How pencils are made. How wooden pencils are made How colored pencils are made
Wrote in March 25th, 2013
Each of us, from an early age, while engaged in creativity, or in 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 complex the technological process of its production is.
By the way, during production, a pencil goes through 83 technological operations, 107 types of raw materials are used in its production, and the production cycle is 11 days. If you look at all this from the perspective of an entire product line, you see a complex, well-established production with careful planning and control.
In order to see with our own eyes the process of producing 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 accessible. 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 lead to the final product - pencils. Let's take a closer look at the pencil production process.
To produce pencils, the factory receives specially processed and laid linden boards. But before they are used, writing rods must be made.
Let's move on to the pencil lead manufacturing workshop. 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 along a conveyor to the next production site.
In the next section, special mills are installed, where the clay is ground more finely and mixed with water.
Installations for preparing a mixture of clay and graphite. Here the mixture for future rods gets rid of impurities and is prepared for further processing.
It is worth noting 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 resulting semi-finished products. There is virtually no waste from production, since they reuse it.
At this production site, the rods themselves are produced, but in order for them to get into the pencil, a number of technological operations will be carried out on them.
The technology for producing rods itself is reminiscent of extrusion. The carefully prepared and mixed mass is squeezed out through a special stamp with holes.
After this, the blanks for writing rods are placed in a special container.
And dry in the closet for 16 hours.
After this, the rods are carefully sorted by hand.
This is what a workstation for sorting rods looks like. This is a very difficult and painstaking work. Cats sleep behind the 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 a pencil, which has 17 gradations - from 7H to 8B, depends on temperature.
After annealing, the rods are filled with fat under special pressure and temperature. This is necessary to give them the necessary writing properties: intensity of stroke, ease of gliding, quality of sharpening, ease of erasing with an eraser. Depending on the required value of the hardness of the rod, the following can be used: lard, confectionery fat, or even beeswax and carnauba wax.
Output products from the rod production area.
After this, the rods go to the assembly. Pencil boards are prepared on such machines. Grooves are cut into them for installing writing rods.
The cutting part of the machine makes grooves in the boards.
The boards automatically go into such a clip.
After this, on another machine, the rods are laid into pre-prepared planks.
After laying, the halves of the planks are glued together with PVA glue and left to dry under pressure. The essence of this operation is that the rod itself is not glued to the boards. Its diameter is larger than the diameter of the groove, and in order for the structure to close, a press is needed. The rod will be held in the wood not by glue, but by the tension of the wooden shell (prestress specially created in this way in the design of the pencil).
After drying, the workpiece is sawed with special cutters into individual pencils.
The pencils are gradually sawn through several processing cycles.
The output is ready-made, but not colored pencils.
Already at this stage, the shape of the pencil is established due to the type of profile of the cutting cutter.
Next, the surface of the pencil is primed on special lines. When painting pencils, enamels made at the factory are used. These enamels are made from components that are safe for humans.
Pencil painting line.
I think that many times in stores we have seen gift pencils painted with colorful streaks. It turns out that in order to color them this way, a whole specially developed technology is used. Here is a short snippet of the painting process.
When visiting the paint shop, I happened to see a batch of pencils for delivery to the Russian government of a new type. The tip of the pencil symbolizes our national flag. Pencils dry in special technological frames. The regularity of the rows looks very unusual and attractive.
After painting, the pencils are put into batches to be sent to the next sections of the factory.
It is a great pleasure to look at thousands of pencils colored using the factory’s proprietary technology. This is a very unusual sight.
Surface finishing technological line.
Cabinet for storing stamps. Stamps for the entire range of manufactured products are stored here.
If necessary, pencils are sharpened on a special machine before packaging. 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 these interesting oval-shaped pencils, used in construction and repair.
Arrays of stacked pencils look very unusual and attractive. You won't see this anywhere else.
At the packaging area, pencils are sorted and packed by hand. There is a special atmosphere here. People work quietly and silently. Many employees have continuous work experience at the factory for more than 40 years.
The factory has its own equipped laboratory, in which products are tested throughout the entire production cycle and new production technologies are developed. The picture shows an Amsler device for determining the fracture resistance of writing rods.
Before leaving, I went into a room with demonstration stands for the factory's products. The factory logo evokes 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 design was chosen to match the color of the standard malachite desktop instruments of Russian government workers. But besides this, they have other differences from ordinary pencils: firstly, their shape is made with maximum consideration for the ergonomics of an adult’s hand, and in addition, they use a special “lumograph” type rod for making notes in the margins and in a diary; it does not smear with the hand , but can be easily erased with an eraser without damaging the paper.
Pencils for engineering drawing:
Original factory souvenir products.
The visit to the factory was very exciting and educational. It was very interesting for me to see how much original technology and labor goes into making such a seemingly simple object as a pencil.
I want to express my deep gratitude to the chief production technologist Marina for her help and clarification of technological processes in production. At the end of the visit to the factory, its management presented the editorial office with their branded pencils, including those supplied to the government of the Russian Federation.
A short video about how pencils are made.
Drawing is a pleasant and useful activity for any age. And one of the most important artistic materials for any child is pencils. But few of us know how pencils are made, what kind of wood is used for these purposes. It is noteworthy that the creation of these stationery products is carried out differently in each factory. The editors of the site conducted their investigation and will tell the story of the origin of the pencil and the technology for its production.
