for these purposes. In the past, the industry used the wood of the Virginian or red cedar, which belongs to the juniper genus. Long fibers, lack of knots, ease of processing - that's what attracted attention in this material. But due to the high cost, European and American brands that produce pencils began to use California cedar wood. Moreover, high-quality products are created on its basis, which are used for graphic and artistic purposes.
In most cases, pencils are made from alder, linden, pine, California and Siberian cedar, as well as such a rare tree as jelutong. What kind of wood are pencils made in our country? In most cases, from alder and linden, of which there are a huge number on the territory of Russia.
Alder is not the most durable material, but it has a uniform structure, which makes processing easier and retains its natural natural color. As for linden, it meets all operational requirements, and therefore is used in the production of both cheap and expensive pencils. Due to its good viscosity, the material holds the lead firmly.
A unique material for creating pencils is cedar, which is widely used in factories in Russia. It is noteworthy that not healthy wood is used, but specimens that no longer give a nut.
Stem: what is the base?
The production of pencils is carried out using a special core. consists of three components - graphite, soot and silt, to which organic binders are often added. Moreover, graphite is a constant component, including color, since it is the stylus that leaves a trace on paper.
The rods are created from a carefully prepared mass, which has a certain temperature and humidity. It is important that the mixture does not dry out, as this will affect the wear of the equipment. The kneaded dough is formed by a special press, then passed through equipment with holes, which makes the mass look like noodles. These noodles are formed into cylinders from which rods are extruded. It remains only to ignite them in special crucibles. Then the rods are fired, and after it, fat is performed: the formed pores are filled with fat, stearin or wax under pressure and at a specific temperature.
How are colored pencils made? Here, again, the core, which is made from pigments, fillers, fattening components and a binder, has a fundamental difference. Here the rod production process is as follows:
- the manufactured rods are placed in special grooves on the plank and covered with a second plank;
- both boards are glued with PVA glue, while the rod should not stick;
- the ends of the glued boards are aligned;
- preparation is performed, that is, the addition of fat to an already existing mixture.
It is noteworthy that the production of pencils is carried out taking into account the consumer properties of products. So, cheap ones are made from wood of not the highest quality, exactly the same - not the highest quality - and the shell. But the pencils that are used for artistic purposes are made from high-quality wood, which has a double sizing.
Wood preparation stage
The production of pencils is carried out from well-selected wood, which is processed to obtain bars. Be sure to trim the bars along the length of the pencil, and allowances must be taken into account, since the material will shrink. On a special multi-saw machine, the bars are cut into planks, which are impregnated with paraffin in special autoclaves. This procedure improves the mechanical properties of the future product.
Depending on what the pencil is made of, its sharpening will also be performed. It is believed that neat chips are obtained if the products are made of pine, linden or cedar wood. In addition, it is important that the lead is glued with high quality - such a pencil will not break even if it falls.
What shell?
The simplicity and beauty of the pencil depends on the shell. Since pencils are made of wood, it must meet the following requirements:
- Softness, strength and lightness: during operation, the shell should not break or crumble, like the entire body.
- Do not exfoliate under the influence of natural factors.
- Have a beautiful cut - smooth and shiny, while the chips themselves should not break.
- Wood must be resistant to moisture.
What equipment?
The production of pencils is carried out using a variety of equipment. For example, the purification of clay, from which a graphite rod will subsequently be created, requires special mills and crushers. Processing of the mixed dough is carried out on a screw press, where the rod itself is formed from the dough by rollers with three different gaps. For the same purpose, a die with holes is used. Drying of wooden blanks is carried out in where the products are subjected to rotation for 16 hours. With good drying, the wood acquires a moisture level of a maximum of 0.5%. As for colored pencils, they are not subjected to heat treatment due to the presence of fillers, dyes and fattening components in them. On a special machine, pencils are trimmed in length.
