Profitable business: pencil production. Necessary equipment and technology for the production of pencils
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 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.
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 Reedus editorial office with their branded pencils, including those supplied to the government of the Russian Federation.
About pencil manufacturing technology
Pencil (from the Turkic kara - black and tash, -dash - stone), a rod made of coal, lead, graphite, dry paint (often framed in wood or metal), which is used for writing, drawing, drawing.
The first description of a pencil was made by Conrad Gesner of Zurich in 1565 in his Treatise on Fossils. It showed a detailed structure of a pencil, showing a wooden tube into which a piece of graphite was inserted.
Prototypes of the pencil - lead and silver pins inserted into metal clamps (giving a dark gray tone) - were used in the 12th-16th centuries. In the 14th century, artists painted mainly with sticks made of lead and tin, they were called “silver pencils.” From the 16th century. graphite pencils (the stroke of which has low intensity and a slight shine) and pencils made of burnt bone powder, held together with vegetable glue (providing a strong black matte stroke) became widespread.
In the 17th century, graphite was commonly sold on the streets. Buyers, mostly artists, sandwiched these graphite sticks between pieces of wood or twigs and wrapped them in paper or tied them with string. In England, the rod was a stick of soft graphite, suitable for drawing, but not for writing. In Germany, graphite powder was mixed with glue and sulfur, thus obtaining a rod that was not of the highest quality. In 1790, wooden pencils were invented by the French scientist N. Conte. At the same time, the Czech I. Hartmut proposed making writing rods from a mixture of crushed graphite and clay. In principle, this method underlies modern pencil production technology.
Modern production: At first glance, a pencil appears to be a simple object consisting of a writing rod and a wooden shell. But in order to make one pencil, more than 80 production operations are carried out over 11 days. In addition, the range of products manufactured by the factory uses more than 70 types of raw materials. These are mainly natural nutrients and products.
Sheath for pencils Wood for the manufacture of pencil sheaths must have a number of specific properties:
To be light, soft and durable, not to break or crumble during the making of pencils.
Have the same resistance to cutting fibers both along and across, and should not delaminate.
When cutting with a sharp knife, the cut should be smooth and shiny, the chips should curl, not chip or break.
Wood should be low-hygroscopic, i.e. should not absorb moisture. Virginia juniper, which grows in the USA, meets all these qualities.
None of the tree species growing in Russia fully meets all these requirements. The wood that is closest in its properties and structure is cedar and linden, but for use in pencil production it must first be subjected to special treatment - waxing (i.e. refining).
The boards are sawn into bars, the bars are trimmed to the length of a pencil with allowances for machining and drying, and then the bars are sawn into planks on a multi-saw machine. After this, the boards are impregnated with paraffin in special autoclaves. This procedure allows you to improve the mechanical and repair properties of the future pencil. Steam removes all resins from the boards, and the wood legnin, when interacting with steam, changes its color to pinkish-brown. Then the boards are thoroughly dried. To dry, they are placed in special “wells” using a machine. A special method of laying boards for drying allows you to increase the area of the boards in contact with the drying agent - hot steam, and therefore dry them as thoroughly as possible. The wells are placed in drying rooms for 72 hours. After drying, they are sorted - cracked planks, planks sawn along the wrong fiber, etc. are rejected. “Ennobled” with paraffin and dried planks are sorted and calibrated - “grooves” (grooves) for the rods are applied to them. A graphite rod is made from a mixture of clay and graphite. The clay is first cleaned. To do this, it is crushed in special crushers, then mixed with warm water in special mills. During the processing process, clay diluted in water is poured with liquid glass, which, as it settles, removes all impurities from it - pebbles, twigs, sand, etc. And then, according to the recipe, graphite is added to the clay, and each gradation has its own recipe. The mixture is mixed with a binder - aparatin, cooked from starch.
To make rods, a rod mass of a certain temperature and humidity is required. Under no circumstances should the mixture be allowed to dry out, otherwise it will be like a stone and will lead to equipment wear - there will not be enough press pressure. The kneaded dough from clay and graphite is pressed with a screw press for molding through special equipment - rollers with three different gaps. This is done to grind and grind the mass, average moisture content over volume and remove air bubbles. The thickness of the dough layer is initially 1mm, with repeated processing 0.5mm, then 0.25mm. Then the dough is passed through a die with holes, forming the so-called “noodles”. The “noodles” are formed into cylinders, and from them a rod of the required diameter and length is pressed through a diamond die on a press. The rods are finally dried in special drying cabinets in very nice barrels - continuously rotating for 16 hours. After this process, the moisture content of the rod is approximately 0.5%. Then the rods are calcined in a furnace in special crucibles. Instead of a lid, the crucibles with rods are filled with the same “raw materials”. The crucible filling density affects the quality of the rods. Firing is necessary to burn out the binder in the core and bake the clay to form a frame.