History of the pencil began approximately 300 years ago, when a new mineral, graphite, began to be used instead of lead. But it is very soft, and therefore they began to add clay to the graphite mass. This made the graphite rod harder and stronger. The more clay, the harder the pencil. That's why there are different types of pencils: hard, medium and soft.
But graphite also gets very dirty, so it has “clothes.” She became wooden. It turns out that not every tree is suitable for making a pencil body. You need wood that is easy to plan and cut, but it should not become shaggy. Siberian cedar turned out to be ideal for this purpose.
More fat and glue are mixed into the graphite mass. This is so that the graphite glides across the paper more easily and leaves a rich mark. So, about two hundred years ago, the pencil became similar to the one we are used to seeing.
How pencils were made
At that time, pencils were made by hand. A mixture of graphite, clay, fat, soot and glue diluted with water was poured into a hole in a wooden stick and evaporated in a special way. One pencil took about five days to make, and it was very expensive. In Russia, pencil production was organized by Mikhail Lomonosov in the Arkhangelsk province.
The pencil was constantly improved. A round pencil rolls off the table, so they came up with the idea of making it hexagonal. Then, for convenience, an eraser was placed at the top of the pencil. Colored pencils appeared in which, instead of graphite, the leads used chalk with a special glue (kaolin) and a coloring agent.
People continued to look for material to replace wood. This is how pencils in plastic frames appeared. A mechanical pencil in a metal case was invented. Nowadays wax pencils are also produced.
From the beginning of creation to the finished product, a pencil goes through 83 technological operations; 107 types of raw materials are used in its production, and the production cycle is 11 days.
What wood are pencils made from nowadays?
In most cases, they are made from alder and linden, of which there are a huge number in Russia. Alder is not the most durable material, but it has a uniform structure, which simplifies the processing process and preserves its 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 it is not healthy wood that is used, but specimens that no longer produce nuts.
Core: what is the basis
Pencil production is carried out using a special rod. Graphite lead consists of three components - graphite, soot and sludge, to which organic binders are often added. Moreover, graphite, including colored graphite, is a permanent component, since it is the lead that leaves a mark on the paper. The rods are created from a carefully prepared mass, which has a certain temperature and humidity. The kneaded dough is formed using 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. All that remains is to heat them in special crucibles. Then the rods are fired, and after it fattening is performed: the formed pores are filled with fat, stearin or wax under pressure and at a certain temperature.
How are colored pencils made?
Here, the fundamental difference is, again, the rod, which is made from pigments, fillers, fatliquoring components and a binder. The rod production process is as follows:
The manufactured rods are placed in special grooves on the board and covered with a second board;
Both boards are glued together with PVA glue, but the rod should not stick;
The ends of the glued planks are aligned;
Preparation is performed, that is, adding fat to the existing mixture.
It is noteworthy that the production of pencils is carried out taking into account the consumer properties of the products. So, cheap pencils are made from wood that is not of the highest quality, and the shell is exactly the same - not of the highest quality. But pencils that are used for artistic purposes are made from high-quality wood that is double-size. Depending on what the pencil is made of, it will be sharpened. It is believed that neat shavings are obtained if the products are made from pine, linden or cedar wood. In addition, it is important that the lead is properly glued - such a pencil will not break even if dropped.
What should the shell be like?
The simplicity and beauty of the pencil depends on the shell. Since pencils are made from wood, it must meet the following requirements: softness, strength and lightness.
During operation, the shell must
Do not break or crumble, like the entire body;
Do not delaminate under the influence of natural factors;
Have a beautiful cut - smooth and shiny;
Be resistant to moisture.
What equipment is used?
Pencil production is carried out using a variety of equipment. For example, cleaning 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 core itself is formed from the dough using rollers with three different gaps. For the same purposes, a die with holes is used. Drying of wooden blanks is carried out in drying cabinets, where the products are rotated for 16 hours. When properly dried, the wood acquires a moisture level of a maximum of 0.5%. As for colored pencils, they are not subject to heat treatment due to the presence of fillers, dyes and fattening components. Pencils are trimmed lengthwise on a special machine.
How pencils are made
Drying plays an important role in the production process. . It is carried out in special wells using machines, and the boards are laid so that drying is as efficient as possible. In these wells, drying is carried out for approximately 72 hours, then the boards are sorted: all cracked or unsightly products are rejected. Selected blanks are refined with paraffin and calibrated, that is, special grooves are cut out on them where the rods will be located.
Now a milling-through line is used, on which the blocks are divided into pencils. Depending on what shape the knives are used at this stage, the pencils are either round, or faceted, or oval. An important role is played by fastening the stylus in a wooden case: this should be done firmly and reliably, which reduces the risk of the stylus elements falling out. The elastic glue used for binding makes the lead stronger.
Modern pencils and colored pencils come in a huge variety of designs and colors. Since pencils are made in a factory, close attention is paid to each stage of production.
Painting is one of the important stages, as it must meet a number of requirements. The extrusion method is used to finish the surface, and the end is finished by dipping. In the first case, the pencil passes through a priming machine, where at the end of the conveyor it is turned over to apply the next layer. This way, an even coating is obtained.