Drying
How are pencils made? Drying plays an important role in the production process. It is carried out in special wells using machines, and the boards are stacked so that drying is as efficient as possible. In these wells, drying is carried out for about 72 hours, then the boards are sorted: all cracked or ugly products are rejected. The selected blanks are ennobled with paraffin, calibrated, that is, special grooves are cut on them, where the rods will be located.
How are pencils made in production next? Now a milling line is used, on which the blocks are divided into pencils. Depending on the shape of the knives used at this stage, the pencils are either round, or faceted, or oval. An important role is played by the fastening of the stylus in a wooden case: this must be done firmly and reliably, which reduces the risk of the elements of the stylus falling out. The elastic adhesive used for bonding makes the lead stronger.
Coating Features
Modern pencils and colored pencils come in a huge variety of designs and colors. Since pencils are made in the factory, they pay close attention to each stage of production. Coloring is one of the important stages, as it must meet a number of requirements. Extrusion is used to finish the surface, and the end face is finished by dipping. In the first case, the pencil passes through the primer, where at the end of the conveyor it is turned over to apply the next layer. This results in an even coverage.
Color quality: what does it depend on?
The quality of painting depends on how the paintwork materials themselves meet the established requirements, whether the priming machine is set up correctly, whether the deadlines for drying pencils on the tape are observed. Any pencil factory uses quick-drying compounds that form a hard, durable and elastic film on the surface that adheres well to the surface of the wood.
Coloring is carried out with special priming paints, which have a certain viscosity and contain pigments. If the pigment part is large, this will reduce the gloss of the film and require further application of nitro varnish on the surface. Even simple pencils are varnished using a nitrocellulose gloss varnish.
If the pencil is in dark shades, then it is painted with at least 5 layers and 4 layers of varnish. To achieve light shades, a combination of 7 layers of paint with 4 layers of varnish is used. At the same time, for a uniform and accurate coating, it is important that the surface has a maximum of 18 layers. The coloring of the end parts of the pencils is carried out in a dipping machine, into which a frame with pencils located on it is lowered.
pencil frame
Depending on how the pencils are made and from what materials, their frame can also vary. In the traditional version, the stylus has a wooden frame, but the modern market offers a wide selection of products in plastic, lacquered and even paper cases. On the one hand, this adds beauty and unusualness to them, on the other hand, when falling from such pencils, little will remain.
After painting, the pencils are finished. For this, various stamps and foil of different colors are used. This process is called thermostating.
What hardness?
All colored and pencils are distinguished by the hardness of the lead, which is reflected in their marking. You need to choose them like this: the denser and harder the paper, the harder the graphite rod should be. But too hard graphite can damage the paper. In Russia, you can buy pencils of the following markings:
- M - soft.
- T - solid.
- TM - hard-soft.
You should be aware of marking when choosing pencils for creating drawings or drawing in the appropriate technique.
Features of colored pencils
What simple pencils are made of, we have already figured out. Now you need to understand when and how they appeared. It is known that the first products with colored stylus appeared in 1820, however, who invented them remained a mystery. The color lead is based on a combination of binder, color pigments and filler. Kaolin glue acts as a connecting substance, due to which the shape of the stylus is also formed. As color pigments, well-ground high-quality color materials are used, and the pigment can be an organic or inorganic base. The color pigments themselves are created on the basis of materials that are resistant to fading under the influence of sunlight and environmentally friendly. To date, pencils are available in 36 color shades according to the international Pantone shade scale. As for fillers, kaolin and chalk are used in this capacity, which are subjected to thorough grinding.
Few people thought about the production process of pencils.
It's time to find out how it happens.
The pencil goes through 83 technological operations, 107 types of raw materials and materials are used in its manufacture, and the production cycle is 11 days.
If you still look at all this from the side of the whole product line, then a complex well-established production with careful planning and control is drawn.
In order to see with our own eyes the production process of pencils, we go to the Moscow factory named after Krasin. This is the oldest pencil production in Russia. The factory was founded in 1926 with the support of the government.
The main task of the government was to eliminate illiteracy in the country, and for this it was necessary to make stationery available. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Krasin factory remained the only pencil manufacturer in the CIS with a full production cycle. This means that everything is produced at the factory - from the stylus to the final product - pencils. Let's take a closer look at the pencil manufacturing process.
