Pencils? - Wood & Mechanical

[FCD]

Hi All,

Any interest in pencils, both Wood and Mechanical pencils?

I think I may have mentioned, possibly a long, long, time ago...I collect pencils.  Dorky hobby, I know.  But, I enjoy it it!  A lot actually!  It's a hobby, like woodworking, which I can continue to do as I get older, and it's pretty interesting as well.  Surprisingly interesting...surprisingly.

In the Wood pencil category, I try to collect what (among collectors, and yes, there are actually other dorks like me) are known as 'Premium Wood pencils'.  Generally, this means graded graphite pencils, not to be confused with your run of the mill common yellow school pencils (which do have a grade embossed on them, usually "2 HB" (which is actually an incorrect misnomer reference)).  These are often referred to as a "standard Number 2 pencil".  There's a long history behind how this pencil became known this way, but there's also a very long history associated with pencils in general.  And, believe it or not, pencils in their current form were quite a revolutionary development in their day.  Even more of a revolutionary development than the pen which really wasn't all that revolutionary at all.  Before the pencil's invention there was really nothing to write with which could be erased, and a pencil could.  And, paper as we know it today was outrageously expensive, so being able to erase things was a very important development.  

The very first 'pencil' was invented somewhere around, or just before, 1599.  The exact date is debatable, and the reason for this is the pencil took many, many, forms before it took the shape we know it as today.  And, when I say "many, many", I mean just that, prior to 1599 there were countless writing instruments, which also had various names, of just about every shape and size you can imagine.  In fact, the earliest pencils weren't even pencils at all, but rather a chunk of rock, graphite or antimony, which would leave a mark on paper.  So, as you can imagine, this evolution took on many forms before arriving at what we know today.

I'll keep this short(er) for easier reading, but if anyone is interested, I can share however much people are interested in knowing about pencils.  I am particularly interested in wood pencils, but I can also converse in mechanical pencils as well, because I also collect those.

Enjoy!!

[FCD]

Some more...for those interested.  If y'all are not interested, just let me know and I'll stop.

As I think I noted, my primary interest is in wooden pencils, so I'll start off with a little discussion on the modern construction process for today's wooden pencils.  I have an instructional Show & Tell kit from General pencils (a brand of Premium wood pencils) around here somewhere.  I'll look for this and try to photograph the individual parts, but in the meantime I will discuss with text the manufacturing process.  It's actually an interesting process really.  I'll also fill in with some interesting 'factoids' along the way.

1.) The whole process starts with two parallel processes, or two separate processes.  The first process is creating the "lead".  "Lead" is actually a completely erroneous term because at no point in history were pencil leads ever made with lead (not ever).  Surprisingly, lead WILL write on paper (many hunters know this because they can use the tip of a bullet to sign their Elk/Deer tag with it in the absence of a pen or pencil).  Where the term "lead" came from is debated, but it may be as simple as people knew lead would write.  In any case, it was never used for pencil "leads".  The two substances used for pencil leads initially was antimony, and graphite.  When graphite was first found it was very rare, and very expensive.  Kingdoms started wars over graphite mines as graphite was once worth as much or more than gold!  Part of the reason for this is, graphite has so many uses well beyond writing.  The biggest is as a petroleum free and liquid free lubricant.  Through the rest of this process, I will use 'lead' and 'graphite' interchangeably.  You can assume one means the other and vice versa.

Once graphite deposits were located in larger quantities elsewhere besides Europe, it was used more frequently in pencils.  Until this point antimony was used.  Charcoal was also used, but this has a number of negatives.  Antimony is also an element found in the earth (like graphite), but it is a poor substitute for graphite in writing.  Graphite has some negatives too, and one of these is it is far too fragile to be used by itself in pencils.  It just breaks constantly.  Fixing this problem took hundreds of years, oddly.  The solution was to grind graphite down to dust, and then mix it with some other additives.  The two principle strengthing agents are clay and wax.  Clay also serves as a life extender in addition to serving as a good binding agent.  If you've ever used a pencil which seemed 'waxy' when you wrote with it, this is because the wax content was much higher, so you weren't wrong in your assessment.  All of this is mixed together and a slurry is created which is then cooled and solidified into a solid.  The graphite slabs are then machined down into the lead shapes we know today.  Any waste is captured and just recast.