The degree of hardness (gradation) of a pencil from 6m to 7t depends on the ratio of clay, temperature and duration of firing and the composition of the fatliquor bath. Depending on the gradation of the rod, firing is carried out at a temperature from 800 to 1200 degrees. After firing, a greasing operation is carried out: the pores formed after burning the binder are filled with fat, wax or stearin under pressure at a certain temperature. Some factories use edible and confectionery fats and binders as raw materials. (for example, aparatine is made from starch). The choice of substance for greasing depends on the gradation (hardness) of the rod. For soft pencils, pastry fat is used, for hard pencils, wax. Intermediate hardness values, for example, TM, are achieved by fattening with stearin. Large diameter rods are produced on vertical masonry presses.
Colored pencil leads are made from a mixture of pigments, fillers, fatliquors and a binder. “Assembly” The rods are placed in the grooves of the prepared board and covered with a second board. The boards are glued together with PVA glue, but the rod itself is not glued to the board, but is held in place by the tension of the board. The diameter of the rod is slightly larger than the diameter of the groove, so it is very important to correctly compress the boards in a special mechanism (clamp), where future pencils are glued. For each pencil size there is a specific pressure indicator for pressing in, so as not to break the rod. Next, the ends of the glued planks are processed - they are trimmed, and any remaining glue is removed.
On the milling and throughput line, the blocks are divided into pencils. The shape of the future pencil depends on the shape of the knives - it will be round, faceted or oval. And the “newborn” pencils are sent along a conveyor belt for sorting. The sorter checks (“rolls”) all the pencils, looking for and eliminating defects. Then the pencils should “get dressed” - go for painting. Painting The finishing of the surface of pencils is carried out by extrusion (broaching), and the finishing of the end is done by dipping. Extrusion is the process of passing a pencil through a priming machine. At the end of the conveyor, the pencil is turned over so that the next layer of paint or varnish is applied from the other end. This ensures uniform coverage. Dark colors are applied 5 times with paint and 4 times with varnish, light colors - 7 times with paint and 4 times with varnish. And to finish the end, a dipping machine is used. With smooth rotational movements, the dipper lowers the frame with pencils into the paint tank. Marking of pencils is carried out using the method of impact hot stamping. Pencil sharpening is done automatically. All pencils are marked. Packaging of sharpened pencils is done manually, unsharpened pencils are packed manually and automatically: on automatic and semi-automatic machines. With a semi-automatic machine you can pack 15 thousand pencils in one full shift, with an automatic machine – 180 thousand. The machines are capable of placing both 6 and 12 pencils into boxes.
Quality control Incoming control of all raw materials and technological control of the production process and finished products is carried out by the laboratory. Chemists check everything thoroughly! They also formulate soil formulations. By the way, the products of one well-known factory are even tested for contact with the mouth, like baby pacifiers! In the 2nd half of the 19th century. appeared, and in the 20th century. Mechanical or automatic pencils have become widespread. According to their writing properties and production technology, pencils are divided into graphite (black), color, copying, etc., according to their intended purpose - into school, stationery, drawing, drawing, carpentry, makeup, pencils for retouching, marking and marks on various materials. Special types of pencils are sanguine and pastel. In Russia, graphite drawing pencils of several degrees of hardness are produced; The degree of hardness is indicated by the letters M (soft), T (hard) and MT (medium hard), as well as numbers in front of the letters. A large number means a greater degree of hardness or softness. Abroad, instead of the letter M, the letter B is used, and instead of T, N. Automatic pencils are divided by design into: screw pencils - with a writing rod fed by rotating one of the parts; collet - with a writing rod clamped by a split collet sleeve and the rod is fed by pressing a button; multi-colored - with two, four or more rods, alternately extended from the magazine.
A pencil is a truly irreplaceable thing in a person’s life. Acquaintance with him occurs at a very early age.
Accompanies a person's pencil during school and university years. It is always available in the office and at home. In addition, this writing instrument is also necessary when solving crossword puzzles.
Some waste products from plywood production are pencils. These are the remains of churak, which are obtained after peeling. Despite the same name, such pencils have nothing to do with stationery.
Start-up capital
To organize a medium-sized production facility, you will need to purchase a set of necessary equipment. The cost of this starts from 2 million rubles. Moreover, this is the price of a used line. In addition, you will need to pay for the rental of the premises where the machines will be located.