For the production of pencils, the factory receives specially processed and stacked linden boards. But before they are used, it is necessary to make writing rods.
Let's move on to the workshop for the manufacture of pencil rods. Writing rods are made from a mixture of clay and graphite. The preparation of the necessary mixture begins with such technological installations, where clay is crushed. The crushed clay is sent by conveyor to the next production site.
In the next section, special mills are installed, where the clay is more finely ground and mixed with water.
Installations for the preparation of a mixture of clay with graphite. Here, the mixture for future rods gets rid of impurities and is prepared for further processing.
It should be noted that only natural substances are used in the production of leads, which allows us to consider the production environmentally friendly. Installation for pressing the mixture. Rods are obtained from the semi-finished products obtained. There is practically no waste from production, since they reuse it.
At this production site, the rods themselves are already obtained, but in order for them to get into the pencil, a number of technological operations will be carried out on them.
The very technology of obtaining rods is reminiscent of extrusion. Carefully prepared and mixed mass is squeezed out through a special stamp with holes.
After that, blanks for writing rods are placed in a special container.
And dried in the closet for 16 hours.
After that, the rods are carefully sorted by hand.
This is how the workplace for sorting rods looks like. This is a very difficult and painstaking work. Cats sleep behind a table lamp.
After sorting, the rods are calcined in a special cabinet. The annealing temperature ranges from 800 to 1200 degrees Celsius and directly affects the final properties of the rod. The hardness of the pencil depends on the temperature, which has 17 gradations - from 7H to 8B.
After annealing, the rods are filled with fat under special pressure and temperature. This is necessary to give them the necessary writing properties: the intensity of the line, the ease of sliding, the quality of sharpening, the ease of erasing with an eraser. Depending on the required core hardness value, lard, confectionery fat or even beeswax and carnauba wax can be used.
Output product of the rod production area.
After that, the rods go to the assembly. Here on such machines, planks for pencils are prepared. Grooves are cut into them for the installation of writing rods.
The cutting part of the machine grinds grooves in planks.
The boards automatically enter such a clip.
After that, on another machine, the rods are placed in pre-prepared planks.
After laying, the halves of the boards are glued together with PVA glue, and they are left to dry under pressure. The essence of this operation is that the rod itself is not glued to the planks. Its diameter is larger than the diameter of the groove, and in order for the structure to close, a press is needed. The rod, on the other hand, will be held in the wood not due to glue, but due to the tension of the wooden shell (prestressing specially created in this way in the design of the pencil).
After drying, the workpiece is sawn with special cutters into individual pencils.
Pencils are gradually sawn over several processing cycles.
The output is ready-made, but not colored pencils.
Already at this stage, the shape of the pencil is laid due to the type of profile of the cutting cutter.
Next, on special lines, the surface of the pencil is primed. When painting pencils, enamels made at the factory are used. These enamels are made from components that are safe for humans.
Line for painting pencils.
I think that in stores we have seen gift pencils painted with colorful stains many times. It turns out that in order to color them like that, a whole specially developed technology is used. Here is a small snippet of the painting process.
When visiting the paint shop, I happened to see a batch of pencils for delivery to the government of the Russian Federation of a new sample. The tip of the pencil symbolizes our national flag. Pencils dry in a special technological framework. The regularity of the rows looks very unusual and attracts.
After painting, the pencils are stacked in batches for shipment to the next sections of the factory.
It is a great pleasure to look at thousands of pencils colored according to the factory's proprietary technology. This is a very unusual sight.
Technological surface finishing line.
Stamp storage cabinet. Here are stored stamps for the entire range of products.
If necessary, before packing, pencils are sharpened on a special machine. The photo shows the intermediate stage of sharpening. I was amazed by the speed of the machine. Pencils fell into the tray in a continuous stream. I immediately remembered all my personal unsuccessful attempts to sharpen pencils. From these memories, this machine began to inspire even more respect.