I want to take a little diversion here to cover an interesting little factoid about the element lead (Pb on the periodic table).  When you were a kid, I'm sure you heard the old wives tale about avoiding being stabbed by a pencil because you'd get "lead poisoning!".  Well, because actual lead was never used in pencils this is an impossibility, despite lead poisoning being a real thing.  The origins of this wives tale is quite a bit more interesting than just a kids rumor.  There is another type of pencil which was used in the early days of document duplication which was known as a "Copy Pencil".  The lead in copy pencils was made with a substance called "aniline dyes".  Aniline dyes are very toxic indeed, very toxic!  Just a small amount under the skin, something as small as the tip of a pencil, or even the fragments of one, can make a person very sick, sometimes even requiring hospitalization and sometimes even death!  This stuff is bad Ju-Ju!  Part of the reason for the use of Aniline Dyes in Copy pencils was to make their marks indelible.  Long before the creation of the "Xerox" machine, duplication of original documents was an important function, thus the need for Copy Pencils.  This need has long since gone away, and so did Copy Pencils along with it due exactly because of it's toxicity.  In a very ironic twist, the symptoms of Aniline poisoning mirror almost exactly the symptoms kids would tell each other happened to you if you got "lead poisoning".  So, although it is not known for sure, it is now thought Copy Pencils and the Aniline Dyes used in them was where this wives tale originated.  Kind of interesting, huh? 

The second initial process is creating the case which contains the lead.  The wood case also supports the lead because alone it is still too fragile...which many have experienced when they got too much lead exposed with their Pentel mechanical pencils, right?  The case starts with a hunk of wood, obviously.  The type of wood is generally cedar wood, ideally what is known as "aromatic cedar" which is also cut from the same cedar tree (although some types are better than others), and it is typically cut from the base of the tree down near the root.  This wood also goes by another name.  Campers and survivalists will know this wood as "fatwood".  The reason it is preferred is because of it's high pitch (or sap) content.  Without this cedar is highly prone to warpage, which in a pencil is a bad thing.  This wood is then sawed down into slabs which are the thickness of 1/2 the thickness of a pencil.  Now the slabs are ready for the "assembly and milling" phase.

After the wood is sawed down into slabs, and ripped down to the width of slightly more than (8) pencils wide.  Each slab is then grooved with a commercial router machine to remove the wood where 1/2 the diameter of the graphite "lead" will go.  There are (8) grooves cut into the slab at intervals of slightly more than 1x a pencil width.  The first groove starts at slightly 1/2x the diameter of a finished pencil.  A thin layer of glue is then applied and the graphite rods are glued into the 1/2 slab.  Then, another grooved, (8) pencil wide slab, is glued down on top of it.  It is then clamped and placed in a kiln to cure.  From there, the slab is then milled down with a special milling machine.  Two sides, and 1/2 of a 3rd and 4th sides of a pencil are then milled into the assembled slab.  The slab is rotated 180 degrees where the same thing happens to the reverse side.  At the conclusion of this process you have (8) individual pencils all connected together by a very thin piece of the remaining slab.  This strip is exactly the width of a very narrow and very precise saw blade.  The slab is then run through a very special (10) saw setup where the pencil is then cut into it's final shape with the lead inside.  The pencil is now ready for the "finishing" phase of the process.

The finishing process is just that, applying a finish to each pencil.  The metal ferules and erasers are installed and applied last.  The finish is applied by the spray application of a base color.  It is then run through an embossing machine where any lettering or lead grades are stamped into the pencil.  A contrasting paint is applied to color the letters, and the overage is wiped away.  The final step in the finishing process is the application of a clear lacquer over the top of the base color and the colored embossing.

The final step is the installation of the metal ferule on one end and the insertion of a rubber like eraser.  The net result is a finished pencil which is ready to be boxed, usually in increments of (12) per box, or one gross (144) for pencils sold in bulk.  Pencils from India (and really only India) are boxed in (10) pencil boxes.  Otherwise, Europe, Japan and the US manufacturers all use an increment of (12) pencils per box.  Following this, the pencil is ready for distribution and shipping, usually by the pallet load which is several thousand pencils.  These pallets are broken down into smaller groups as the pencils move from distribution houses to local store warehouses, and ultimately out to the shelf at a stationery, drafting, or art supply store.

This is basically the process for making a pencil.  As I noted, I do have an instruction kit for demonstration purposes which has the pencils in various stages from the slabs to the grooved slabs, then lead applied, then glued, then milled, and ultimately cut.  When I find this, I'll try to take some pictures.  Overall though, it's a pretty interesting process.

Enjoy!