A small workshop must be located on an area of at least fifty square meters. Money will be needed to purchase the necessary raw materials, pay wages to employees, and reimburse utility costs. It is difficult to name a specific payback period for such a project.
This period is directly dependent on the number of products produced, as well as on the initial investment. In addition, in the initial period, the profit received is necessarily invested in increasing sales volumes. However, many experts call the minimum payback period for small enterprises equal to two to three years.
Technology
To produce pencils, the wooden blank must be carefully sanded. After this, the body of the semi-finished product is primed four times. This stage of the technological process allows you to ensure the strength of the wood before subsequent painting.
Saving at any stage of the technological process is not recommended. Although this will affect the reduction of product costs, it will lead to a deterioration in its quality. An important factor for a successful business is the environmental friendliness of the produced pencils, which depends on the composition of the varnish applied to the body of the product.
After all, children, and sometimes adults, love to chew on writing utensils. That is why the varnish used must be water-based and not contain chemical solvents that are harmful to health.
Necessary materials
In order to make simple pencils, you will need a lead made of clay and graphite, as well as wood. For buyers who do not pay attention to quality, cheap alder products are produced. Such wood, in addition to its nondescript appearance, does not hold the stylus inside tightly enough.
More expensive products are made from pine, as well as cedar and jelutong, a tropical tree. Their production characteristics are quite high. However, the best wood for pencils is California cedar. Stationery made from this material is considered prestigious and has a high cost.
Technical equipment of production
Equipment for the production of pencils is diverse. The process during which clay is purified will require special mills. Crushers will also be needed. Clay diluted in water is poured with liquid glass.
At the same time, it is freed from unnecessary impurities, which include sand. After this, according to the technology, a starch binder and graphite are added to the clay. The resulting core mass must have a certain humidity and temperature. If this condition is not met, the raw materials are subject to damage.
Equipment for the production of pencils includes a screw press. A thoroughly mixed “dough” of clay and graphite is sent to it. In a screw press, the incoming mass is molded. This occurs using rollers having three different gaps.
After passing this stage, the mass is crushed and becomes homogeneous, without air bubbles with excess moisture. The thickness of the resulting layer gradually decreases from 1 to 0.25 mm. This occurs after re-processing the mass.
Equipment for the production of pencils includes a die with holes. A mass of graphite and clay is passed through it, taking the form of “noodles”. The resulting blanks pass through special cylinders, from which a rod of the required diameter and length is extruded using a press.
Equipment for the production of pencils must include drying ovens with a continuous rotation process for 15-16 hours. In these devices, the rods must be thoroughly dried, reaching a humidity of 0.5%. At the next stage, the material is calcined. It is carried out in special crucibles.
The technology for producing colored pencil leads has some differences. In addition to clay, their recipe includes fillers, dyes, fatliquoring and binding components. Such rods are not subject to heat treatment. This is important for preserving color pigments.
In parallel with the rods, product bodies are manufactured. In this case, a machine for producing pencils is used. With its help, future products are cut to the required length, taking into account further mechanical processing and shrinkage. Wood blanks are sawn into planks on a multi-saw machine. After this, they are impregnated with paraffin in special autoclaves.
This allows you to improve the mechanical characteristics of the finished pencil. Using a special machine, prepared planks, the thickness of which is equal to half the thickness of the future product, are placed in “wells” where the drying process takes place. Grooves are made from stylus on the blanks. After this, the boards are covered with a layer of PVA glue.
The next stage of the technological process is the assembly of the product. The lead is inserted into the groove of one workpiece and covered with another. The planks are compressed in a special device called a clamp. After this, the resulting blocks pass through a milling and throughput line, where the process of separating them into pencils occurs with the help of knives. At the next stage of the technological process, the workpieces are leveled, sanded, primed and coated with varnish and paint.
Souvenir products
Currently, pencils with a logo are very popular. The production of such products is carried out for offices and promotions.
A pencil with a brand name is a great souvenir or corporate gift. The image can be applied to the original product using one of two methods - hot stamping or pad printing.
The pencil has become an absolutely indispensable thing in a person’s life. Starting from kindergarten, he accompanies a person at school, university, home and office. Finally, it is simply necessary when solving crossword puzzles.
The total cost of a complete set of necessary equipment, which is required in order to organize a medium-sized production of pencils, starts at two million rubles.
This is how much a fully equipped used line costs. To this we must add the costs of renting a production facility, which for a small workshop should have an area of at least fifty square meters, as well as the purchase of raw materials, employee wages and utility costs.
It is quite difficult to name the exact payback period for a business such as the production of pencils. First of all, they depend on the volume of output and on the starting (initial) capital.