The factory also produces such interesting oval-shaped pencils used in construction and repair.
Arrays of stored pencils look very unusual and attractive. You won't see this anywhere else.
The history of the invention of graphite pencils goes back to the distant sixteenth century, when English shepherds found a strange black mass in the ground near their village, which very much resembled coal, but for some reason did not want to burn at all. Soon, the new material was nevertheless found to be used - they began to make thin sticks from it that could be used for drawing, as they left good clear marks on canvas or paper. However, these sticks were not widely used because they were very impractical: they often broke and stained the fingers. Everything changed only when, in 1863, the world's first wooden pencil was made in Germany, the shape of which has hardly changed over the past centuries and has survived to this day.
How pencils are made
The production process at a modern pencil factory consists of several dozen separate technological operations. For the manufacture of one pencil, about a hundred types of various consumables are used, and it takes at least ten days.
What is a pencil made of?
The main materials for the production of pencils are graphite, clay, color pigments and polymers. All of them are used to make the "heart" of a pencil - its writing rod.
The second, no less important component of each pencil is a wooden shell that reliably protects the core from mechanical damage, and our hands from graphite dust. Not every wood is suitable for such a responsible task. Pencils are made only from alder, linden, pine and cedar.
How a pencil is made: production of a pencil
The production of any pencil begins at the sawmill, where the logs are debarked and made into timber. Next, the beam is cut into short pieces, each of which is then sawn into planks of a given thickness.
The boards are sorted, non-standard ones are rejected, suitable ones are collected in packs and loaded into the autoclave. There, the boards are finally dried, and then impregnated with paraffin.
The boards prepared in this way enter the next workshop, where they are passed through a complex machine, which simultaneously grinds their surface and makes parallel thin and long grooves on it on one side. Subsequently, the rods of future pencils will fit into these recesses.
In the meantime, writing rods are already being made in another workshop. They are made from a mixture of graphite and clay, which are ground into a fine powder. Then the powder is mixed with water and rods are formed by squeezing the resulting “dough” through thin holes made in a special stamp, much like spaghetti is made. Then the semi-finished products of the rods are dried, after which they are baked at a temperature of about one thousand degrees in a special electric oven.
After annealing, the rods are impregnated with fat. This is done so that later the rods can be written.
The finished rods are sent to the assembly shop, where the machine will put them into the grooves already cut in the plank, and then the second plank lubricated with glue will be placed on top so that the edges of the grooves in the upper and lower parts exactly match. The resulting pencil "sandwiches" are stacked and pulled together with clamps so that the glue "grabs" well and both halves stick tightly to each other.
The stacks are dried for several hours at a temperature of 40 degrees, then the clamps are removed and the boards are taken to the machine, which will already divide them into individual pencils. In the same place, the pencils will be given the usual round or hexagonal shape for us and the ends will be carefully cut.
Ready "naked" pencils are then sent for painting. To make new pencils smooth and shiny, they are painted not once, but three, and sometimes even four, and then varnished several more times. In the same place, in the paint shop, markings and the company logo are applied to the pencils.
Bright, shiny, smelling like fresh paint, pencils are transported to the packing shop, where they are laid out in cardboard boxes, which are then packed in large boxes and sent to stores.
Each of us from an early age, doing creative work, or at school lessons, came across such an object as a pencil. Most often, people treat it as something ordinary, as a simple and useful thing. But few people thought about how complicated the technological process of its production is.
By the way, in the production of a pencil, it goes through 83 technological operations, 107 types of raw materials and materials are used in its manufacture, and the production cycle is 11 days. If you still look at all this from the side of the whole product line, then a complex well-established production with careful planning and control is drawn.
In order to see with our own eyes the production process of pencils, we go to the Moscow factory named after Krasin. This is the oldest pencil production in Russia. The factory was founded in 1926 with the support of the government.
The main task of the government was to eliminate illiteracy in the country, and for this it was necessary to make stationery available. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Krasin factory remained the only pencil manufacturer in the CIS with a full production cycle. This means that everything is produced at the factory - from the stylus to the final product - pencils. Let's take a closer look at the pencil manufacturing process.