There are two large pencil factories in Russia. Pencil Factory named after. Krasina in Moscow― the first state-owned enterprise in Russia to produce pencils in wood casing. The factory was founded in 1926. For more than 72 years, it has been the largest manufacturer of office supplies.
Siberian pencil factory in Tomsk. In 1912, the tsarist government organized a factory in Tomsk that sawed cedar planks for the production of all pencils produced in Russia. In 2003, the factory significantly increased the range of products and introduced new brands of pencils known for their quality to the market. "Siberian cedar" and "Russian pencil"» with good consumer characteristics. Pencils of new brands have taken their rightful place among inexpensive domestically produced pencils made from Russian environmentally friendly materials.
In 2004, the pencil factory was sold to a Czech company KOH-I-NOOR. The factory received investments, and new opportunities arose for the distribution of products not only in the domestic, but also in the global stationery market.
Udalov Dmitry
Research work. The history of the creation of the pencil. Graphite. Which pencil is better?
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IV city scientific readings
them. I.V.Kurchatova
Topic: What is a pencil made of?
Udalov Dmitry
Student 4 "B" class
Municipal educational institution "Secondary school No. 21"
Scientific adviser:
Baradacheva I.G.
teacher of the highest category
Municipal educational institution "Secondary school No. 21"
Ozersk
2010
Introduction …………………………………………………………………3
1. Theoretical part
1.1. The history of the appearance of the pencil…………………………………..……5
1.2. Taiginskoye graphite deposit in the Urals…………..….… .…6 1.3. Pencil manufacturing technology………………………..…….….7
2. Practical part…………………………………………………..8
Conclusion ………………………………………………………….… ..10
Literature ……………………………………………………………….11
Applications …………………………………………………………… 12
Introduction.
Doesn't look human
But he has a heart
And work all year round
He gives his heart.
He writes when dictated,
He both draws and draws.
And this evening
He will color the album for me. ( Pencil)
It would seem that what has not been invented for writing or drawing!Quill and metal pens, ink and ink, ballpoint pen, felt-tip pen. But still, in the backpack of a first-grader, an artist and a draftsman, an accountant and a carpenter, and on the desk of the chairman of the board of a bank, there are always several simple pencils. A truly universal thing - it writes always and everywhere: upside down, in the cold, under water, and in space. The pencil does not need advertising. Fair. A pencil is like bread. They don't notice him when he is there. And when it is not there... In the first days of the Patriotic War, the pencil factory in Moscow began to produce military, seemingly more necessary products - ammunition. And pencils disappeared from the city. The government ordered not to stop pencil production for a single day. The need for pencils has not decreased in our time. Statistics say that a person needs at least 10 pieces per year.
It's interesting that:
with one ordinary wooden pencil you can draw a line 56 km long or write more than 40 thousand words;
the world's largest pencil, 12 meters long and weighing 24 centners;
the smallest pencil in the world is just under two centimeters;
More than 14 billion pencils are produced in the world every year - from this amount you can circle our planet 62 times.
One large tree can make approximately 300,000 pencils.
We were interested to find out what pencils the students of our school prefer, how they use them, and whether they know what pencils are made of. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among students in grades 4, 8 and 11 of municipal educational institution “Secondary School No. 21”. (See Appendix No. 1) Students answered a series of questions regarding their use of simple pencils. The results are presented in the form of diagrams (see Appendix No. 2). We were surprised that not all students knew what a pencil was made of. 3 people (10%) were able to answer this question correctly in 4th grade, 11 people (50%) in 8th grade, and 18 people (90%) in 11th grade. Based on the lack of awareness of students on this issue, we decided to complete this work.
Goal of the work: find out what a pencil is made of.
Tasks:
study special literature (find out the history of the appearance of the pencil, the technology of its manufacture; learn about graphite deposits in the Chelyabinsk region, the method of mining and processing graphite, its basic properties);
carry out practical work (observation of graphite mining, survey of students, competition for the best pencil);
compare the results obtained;
identify the most popular pencil among students.
Object of study:simple pencil.
Practical significanceThis material can be used in a lesson on the surrounding world on the topic “Minerals of the Urals”, fine art on the topic “The History of the Creation of a Pencil”, a class hour “On the Careful Use of Forests”, etc.
Research methods:
1) descriptive;
2) experimental;
3) quantitative;
4) comparative.
A pencil is such an ordinary object. The first writing instrument that adults entrusted to us. It is simple and not at all mysterious. Indeed?
For example, how old is he? And have you ever wondered: how do you stuff a stylus into it? And what happened when there was no pencil? This is probably where we'll start.
1.1 History of the creation of the pencil.
Who and when gave the world this amazing object?
The history of the pencil begins in the 14th century.The principle itself - a solid substance that leaves a dark mark on cardboard, parchment or paper - has been known for a very long time. Metals were used as writing material: silver for richer people, lead for those who could not boast of wealth. Such writing instruments were used by such graphic masters as Dürer, Van Dyck and Botticelli to make their sketches.
The prototypes of modern graphite pencils appeared in the 16th century. Then, for the first time, graphite was used for writing.