In addition, during the initial time, all profits received are most often invested in promotion on the market, since competition among companies producing not only simple but also colored pencils is quite high, especially among Western factories, with which domestic ones have little competition due to high quality the products they produce. However, many experts call the minimum payback period for small enterprises two or three years.
Technology
The production of pencils is carried out using the following technologies. The wooden blank is first carefully sanded, then the body is primed four times, since reducing the number of passes leads to insufficient smoothness of the surface. The primer, filling all the unevenness in the wood, provides it with strength for subsequent painting. Then the body is painted.
Saving at each stage of the technological process, although it reduces the cost of produced pencils, however, leads to a deterioration in their quality. In addition, the environmental friendliness of the final product is also important, depending on the composition of the varnish covering the body of the product. It is known that children, and sometimes adults, love to chew writing instruments. Therefore, the varnish must be water-based and not contain harmful chemical solvents.
What materials are needed
For the manufacture of simple pencils, not only the composition of the lead - clay and graphite - is of no small importance. The quality of the wood also influences it. How the pencil is made determines how the finished product will subsequently look and how easily it will be sharpened. The cheapest goods, intended for buyers undemanding in terms of quality, are made from alder. The wood of such pencils is unsightly in appearance, gray in color, and does not hold the lead very tightly.
Wood
The most common type of wood, which fully satisfies all the requirements for raw materials when organizing the production of pencils, is linden.
In addition, it grows almost everywhere and is viscous enough to hold the rod tightly.
A higher quality and, accordingly, more expensive pencil is a product made from pine, cedar, and tropical jelutong wood, the production characteristics of which are very high. But the most valuable raw materials are from Californian cedar. Stationery made from this wood is very expensive and is considered prestigious.
Stylus
First, a pencil core is made from clay with graphite. It is the proportions of these components that determine the hardness of the lead. Moreover, the more graphite, the softer the structure will be. And vice versa, if there is a lot of kaolin in the lead, the composition of simple pencils will be harder.
How the stationery is sharpened is very important. The quality of the wood ensures neat and even chips. At the same time, it is very important that the rod is located in the center of the body, because if this pencil production technology is violated, the lead is cut unevenly during sharpening.
In addition, to prevent lead breakage if pencils are dropped, many office supply manufacturers use so-called SV lead sizing. In this case, it breaks only at the sharpened tip, and not inside the body.
Painting stage
This third and also very important element in production does not allow less than seven layers of coloring of pencils, otherwise the wood will be covered with burrs. Well-known companies that are serious about the quality of their products usually start with twelve layers. Whereas the production of high-priced pencils involves coloring up to eighteen, sometimes up to twenty times. Then this stationery product will have a high gloss and literally mirror surface.
Equipment
Equipment for the production of pencils is diverse. To clean clay, you need a crusher and special mills. Clay diluted in water is filled with liquid glass to rid it of foreign impurities, including sand. Then, according to the recipe, graphite and a binder, which is made from starch, are added to it. The core mass must have a certain temperature and humidity. The slightest deviation leads to damage to the raw materials.
The thoroughly beaten “dough”, mixed with graphite and clay, is sent to a screw press, where it is formed using rollers with three different gaps. As a result, the mass is crushed, becoming homogeneous. Air bubbles with excess moisture are removed from it. The thickness of the dough after re-processing is gradually reduced from one to 0.25 millimeters.
Then the mass is passed through a die with holes, where it turns into something like “noodles” - into cylinders, from which the press squeezes out a rod with the required length and diameter. The rods are thoroughly dried in drying cabinets, where continuous rotation occurs for fifteen or sixteen hours. The humidity of the finished element should not be more than half a percent. After drying, they are calcined in an oven in special crucibles.
Colour pencils
Cores for colored pencils are made somewhat differently. They contain pigments, as well as fillers with binders and fatty substances. Clay or kaolin is the main raw material.
Each more or less large manufacturer has its own recipe for making leads, which is kept a big secret. 
Many additive factories use dyes and waxes, as well as natural fillers and cellulose-based binders.
Colored pencil leads do not undergo heat treatment, since color pigments can be destroyed under the influence of high temperatures.
At the stage when fat is added, which gives a colored mark and holds it on the paper, two different technologies are used: the so-called hot or cold “preparation”.
In the first case, it is carried out immediately after drying, while the leads are soaked in hot fat. Most often, this technology is used in the production of high-quality watercolor pencils.
During cold preparation, fat is added to the mixture. As a rule, this method is used when the production of medium-quality pencils with leads made from organic pigments has been established.
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 notice 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.
Here's a little more from the series on how it's done: here, and here. Also how this is done in gifs, and The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -
