How pencils are made. How pencils are made from Siberian cedar What modern pencils are made from
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.
Today, the Siberian Pencil Factory is the only manufacturer of pencils and pencil boards made from Siberian cedar in the territory of the former Soviet Union, the wood of which is used to produce pencils of the highest price category.
How are pencils, familiar to us since childhood, made?
The production of pencils begins at the timber exchange, where harvested cedar is stored. Now there are more than three thousand cubic meters of wood here. The regional authorities helped the factory a lot in providing materials and 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 vast majority of cases, this is sanitary felling of aged cedar, which no longer produces nuts. Cedar grows up to 500 years, but cones appear on it until about 250 years of age, after which it begins to die and is attacked by various insects. If you cut it down during this period, a new cedar will grow faster.
Before cutting, the logs undergo mandatory preparation: each log must be washed so that adhering pieces of earth or clay with stones do not accidentally damage the saws. To do this, a tree from a timber exchange is placed and kept in a special pool with warm water. In the summer it is kept here for a short time, up to twenty minutes, but in winter the log is kept in the pool until it thaws - this can take up to three hours. And after 369 hours or 16.5 days and 26 different technological operations, finished pencils will be obtained from the log.
At a sawmill they make this kind of beam from a log:
The production of wooden pencils is extremely demanding on the quality of the material; only pure straight wood is used. And if the presence of such defects as, for example, knots in carpentry products is not catastrophic, then a pencil cannot be made from such wood. Therefore, it is very difficult to say in advance how many pencils will come out of 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 board that is not suitable for the production of a pencil, they plan to start producing wooden puzzles, coloring books for children and moth repellents. Some goes into the production of short pencils, like those for IKEA stores, and some goes into 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. To ensure that all the boards are 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.
After being processed in an autoclave, the “ennobled” pencil tablets are left to dry thoroughly and then sent directly to pencil production. At this point, the process of making the tablet can be considered complete. This is what the boards look like after autoclaving
The basic principle and production technology have not changed since pencils began to be made in Tomsk,” says Anatoly Lunin. - All processes in our factory 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.
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 has not yet been painted at this stage). The boards are fed from one side of the machine, along the way their surface is polished for gluing, and recesses are cut out in it with a special cutter. At the near edge of the machine, the boards are automatically stacked. The thickness of the polished board with cut grooves is 5 mm, 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.
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 an oven 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 just 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 a temperature of about 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 makes 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 off, 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 children 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, and the like. Above the table hangs a memo with marriage norms. Each tray on the table holds 1,440 pencils.
The sorted pencils take a special elevator to the next floor, where they will be colored.
The paint is purchased dry and diluted to the desired thickness in a paint laboratory. The painting itself 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 where they are sent back to the next coating.
On average, each pencil is coated with three layers of paint and two layers of varnish - it all 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 reach the consumer. Pencils are stamped, erased and sharpened.
There are quite a few ways to apply stamps, but at the Siberian Pencil Factory they do this 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 it will not peel off and stain your hands. 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 for packaging and they are sent to the next room. There, the pencils are collected into a set, placed in a box and sent to the consumer.
Packaging for the required number of pencils is printed in Novosibirsk. It arrives flat, so it is first given volume. Then, through assembly machines, the required number of pencils are laid out in a given color scheme. A special machine allows you to assemble a set of twelve colors. At the end, the pencils are placed in boxes.
When asked if the factory, following the example of Chinese enterprises, plans to switch to producing pencils from cheaper types of wood or plastic, Anatoly Lunin admits:
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 age of global computerization there would be a place for a simple wooden pencil.
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.
Today, the Siberian Pencil Factory is the only manufacturer of pencils and pencil boards made from Siberian cedar in the territory of the former Soviet Union, the wood of which is used to produce pencils of the highest price category.
How are pencils, familiar to us since childhood, produced?
The production of pencils begins at the timber exchange, where harvested cedar is stored. Now there are more than three thousand cubic meters of wood here. The regional authorities helped the factory a lot in providing materials and 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 vast majority of cases, this is sanitary felling of aged cedar, which no longer produces nuts. Cedar grows up to 500 years, but cones appear on it until about 250 years of age, after which it begins to die and is attacked by various insects. If you cut it down during this period, a new cedar will grow faster.
Before cutting, the logs undergo mandatory preparation: each log must be washed so that adhering pieces of earth or clay with stones do not accidentally damage the saws. To do this, a tree from a timber exchange is placed and kept in a special pool with warm water. In the summer it is kept here for a short time, up to twenty minutes, but in winter the log is kept in the pool until it thaws - this can take up to three hours. And after 369 hours or 16.5 days and 26 different technological operations, finished pencils will be obtained from the log.
At a sawmill they make this kind of beam from a log:
The production of wooden pencils is extremely demanding on the quality of the material; only pure straight wood is used. And if the presence of such defects as, for example, knots in carpentry products is not catastrophic, then a pencil cannot be made from such wood. Therefore, it is very difficult to say in advance how many pencils will come out of 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 board that is not suitable for the production of a pencil, they plan to start producing wooden puzzles, coloring books for children and moth repellents. Some goes into the production of short pencils, like those for IKEA stores, and some goes into 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. To ensure that all the boards are 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.
After being processed in an autoclave, the “ennobled” pencil boards can be dried thoroughly and then sent directly to pencil production. At this point, the process of making the tablet can be considered complete. This is what the boards look like after autoclaving
The basic principle and production technology have not changed since pencils began to be made in Tomsk,” says Anatoly Lunin. – All processes at our factory 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.
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 has not yet been painted at this stage). The boards are fed from one side of the machine, along the way their surface is polished for gluing, and recesses are cut out in it with a special cutter. At the near edge of the machine, the boards are automatically stacked. The thickness of the polished board with cut grooves is 5 mm, 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.
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 an oven 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 just 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 a temperature of about 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 makes 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 off, 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 children 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, and the like. Above the table hangs a memo with marriage norms. Each tray on the table holds 1,440 pencils.
The sorted pencils take a special elevator to the next floor, where they will be colored.
The paint is purchased dry and diluted to the desired thickness in a paint laboratory. The painting itself 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 where they are sent back to the next coating.
On average, each pencil is coated with three layers of paint and two layers of varnish - it all 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 reach the consumer. Pencils are stamped, erased and sharpened.
There are quite a few ways to apply stamps, but at the Siberian Pencil Factory they do this 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 it will not peel off and stain your hands. 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.
Secrets of complex production of simple objects.
While technological progress is changing the world at breakneck speed, expanding its boundaries and our ideas about it, we sometimes stop noticing the ordinary things that surround us every day.
Despite the simplicity of its design, which has hardly changed for several centuries, the pencil is not at all easy to manufacture. One of the last pencil factories in America, General Pencil, since 1889, has been creating objects from graphite, wood, wax and paint that can be found in all art and stationery stores across the country: pencils and watercolors, charcoal, pastel crayons and others.
Pencil leads are made from a mixture of graphite powder and clay mixed with water and stirred for several hours. The finished mass is passed through a hydraulic press and cut into pieces of equal length. It's all a bit like making noodles. Different thicknesses of leads are achieved by using different diameters of dies.
The blanks are still soft and flexible because there is water left in them. They are heated in an oven to harden them. The longer the heating time, the higher the hardness of the future pencil.
By the way, in Russia there are three types of hardness (soft, hard and hard-soft), in Europe there are four (an intermediate option between hard and hard-soft appears), and in the USA there are already five (another version of a super-hard pencil is added).
The firing of the lead, depending on the desired gradation, is carried out at a temperature from 800 to 1200 °C. Graphite sand is used to distribute heat evenly when heating leads in a kiln. The sand is then poured out for further processing.
After heating, the rods are placed in these perforated jars and dipped in a container with hot wax for 12 hours. Wax particles fill all the pores in the rod and contribute to a smoother sliding of the lead on the paper. By the way, the product used for the so-called fatliquor bath also affects the hardness of the pencil. For the hardest leads, wax is used, for semi-soft ones - stearin, and for soft ones - confectionery fat.
Cooled rods. A little later they will be placed in wooden blanks, glued and formed into a pencil. You can see how this looks in the example of pastels below.
The basement where workers process graphite is a gray universe: men in gray shirts with gray hands feed gray ingredients to gray machines. The man pictured below has been working at the factory for 47 years. The machine behind him processes graphite and charcoal.
Other rooms of the factory delight with brighter colors. Colored (pastel) rods are made in the same way as graphite rods, using white clay (kaolin), and pigments are added instead of graphite.
The machine, which turns pastels into soft, spaghetti-like tubes, typically takes a week to process one color. It is then thoroughly cleaned to prepare for another color. White crayons, one of the company's signature products, are made in a special machine separately from the other colors.
In the photo, fragile handmade colored rods are carefully placed into cedar planks.
Graphite rods are stronger than pastel ones, so they are placed into blanks by a special machine.
The second layer of wood completely covers the pencil lead. The resulting “sandwich” is held together with glue, pressed in a press and dried.
After applying the paint, the pencils are returned by conveyor to be covered with the next layer (usually four in total).
Editorial pencils are usually sharpened on both sides: one leaves red marks, the other leaves blue marks. The leads inside are of two different colors, and there are also two paints. The pencil holders you see will soon be turned over and dipped in blue paint.
Ordinary pencils, sharpened on one side, can be equipped with erasers or simply plug tips.
The metal rings that attach erasers to pencils are called ferrules.
On this conveyor, ferrules and erasers are connected to pencils.
Some pencils come with smooth metal caps—no ferrule or eraser.
Finished pencils are sharpened using a high-speed sanding belt.
Finally, the pencils are cleaned, filled and packaged. Finished products are sent to the store to become useful and reliable assistants to their owners.
Few people have thought about the process of producing pencils.
It's time to find out how this happens.
The 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 government support.
The government's main goal 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 the pencil, which has 17 gradations - from 7H to 8B, depends on the 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.
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 shaped using a special press and 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.