The graphite deposit was first discovered in England, and quite by accident: shepherds from the Cumberland area discovered a dark mass in the ground, which they used to mark sheep. The mark from these rods was clearer and brighter than from lead rods of similar purpose, which were widely used for writing and drawing in those years. Graphite is a black, shiny, soft mineral composed of carbon. To the touch graphite greasy and gets dirty very well. On surfaces it readily produces a streak of silver to black. This is a mineral that seems designed by nature itself for writing. And its name comes from the Greek “grapho” - I write. This material soon attracted the attention of artists and merchants, who quickly established trade in thin plates and pieces of graphite on the English streets, began to make thin sticks with pointed ends from it and used them for drawing. Graphite began to be used everywhere and so massively that the deposits began to rapidly dry up. By order of the royal court, graphite could only be mined for a few weeks a year, so as not to deplete its reserves. And at the end of the 18th centuryEnglish parliamentintroduced a strict ban on the export of precious graphite. For violation of this prohibition the punishment was very severe, up todeath penalty.
Of course, using graphite was very inconvenient - your hands got dirty! I had to wrap the graphite with rope, paper, or even simply press it between boards.
The idea of enclosing graphite in a case that easily leaves a mark on paper and does not stain your hands belongs to the French inventor and businessman Nicolas Jacques Conte (1775). Conte invented a technology for making a graphite rod from a mixture of powdered graphite, soot, clay and water. After stirring, the mixture was poured into a wooden mold and the water was evaporated. Pencils were made by hand. Therefore, the cost of graphite pencils was considerable. Only the court nobility could afford such pencils.
The first pencils were round. It's hard to imagine today, but inventors spent decades trying to solve the problem of pencils rolling off the table. Only at the end of the 19th century Count Lothar von FabercastleI figured out how to make the pencil body hexagonal -for a more stable position on inclined writing surfaces. He is also the author of the standard pencil length and diameter.
The great Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov also wrote his own page in the history of the pencil. After all, in Russia there is both graphite and wood - and in one of the villages of the Arkhangelsk province a manufactory appeared that produces pencils from graphite in a wooden shell.
1.2 Taiginskoe graphite deposit in the Urals.
Many graphite deposits have been discovered in Russia. In the Urals, graphite deposits are located on the outskirts of the city of Zlatoust and 12-14 km south of the city of Kyshtym - the Taiginskoye deposit. (see Appendix No. 3)
In 1939, a geological exploration party of the Ural Geological Department, headed by geologist Z.I. Kravtsova, arrived in Kyshtym, examined the area of Kyshtym and in 1940 established reserves of crystalline graphite ore near Lake Taiga, 15 km from the city of Kyshtym (see Appendix No. 4). The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War posed the task of quickly developing crystalline graphite deposits. Crystalline graphite is used for batteries on combat aircraft, ships, and tanks. This is armor steel, super-strong fire-resistant alloys, this is the raw material for the development of communications: receivers, transmitters, telephones. The Council of People's Commissars ordered the People's Commissariat of the USSR Construction Materials Industry to immediately begin construction of the Taiga Graphite Plant. In September 1941, construction began on the shores of Lake Taiga in a rainy, cold autumn and harsh winter. The builders, who lived in tents, semi-dugouts, and temporary barracks, cleared the industrial site, laid a power line, built the building of the processing plant, a boiler room, a canteen, utility shops, laid a railway line, imported and installed equipment. Simultaneously with the construction of the plant, the technology for producing graphite was being developed. In May 1942, ore began to be mined, and on June 27, 1942, a plane landed on Lake Temnoe, the crew of which took on board the first batch of graphite, a gift from the Kyshtym graphite workers to the army and navy. During the Great Patriotic War, the plant was the only enterprise that provided the country with thousands of tons of valuable products.
For more than 60 years, the Uralgrafit enterprise (see Appendix No. 5) has been producing natural graphite for enterprises in various industries:
For metallurgy - production of crucibles, non-stick paints;
For mechanical engineering - electrodes, lubricants, thermal insulation material, batteries;
For the production of nuclear technology;
For the production of pencils.
The need for graphite is due to its special physical properties: fire resistance, acid resistance, high electrical conductivity, softness and ductility.
The technology for mining and processing graphite is as follows: graphite is mined in open pits. It is loaded by excavators and delivered to the factory by BelAZ dump trucks. (see Appendix No. 6). The graphite enters the mill, where it goes through three stages of crushing. Next, the graphite is washed from impurities, during which the graphite floats to the surface, and the impurities sink to the bottom. Graphite collected from the surface is dried, ground, classified and packaged in paper bags.
A large number of pencils were produced from Taiginsky graphite.
Currently, due to the economic crisis and great competition with foreign companies, Uralgrafit is curtailing its production. (See Appendix No. 7)
1.3 Pencil manufacturing technology.
Though penciland is called simple, but it is quite a technological product. To produce one pencil, over 80 production operations are carried out.
The rod is the main working part of the pencil. When making pencils, dry graphite powder is mixed with clay and water. The more clay, the harder the pencil; the more graphite, the softer the lead. Depending on the amount of clay, pencil cores have different degrees of hardness - T (hard), M (soft), TM (hard-soft). Once the mixture is formed into a dough-like paste, it is passed through a molding press, producing thin sticky ropes. They are straightened, cut to size, dried and sent to the kiln for firing. The finished leads are sent to the pencil factory.
When producing simple pencils, it is important to choose the right wood. The cheapest material is alder, then comes linden, tropical or European pine, fine-ribbed diera, which grows only in tropical forests.. The best pencils are made from Californian cedar; we use Siberian cedar wood.
The process of making pencils begins with the production of a pencil board (see Appendix No. 8). To improve the properties of wood, pencil boards are subjected to heat treatment followed by impregnation with paraffin. When making pencils, semicircular grooves for the rods are milled on pencil boards. The processed planks are stacked.
The pencils are assembled using gluing equipment. The rods are placed in the groove of the planks and covered with other planks with a layer of glue applied to them. The resulting blocks are clamped and kept for a certain time in a heat chamber. Then the ends of the blocks are polished on a machine, removing the protruding ends of the rods and the unevenness of the glued pairs of planks. After grinding, the blocks have a rectangular shape and smooth ends. The final part of the pencil production process is milling pencils of a given shape (round, faceted) with a special cutting tool. So, the pencil is ready.
At least seven layers of paint must be applied to the pencil body, otherwise “burrs” will form on its surface. HowpencilThe more expensive it is, the more layers of paint it is covered with. An ideal coating is considered to be a coating consisting of 18 layers.
Currently, significant demands are placed on the production of pencils in terms of their environmental safety. It is recommended to use water-based varnishes.
Today, more than 300 types of pencils are produced for various types of activities. There are pencils for writing on glass, fabric, cellophane, plastic and film. There are pencils used in construction that will leave a mark on surfaces exposed to the air for several years.
Currently, there are a large number of companies producing pencils in the world. How many enterprises in Russia do you think are engaged in the production of pencils? Just four. Two of them are located in Moscow. The other two are in Tomsk and Slavyansk.
2. Practical part.
According to the results of a survey among students in grades 4, 8 and 11 of Municipal Educational Institution “Secondary School No. 21”, preferences were given to the following pencils (see Appendix No. 9):
1st place - “Constructor” Russia (12 people)
“Koh-i-Noor” Czech Republic (12 people)
2nd place - " Nixon" Austria (7 people)
3rd place - "EVOLUTION" France (6 people)
80% of students noted in the questionnaires (see Appendix No. 2) that these pencils are comfortable and write well.
These pencils became participants in the “Super Pencil” competition, which was held in my 4th “B” class. The students were divided into 4 expert groups that carried out observations and measurements. Each group had one test sample. Three contestants are made of wood (“Construction Set”, “Koh-i-Noor”, “Nixon") and one plastic ("EVOLUTION"), both the shell and the lead are plastic. For the purity of the experiment, the competition participants (pencils) were wrapped in paper and numbered. (see Appendix No. 10). All pencils had the same hardness (TM) and standard sizes. The research groups were provided with the same accessories: ruler, sharpener, eraser (see Appendix No. 10). The examination was carried out in two directions - the material and the stylus were evaluated.
Material
The quality of the wood used to make the pencil body affects how the finished product will look and how easily the pencils will be sharpened. For a pencil, it is very important: what the wood looks like, what color it is, how well the lead holds. The quality of the wood ensures smooth, neat chips.
The material was assessed:
1.Color
2. Density.
3. Chips
Stylus
Compliance with production technologies also affects the strength of the rod and its consumer characteristics. The lead should have a high degree of strength, should not crumble and should be easily erased with an eraser. Also, during production, the technology of mixing the mixture for the lead must be especially carefully observed; its heterogeneity and the content of foreign impurities can lead to scratching the paper when working with a pencil.
The following were checked on the stylus:
1. Alignment
2. Does it crumble when writing or not?
3. How to erase with an eraser.
4. Does it scratch the paper when writing or not?
5. Cost-effective (consumption of lead for 5 minutes of work).
6. Brittleness.
During the competition, observations and experimental tests were carried out, the results of which are listed in the table (see Appendix No. 11).
1st place - pencil number 4 “EVOLUTION” France
2nd place - pencil number 3 “Koh-i-Noor” Czech Republic
And pencil number 2 " Nixon" Austria
3rd place - pencil number 1 “Constructor” Russia
The winner was the “EVOLUTION” pencil. As we remember, it was a plastic pencil. In fact,Plastic pencils are very popular at the moment. The main advantages of plastic pencils are their low cost and absolute safety in case of breakage. Unlike their wooden counterparts, they are not capable of forming sharp edges at the site of breakage.
Let's compare the results obtained (see Appendix No. 12). There was a discrepancy between the student survey and the competition results. What is the reason? Most likely choiceschoolchildren and their parents wooden pencilsdue to their environmental safety. Even an adult sometimes catches himself doing something indecent - sitting and chewing on a pencil. And what can we say about children!50% of the students surveyed have the habit of putting a pencil in their mouth (chewing) (see Appendix No. 2).
However, there may be other reasons. In the questionnaires, 20% of students noted that they chose a pencil, given that it was cheap, beautiful, and turned out to be by chance (see Appendix No. 2). This means that it is necessary to study the economic side of the issue (the cost of pencils), their design (color, quality of painting), etc. Perhaps this will be the topic of my further research.
Conclusion
After completing the work, we found out what the pencil is made of. A pencil is a writing instrument made from a wooden stick with a rod made of a mixture of clay mass and graphite (S. Ozhegov “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language”).
The tasks we set were completed: having studied specialized literature, we learned the history of the appearance of the pencil, the technology of its manufacture; got acquainted with the graphite deposit in the Urals, the method of mining and processing graphite, its main properties; Conducted practical work (observation of graphite mining, survey of students, competition for the best pencil).
This material can be used in a lesson on the surrounding world on the topic “Minerals of the Urals”, fine art on the topic “The History of the Creation of a Pencil”, a class hour “On the Careful Use of Forests”, etc.
Literature
Sharpen your pencils and draw, draw, write. Why and why? - 2005, No. 12
Kulikova R. Ivashka in a wooden shirt. Reader - 2008, No. 9
How old is the pencil? And why? 2004, no. 7
Ilyin M., Segal E. Stories about what surrounds you. book 2 Where things come from. M., 1985
Dietrich A. Pochemuchka. M., 1993
Kukushkin Yu.N. Chemistry around us M., 1992.
Sources
en.wikipedia.org- free encyclopedia, article "Pencil"
evolutsia.com- "The History of the Pencil"
shkolazhizni.ru- article “What did our ancestors write, draw, draw?
Appendix No. 1
Questionnaire of the student…..class.
You have a simple pencil in your pencil case. He:
1.- normal
Auto
Round
Hexagonal
With elastic band
Without elastic
2. Why did you choose this particular pencil?
Beautiful
Comfortable
Writes well
Cheap
Turned out to be by chance
3. What brand is your pencil? (Name)
4. What do you most often use a pencil for?
I'm drawing
I emphasize
Church
5. Do you put a pencil in your mouth? Are you chewing on it?
Yes
No
6. Do you fill your pencil completely?
Yes
No
7. Why yes?
Comfortable
Writes well
I'm getting used to it
Why not"?
It is not convenient to write with a small pencil
I'm losing
I'm throwing it away, it's cheap, I don't mind
8. Do you know what a pencil is made of?
No
Yes
9. If you know, name what is used in its production.
Appendix No. 2
Appendix No. 3
Appendix No. 4
Appendix No. 5
Appendix No. 6
Fixies have already told you about the history of the ballpoint pen in the cartoon.
Now let's talk about another item that we use just as often - a pencil. Let's find out
what they drew in the old days, and how we found material for our pencils... sheep. Let's take a look at a 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, a long time ago, there were no such pencils as there are now. Until the 16th century, artists painted with a “silver pencil”. A thin silver wire was soldered to the handle or placed in a special case - a leather tube. When the wire wore off, 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 everything again. And after a while, the silver lines or letters turned brown.
There was also a lead pencil - a thin lead stick. But the lead stick leaves a gray, not very clear mark on the paper. In addition, lead is a substance harmful to health. In those days, however, few people knew about this, and schoolchildren often wrote with lead pencils.
And those pencils that you and I use have a lead made of graphite. This is a special type of coal. Graphite was first discovered... by shepherds from the English county of Cumberland. They noticed that when white sheep rub their sides against the local rocks, their wool turns black.
Having learned about the “staining rocks,” the British first decided that the Cumberland rocks also contained lead. And they tried to use it to produce pencils. Craftsmen manually turned rods from this “lead”, which were then wrapped in braid. The work was not easy - one master could make only two or three pencils in a day. The British valued “Cumberland lead” very much; exporting it from the British Isles was prohibited under penalty of death. But the pencils turned out to be very good - soon all of Europe learned about them, and the material for the leads began to be secretly exported from England.
In the German city of Nuremberg in 1761, a factory opened where “lead” rods began to be encased in a wooden shell - and the pencil acquired almost exactly the same appearance as we know it now. However, only at the end of the eighteenth century did chemists realize that there was no lead in these rods, but that they were made of a special mineral. It was then that they gave it the name “graphite” - from the Greek word grafo - I write.
But the pure graphite rods, although they produced a nice, crisp line, were still too soft. In 1790, Viennese master Joseph Hardmuth mixed graphite dust with clay and water and fired the mixture in a kiln. Then he founded a company producing Koh-i-Noor pencils - many of you still have pencils from this company at home. And around the same time in France, the scientist-inventor Nicolas-Jacques Conte found his own method for producing pencil leads. He was also an artist, so he knew very 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 out that the rods could be made harder to draw thin and light lines, or softer - then the lines turned out darker and bolder. The more clay added, the harder the rod.
Take a set of simple pencils - each of them indicates what hardness it is. Hard pencils are marked with 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). A number is added to the hardest and softest rods - 2M, 3T. There are also pencils of medium hardness - they are written TM (or HB) - “hard-soft”.
Well, okay, but how does the graphite rod get inside the wooden case? Let's try to visit 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 the clay and graphite very finely. Then mix it with glue so that it binds the graphite particles together and prevents them from falling apart. And grind it again into powder, from which you get graphite sticks. But in the powder, specks or air bubbles remain between the particles of graphite and clay. If you don't get rid of them, the stick will become brittle - the pencil will have to be repaired every now and then. To expel air bubbles, the powder is strongly compressed with a special press. The result is round thick columns - blanks. These blanks are pressed through a sieve with very small holes. The specks remain on the sieve, and tiny particles of graphite and clay pass through the holes - thin black vermicelli is obtained. They make blanks from it again - but now clean, without any debris, without air bubbles. These blanks are turned into pencil leads.
To make a thin rod-stick from a thick blank, you need to push it through a tiny hole.
The blank squeezes through it, loses weight and stretches into a thin, long thread. The thread is cut into pieces. But these pieces are soft, they are not yet suitable for a pencil. They must be dried and fired in a kiln to make them hard. And then soak them in fat so that they write clearly and not palely.
Finally, we got the same graphite stick that sits inside the pencil. Now we need it to be in a wooden case.
The body for a pencil can be made from different types of wood (and now they are often made from plastic) - although the best pencils are made from Siberian cedar. The machine cuts the wooden blank into identical planks. To prevent the future pencil from breaking and making it easier to repair, the boards are impregnated with paraffin. This is done in special devices - autoclaves. Steam removes all resins from the boards, and the wood, under the influence of steam, changes its color to pinkish-brown. Then the boards are thoroughly dried.
After this, another machine makes six tracks in each board - for six graphite sticks. Graphite sticks are placed on the board in the paths prepared for them. And they are covered on top with another similar board - like a lid. And both boards are glued together. If you examine the finished pencil very carefully, you can find the place where the two halves are glued together.
See how you can make six pencils 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 tablets.
It turns out six fused pencils at once. Another machine cuts the board into six hexagonal sticks. There is a graphite rod inside each stick. This is a ready-made pencil, but it’s not very beautiful yet - unpainted, rough. To make it prettier, it must also go into machines that will make it smooth and cover it with shiny colored varnish or paint - always in several layers.
And then the pencil will go into the last machine, where it will be branded - a name, a design, a 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 do you get colored ones? Instead of graphite, the leads use chalk with a special glue (kaolin) and a coloring agent. By the way, the mixture for colored pencil leads is fired in the oven once, but graphite leads for simple 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.
Back in 1912, by decree of the tsarist government, a factory was created in Tomsk, where they sawed cedar planks for pencils produced throughout the country.
A lot of time has passed since then. This story had its ups and downs. In 1999, the factory was declared bankrupt, and already in 2004, the well-known Czech company KOH-I-NOOR Hardtmuth a.s. became one of its owners. Today, the Siberian Pencil Factory is the only manufacturer in the former Soviet Union of pencils and pencil boards made from Siberian cedar, the wood of which is used to produce pencils of the highest price category. In the fall of 2012, the products of the Siberian Pencil Factory, having passed the examination of the commission, became a laureate of the competition “Best Goods and Services of the Tomsk Region”, and then a diploma winner of the All-Russian competition “100 Best Products of Russia”.
How are pencils produced that have received such consumer recognition?
PREPARATION
Pencil production begins at the timber exchange, where harvested cedar is stored. Now there are more than three thousand cubic meters of wood here. Last year, the authorities of the Tomsk region greatly helped the factory in providing materials. This year they plan to produce about 85 million pencils.
The wood we purchase does not come to us as a result of barbaric felling,” says Anatoly Lunin, director of the factory. – In the overwhelming majority, this is sanitary cutting of aged cedar, which no longer produces nuts. Cedar grows up to 500 years, but cones appear on it until about 250, after which it begins to die and is affected by various insects. If you cut it down during this period, a new cedar will grow faster.
Each log from the timber exchange first undergoes mandatory preparation. Before being cut, the wood is placed and kept in a special pool of warm water. This is done so that frozen pieces of earth or clay with stones do not accidentally damage the saws. In the summer it is kept here for a short time, up to twenty minutes, but in the winter the log is kept in the pool until it thaws. This takes up to three hours.
In the upper right part of the photo you can see a tree trunk prepared for immersion in the pool. After 369 hours or 16.5 days, having gone through 26 different technological operations, it will produce finished pencils.
At the sawmill, logs are made from logs like this.
The production of a wooden pencil is extremely demanding on the quality of the material. Only clean straight wood is used, and if the presence of such defects as, for example, knots is not catastrophic for joinery products, then a pencil cannot be made from such wood, so it is very difficult to say in advance how many pencils will be made from one piece of wood.
To reduce the amount of waste, the company is looking for different ways to increase the depth of wood processing. One of these ways is to expand the range of products. So, from a piece of wood that is not suitable for producing a pencil, by the summer they plan to start producing wooden puzzles, coloring books for children and moth repellents. Some goes to the production of short pencils, like for IKEA stores, and some goes to the production of these wooden skewers.
The timber obtained from the log is sawn into short sections, each of which is then cut into ten planks. In order for all the boards to be the same, they need to be calibrated. To do this, they are driven through a special machine. At the exit from it, the planks have the same size and strictly perpendicular edges.
The calibrated tablets are then placed in an autoclave.
In appearance, it resembles a barrel, to which many pipes of different diameters are connected. Using these pipes, you can create a vacuum in the chamber, build up pressure and supply all kinds of solutions inside. As a result of these processes, the resins contained in it are removed from the board, and the wood is impregnated (soaked) with paraffin.
Today this is not the easiest, but one of the most effective ways to improve the important properties of the material and protect the tree from the harmful effects of the environment.
This is what “ennobled” pencil boards look like after processing in an autoclave.
All that remains is to dry them properly and send them to pencil production. At this point, the process of making the tablet can be considered complete.
PRODUCTION
The finished board arrives at the white pencil workshop, where, first, grooves are cut into it on a machine, where the rods will then be laid. The word “white” in this case means that the pencil here is not yet colored.
The board is fed at the far end on the right side of the photo. Along the way, its surface is ground for gluing, and recesses are cut out in it with a special milling cutter. At the near edge of the machine, the boards are automatically stacked.
This is what a polished board with cut grooves looks like.
Now its thickness is 5 millimeters, which is equal to half the thickness of the future pencil. At the next stage, the boards are glued together in pairs to form one pencil block. This is what it looks like.
The machine smoothly feeds the first plank and places the rods in its grooves.
Following this, a second board, already lubricated with water-soluble glue, “comes out” from another device and carefully lies on top of the first.
The resulting pencil blocks are clamped in a pneumatic press and tightened with clamps.
If the board is made independently at the factory, the rod is mainly purchased from China. There they began to produce it using dry technology, which does not require firing in a kiln at high temperatures. As a result, the cost of the rod turned out to be so low that the lion's share of pencil manufacturers switched to such a rod.
To prevent the pencil lead from breaking inside the body, the factory uses the technology of additional gluing of the lead with a special adhesive system.
After this operation, the glued blocks are kept in a special drying chamber for several hours.
It's quite hot in the cell. Hot air is pumped by a fan, maintaining the temperature around 35-40 degrees. The wood needs to dry well so that in the future the pencil becomes smooth in one pass and obtains the desired geometry. A pencil with a “simple” lead dries here for at least two hours, and a colored pencil – at least four. Due to the fact that colored contains more fatty substances, it takes longer to dry.
After this time, the blocks are disassembled, placed in carts with all further parameters indicated, and sent to the next machine, which will separate them into individual pencils.
The shape of the machine is similar to the one that made grooves in planks, but it also has its own characteristics. The workpieces are placed in a loading hopper. They pass through transport hubs, are trimmed, sawed, and the output is a familiar wooden pencil, only not yet painted.
The double cutter, which separates the blocks, also sets the shape of the future pencil, and this is all done in one pass.
It is the type of profile of the cutting cutter that determines what type of pencil it will be - hexagonal or round.
Most recently, the factory mastered the production of triangular pencils. It turned out that the demand for this form is growing. Buyers are attracted by the ergonomics and natural placement of the fingers on the edges, which certainly makes it easier for the child to learn to write.
Next to the machine is the sorter's desk.
Her task is to sort through the pencils made, select the “good” ones and separate the defective ones. Defects include chips of the rod at the end, roughness, wood burns, etc. Above the table hangs a notice with marriage norms.
Each tray on the table holds 1440 pencils.
The sorted pencils take a special elevator to the next floor, where they will be colored.
PAINTING AND PACKAGING
The paint is purchased dry and diluted to the desired thickness in a paint laboratory.
Painting happens quite quickly. The device continuously pushes colored pencils onto a conveyor.
The length and speed of the conveyor belt are designed so that the pencil dries while it moves on it.
Reaching the opposite end of the conveyor, the pencils fall into one of three receivers.
From there they are sent back to the next cover.
On average, each pencil is covered with three layers of paint and two layers of varnish. Here everything depends on the wishes of the customer. You can also paint a pencil in almost any color. The factory produces sets of six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four colors. Some pencils are coated only with varnish.
After painting, the pencils are sent to the finishing shop. At this point they acquire the final form in which they will reach the consumer. Pencils are stamped, erased and sharpened.
This machine applies a stamp.
There are quite a few ways to apply it, but at the enterprise this is done using foil of different colors. This method is called thermostatting. The working part of the machine heats up, and the stamp is transferred through the foil to the pencil. This way he won’t get around and get his hands dirty.
The stamp itself can be anything; it is specially ordered from the engraver. Depending on the complexity, it takes about five days to make.
If necessary, put an eraser on some of the pencils.
The last operation is sharpening.
Pencils are sharpened using sandpaper placed on a drum and moving at high speed.
This happens very quickly, literally in a matter of seconds.
In addition to sharpening, the machine can be configured to perform rolling - processing the back end of a pencil at a slight angle.
Now the pencils are ready to be packaged and in order to do this they are sent to the next room.
There they are collected into a set, put in a box and sent to the consumer.
Packaging for the required number of pencils is printed in Novosibirsk. It arrives flat and is first given volume.
Then, through assembly machines, the required number of pencils are laid out in a given color scheme.
This machine allows you to assemble a set of twelve colors.
At the end, the pencils are placed in boxes.
Here at the stand are presented samples of the products produced by the factory.
During the tour, we asked about equipment modernization. “There are currently twelve factories in the world,” said Anatoly Lunin. – And everyone has similar equipment. Pencils have been made in Tomsk since the 30s. Since then, the basic principle and production technology have not changed. All processes are well established. Modernization of equipment is expressed in the replacement of some components, or the transition to more economical motors, the use of new cutters. Some new materials arrive, we change something in acceptance and evaluation, but the technology itself remains unchanged.”
When asked if the factory, following the example of Chinese enterprises, plans to switch to the production of pencils from cheaper types of wood or plastic, Anatoly Lunin admitted: “I was thinking about trying to make an economical pencil from low-grade aspen, but this is a different technology, and let the Chinese do it.” . I am more interested in the topic of increasing the useful yield by improving the quality of wood processing. And from an environmental point of view, it is better to produce something from renewable raw materials. A plastic pencil will never rot, but a wooden pencil will completely decompose in a few years.”
One can only wish that in the world of global computerization, there would be a place for a simple wooden pencil.
Text, photo: Evgeny Mytsik