For the production of pencils, the factory receives specially processed and stacked linden boards. But before they are used, it is necessary to make writing rods. Let's move on to the workshop for making pencil rods. Writing rods are made from a mixture of clay and graphite. The preparation of the necessary mixture begins with such technological installations, where clay is crushed. The crushed clay is sent by conveyor to the next production site. 
In the next section, special mills are installed, where the clay is more finely ground and mixed with water. 
Installations for the preparation of a mixture of clay with graphite. Here, the mixture for future rods gets rid of impurities and is prepared for further processing. 
It should be noted that only natural substances are used in the production of leads, which allows us to consider the production environmentally friendly. Installation for pressing the mixture. Rods are obtained from the semi-finished products obtained. There is practically no waste from production, since they reuse it. 
At this production site, the rods themselves are already obtained, but in order for them to get into the pencil, a number of technological operations will be carried out on them. 
The very technology of obtaining rods is reminiscent of extrusion. Carefully prepared and mixed mass is squeezed out through a special stamp with holes. 
After that, blanks for writing rods are placed in a special container. 
Special packaging 
And dried in the closet for 16 hours. 
After that, the rods are carefully sorted by hand. 
This is how the workplace for sorting rods looks like. This is a very difficult and painstaking work. Cats sleep behind a table lamp. 
After sorting, the rods are calcined in a special cabinet. The annealing temperature ranges from 800 to 1200 degrees Celsius and directly affects the final properties of the rod. The hardness of the pencil depends on the temperature, which has 17 gradations - from 7H to 8B. 
After annealing, the rods are filled with fat under special pressure and temperature. This is necessary to give them the necessary writing properties: the intensity of the line, the ease of sliding, the quality of sharpening, the ease of erasing with an eraser. Depending on the required core hardness value, lard, confectionery fat or even beeswax and carnauba wax can be used.
Output product of the rod production area. 
After that, the rods go to the assembly. Here on such machines, planks for pencils are prepared. Grooves are cut into them for the installation of writing rods. 
The cutting part of the machine grinds grooves in planks. 
The boards automatically enter such a clip. 
After that, on another machine, the rods are placed in pre-prepared planks. 
After laying, the halves of the boards are glued together with PVA glue, and they are left to dry under pressure. The essence of this operation is that the rod itself is not glued to the planks. Its diameter is larger than the diameter of the groove, and in order for the structure to close, a press is needed. The rod, on the other hand, will be held in the wood not due to glue, but due to the tension of the wooden shell (prestressing specially created in this way in the design of the pencil). 
After drying, the workpiece is sawn with special cutters into individual pencils. 
Pencils are gradually sawn over several processing cycles. 
The output is ready-made, but not colored pencils. 
Already at this stage, the shape of the pencil is laid due to the type of profile of the cutting cutter. 
Next, on special lines, the surface of the pencil is primed. When painting pencils, enamels made at the factory are used. These enamels are made from components that are safe for humans. 
Line for painting pencils. 
I think that in stores we have seen gift pencils painted with colorful stains many times. It turns out that in order to color them like that, a whole specially developed technology is used. Here is a small snippet of the painting process. 
When visiting the paint shop, I happened to see a batch of pencils for delivery to the government of the Russian Federation of a new sample. The tip of the pencil symbolizes our national flag. Pencils dry in a special technological framework. The regularity of the rows looks very unusual and attracts. 
After painting, the pencils are stacked in batches for shipment to the next sections of the factory. 
It is a great pleasure to look at thousands of pencils colored according to the factory's proprietary technology. This is a very unusual sight. 
Further, on a special machine, the final mechanical operation is carried out - the processing of the ends. 
Technological surface finishing line. 
Then, on a special machine, the pencil is marked with a special stamp, which is applied to each pencil through a foil tape. 
Stamp storage cabinet. Here are stored stamps for the entire range of products. 
If necessary, before packing, pencils are sharpened on a special machine. The photo shows the intermediate stage of sharpening.
I was amazed by the speed of the machine. Pencils fell into the tray in a continuous stream. I immediately remembered all my personal unsuccessful attempts to sharpen pencils. From these memories, this machine began to inspire even more respect. 
The factory also produces such interesting oval-shaped pencils used in construction and repair. 
Arrays of stored pencils look very unusual and attractive. You won't see this anywhere else. 
At the packaging area, the pencils are sorted and packaged by hand. There is a special atmosphere here. People work quietly and silently. Many employees have continuous work experience in the factory for more than 40 years. 
The factory has its own equipped laboratory, where products are tested throughout the entire production cycle and new production technologies are developed. The picture shows the Amsler device for determining the resistance to breakage of writing rods. 
Before leaving, I went into a room with demonstration stands for the factory's products. The emblem of the factory causes some kind of nostalgia. After all, these pencils are familiar to each of us since childhood.
The factory produces several product lines. Professional series of pencils for artists, decorators and designers. 
Samples of pencils supplied to the government of the Russian Federation. For the design of the pencils, a drawing was chosen to match the color of standard malachite tableware for employees of the government of the Russian Federation. But besides this, they also have other differences from ordinary pencils: firstly, their shape is made with maximum consideration for the ergonomics of an adult’s hand, and besides, they use a special “lumograph” type rod for making notes in the margins and in the diary, it is not smeared by hand , but erases well with an eraser without damaging the paper. 
Engineering drawing pencils: 
Original souvenir products of the factory. 
(b) As a bonus, and for comparison, I offer you a couple of stories from the Discovery TV channel, about the production of pencils there. (/b)
Fixies have already told you about the history of the ballpoint pen in the cartoon.
And now let's talk about another item that we use just as often - a pencil. We learn
what was drawn in the old days, and how the material for our pencils was helped to find ... sheep. Let's look at the pencil factory, figure out how the stick-rod gets inside the wooden case, why pencils are called soft and hard - and much more.
Once upon a time, there were no such pencils as there are now. Until the 16th century, artists drew with a "silver pencil". A thin silver wire was soldered to the handle or put into a special case - a leather tube. When the wire was worn out, the skin at the end of the tube was cut off, and the "silver pencil" became shorter. True, it was impossible to erase what was written with such a pencil - and the artist who made the wrong stroke had to redraw it all over again. And after a while, the silvery lines or letters turned brown.
There was also a lead pencil - a thin stick made of lead. But the lead stick leaves a gray, not very clear mark on the paper. In addition, lead is a harmful substance to health. In those days, however, few people knew about this, and schoolchildren often wrote with lead pencils.
And for those pencils that we use, the core is made of graphite. This is a special kind of coal. For the first time, graphite was discovered ... by shepherds from the English county of Cumberland. They noticed that when white sheep rub their sides against the stones of local rocks, their wool turns black.
Having learned about the "staining rocks", the British at first decided that the Cumberland rocks also contain lead. And they tried to use it for the production of pencils. Craftsmen manually turned rods from this “lead”, which were then wrapped with braid. The work was not easy - one master could make only two or three pencils per day. The British valued the "Cumberland lead" very much; it was forbidden to export it from the British Isles under pain of death. But the pencils turned out to be very good - soon all of Europe found out about them, and the material for the rods began to be secretly exported from England.
In the German city of Nuremberg, a factory opened in 1761, where "lead" rods began to be enclosed in a wooden shell - and the pencil acquired almost exactly the same form as we know it now. However, only at the end of the eighteenth century, chemists figured out that there was no lead in these rods, but they were made from a special mineral. It was then that he was given the name "graphite" - from the Greek word grafo - I write.
But the rods of pure graphite, although they gave a beautiful clear line, were still too soft. In 1790, the Viennese craftsman Josef Hardmuth mixed graphite dust with clay and water and fired the mixture in a kiln. Then he founded the Koh-i-Noor pencil business - many of you still have pencils from this company at home. And at about the same time in France, the scientist-inventor Nicolas-Jacques Conte found his own way of producing pencil rods. He was also an artist, so he knew perfectly well what a good pencil should be. Conte came up with the idea of making a mixture of graphite, clay, starch, soot and water for the rods. By adding more or less clay, the scientist found that it was possible to make the rods harder to draw thin and light lines, or softer - then the lines turned out darker and fatter. The more clay added, the harder the rod.
Take a set of simple pencils - on each of them it is indicated what hardness it is. Hard pencils are marked - the Russian letter T (“hard”) or the Latin “H” (“hard” is an English word that also means “hard”). And on soft ones - Russian M (soft) or Latin B (“black” - “black” - as we remember, a softer rod gives a darker, black line). The figure is added to the hardest and softest rods - 2M, 3T. There are also medium-hard pencils - TM (or HB) is written on them - “hard-soft”.
Okay, but how does the graphite rod get inside the wooden case? Let's try to look at the pencil factory! We will see that clay, graphite and wood do not immediately turn into a pencil. Their journey through the factory from car to car is a whole chain of transformations.
First you need to grind clay and graphite finely. Then mix with glue so that it binds graphite particles together, preventing them from crumbling. And again grind into powder, from which graphite sticks will turn out. But in the powder, between the particles of graphite and clay, specks or air bubbles remain. If you do not get rid of them, the wand will come out brittle - the pencil will have to be repaired every now and then. To expel air bubbles, the powder is strongly squeezed with a special press. It turns out round thick columns - blanks. These blanks are pressed through a sieve with very small holes. Motes remain on the sieve, and tiny particles of graphite and clay pass through the holes - thin black vermicelli is obtained. Blanks are again made from it - but already clean, without any litter, without air bubbles. These blanks are turned into pencil refills.
To make a thin stick-rod out of a plump blank, you need to push it through a tiny hole.
The blank squeezes through it, grows thinner and stretches into a thin, long thread. The thread is cut into pieces. But these pieces are soft, they are not suitable for a pencil yet. They must be dried and fired in an oven to make them hard. And then saturate with fat so that they write clearly, and not pale.
Finally got the same graphite stick that sits inside the pencil. Now we need it to be in a wooden case.
Pencil cases can be made from various types of wood (and now they are often made from plastic) - although the best pencils are made from Siberian cedar. The machine cuts a wooden blank into identical planks. So that the future pencil does not break, and it is easier to repair it, the planks are impregnated with paraffin. This is done in special devices - autoclaves. All resins are removed from the boards for a couple, and the wood under the action of steam changes its color to pinkish-brownish. Then the boards are thoroughly dried.
After that, in each plank, another machine draws six tracks - for six graphite sticks. Graphite sticks are placed on the plank in the tracks prepared for them. And on top they are closed with another similar board - like a lid. And both boards are glued together. If you look at the finished pencil very carefully, you can find a place where the two halves are glued together.
See how six pencils are made from a cedar plank:
1 - grooves are made in both planks; 2 - graphite sticks are inserted into the grooves, and the boards are glued together; 3 - the board passed through the machine; it is clear that it will soon turn into six pencils; 4 - and here pencils appeared instead of planks.
It turns out immediately six fused pencils. Another machine cuts the plank into six hexagonal sticks. Inside each stick sits a graphite rod. This is a ready-made pencil, but not yet very beautiful - unpainted, rough. In order to get prettier, he must also go to machines that will make him smooth and cover him with brilliant colored varnish or paint - necessarily in several layers.
And then the pencil will fall into the last machine, where it will be branded - the name, the drawing, the designation of hardness. Now the pencil is completely ready - it was born, received a name and can be sent from the factory to the store, and from the store to your home.
This is how simple pencils are made. How are the colors made? Instead of graphite, they use chalk with a special glue (kaolin) and a coloring agent in the leads. By the way, the mixture for the cores of colored pencils is fired in the oven once, but the graphite cores for ordinary pencils are fired twice.
That's how much work it takes to make a regular pencil! So take care of your pencils, do not rush to throw them away, even when they become very short.
