You can only learn about how pencils are created in each specific factory from the manufacturers themselves. However, they all have common points that usually do not change for decades.

For a classic wooden pencil, an important component is the wood from which it is made. Not every tree can be cut down and made into a pack of pencils. It is not easy to find out what type of wood a particular pencil is made of: the seller in the store does not know about this, and there is no identification mark on the pencil itself, so you need to pay attention to the cost of the pencil and the authority of the manufacturer.

Wood used to make pencils:

1. Alder

Rice.

Alder is common in the temperate climate zone Northern Hemisphere. The wood is not durable, but has a fairly uniform structure. This makes it easier to process and gives it a beautiful reddish color. Smoother and thicker trunks are therefore used for crafts, carpentry and turning.

It is not used actively in the production of pencils due to the fact that the lead does not hold well. More used for making souvenirs, including souvenir pencils.

2. Linden

Rice.

Linden is perhaps the most common tree, which fully satisfies all the requirements for raw materials for inexpensive pencils.

Linden grows almost everywhere; it is a material familiar to everyone, viscous enough to hold the lead tightly.

Linden wood, depending on the type of processing, is divided into several types: linden (from English - “linden”; halves of a pencil made from such wood may differ slightly in color), white linden (more carefully selected material, white wood, pencil color smooth), rose wood (linden, tinted in pink color to give more nobility) and chemical wood (linden also tinted pink, but of higher quality, the wood looks uniform). Depending on the quality of wood processing, the price also varies.

A fairly fast-growing deciduous tree, most widely distributed in European Russia. The lifespan of linden trees is much shorter than that of oak, and only rare individuals live to be 150 years old.

3. Cedar

Rice.

Cedar wood is light, strong and easy to cut in all directions, making it a valuable raw material for pencil production.

4. Jelutong

Rice.

Jelutong belongs to the kutra family (lat. Apocynaceae). It is a tree species in Malaysia. Also found in Borneo, Sumatra and Thailand.

An adult jelutong usually grows up to 60 meters in height, and the diameter of the tree trunk reaches 2 meters. In rare cases, up to 80 meters, with a diameter of up to 3 meters.

Jelutong wood is usually white or straw-colored and straight-grained. Dries easily without splintering, easy to process and finish.

Jelutong is especially suitable for creating artistic products. Excellent for modeling and pencil production.

It will be impossible to get by. All sketches are made using this stationery, traces of which can always be erased with an eraser. This product is quite simple, but it is produced very complexly, in several stages.

During the manufacture of a pencil, more than a hundred materials are used and several dozen different actions are carried out using specialized equipment, as well as manually. Who would have thought that this small item designed for drawing takes about 11 days to produce.

To understand how complex and at the same time consistent the production process is, you need to look at it from the outside. To do this, you can visit the most famous enterprise in Russia specializing in the production of pencils - the Krasin plant. This factory began its work 90 years ago. By the way, she celebrated her anniversary this year. The enterprise owes its existence to one degree or another to the support provided by the government.

The main task of the authorities of that time was the fight against illiteracy. Therefore, it was important to start producing stationery in sufficient quantities and make them available to the entire population without exception. With the collapse of the USSR, the production of pencils was carried out exclusively at this enterprise. This plant produces all the necessary raw materials, without which it is impossible to make finished products. So, what are the main steps in pencil production?

Main stages of production

Special linden boards are delivered to the factory, which will not even be useful at the beginning of production. You must first make writing rods, without which it is impossible to imagine more than one pencil. This is done in a special workshop. Graphite and clay are used as raw materials for the manufacture of rods. The first step in preparing the mixture is the process of grinding the clay, after which it is moved to the grinding equipment.

Next, in a special installation, the mixture is cleaned of various impurities, pebbles, dirt particles and other foreign elements, and then subjected to several more types of processing in order to obtain a high-quality product. Only natural ingredients are used to make the leads, so you definitely don’t have to worry about safety.

The next stage is pressing. There is no waste in this production because it is recycled. At this site, ready-made rods are made, but they are not yet placed in pencils; they must first be subjected to a number of different manipulations.

The rod production process can be compared to the extrusion procedure for animal feed. The prepared mixture is squeezed out of the hole in a special hose. Next, it is placed in a container specially prepared for this purpose and dried for more than 15 hours. And that is not all. The process of sorting quality rods is carried out manually. This is a long and difficult process that requires special care and perseverance.

After sorting the rods, they are pierced in a special device. Annealing occurs at a temperature of about 1200 degrees Celsius. The quality of the rod and the hardness of the pencil will depend on this. After the annealing procedure is completed, the rods are filled with fat. This is done so that the rod begins to slide easily, display well on paper and be erased with an eraser without much effort. It is worth noting that all produced pencils may differ from each other in the degree of hardness and softness. For this, various components are used: confectionery fat, lard, wax, etc. After completing all the necessary procedures, the rods are sent to assembly, where, using special machines and boards, a groove is made in the pencil through which the rod is inserted.

Using the cutting part of the machine, grooves are turned into the board. The planks are automatically sent to the holder, and on another machine the rods are placed into planks, then glued together, and then they are left to dry under a press. In this case, the rod does not stick to the boards. The rod is located inside the wood and does not go anywhere thanks to the tension of the wooden shell.

When the workpiece is dry, it is sawed using a cutter into several pencils. After completing all the main processes, the output is finished stationery, which, however, is not yet ready for sale, since they are not painted.

Pencils are primed using special equipment. To paint these stationery items, special enamels are used, which are also produced at the factory.

Special coloring and original shape of pencils

On sale you can see pencils that are painted in a very original way, as if with streaks. To do this, they resort to special technology. After painting, stationery is left to dry. In order for everything to turn out as evenly as possible, the procedure of mechanical processing of the edges is carried out. The product is marked. The equipment operates at tremendous speed. Finished products continuously fall into the pallet.

The company produces these products in unusual colors, as well as original shapes, for example, oval. It would seem that this is completely impossible, but it was not so. Such products are widely used during repair and construction work. Before packing pencils, they are manually sorted, checked for integrity, quality characteristics assessed, etc. This is done by plant employees, some of whom have specialized in this all their lives.

After pencils are released, they are necessarily tested for quality in a special laboratory, and new production technologies are mastered in order to reduce time and money costs. The factory produces pencils for professionals and amateurs for various needs.

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 is the basis modern technology pencil production.

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 Confectionery fat is used, for hard ones - 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 order 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. Application dark colors made 5 times with paint and 4 times with varnish, light - 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 - 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.

The pencil is such a common thing that it seems like an unremarkable and simple drawing tool. However, to make it, a rather complex production technology is used. I would like to talk about this little-known process.

The stages of pencil production can be divided into two parts: making the lead and making the wooden shell into which it is inserted.

Pencil lead is made from a mixture of graphite powders and special clay. The graphite powder itself is made from slate slate. The mixture of graphite and clay is thoroughly mixed with water, then dried, then ground again into powder, and at the end a small amount of water is added again until a thick paste is formed. The hardness of the pencil will depend on the ratio of graphite and clay in this paste. The more clay, the harder the pencil will be. But the degree of hardness will still depend on another process, which I will describe below.

Then, this paste is fed to special equipment similar to an extruder. Graphite paste is pressed through the forming holes of the stamp and at the exit you can see the familiar pencil lead. However, he is still far from a finished rod.

The resulting lead blank is dried. Then they are fired at high temperatures in a special oven. During firing, the graphite and clay combine and the core hardens. As I wrote above, the hardness of the pencil will largely depend on this process. The higher the firing temperature, the harder the pencil will be. The less clay there is in the lead and the lower the firing temperature, the softer the pencil will be. As you know, pencils indicate hardness or in English letters, or Russians. The English "H" means "hard" and the English "B" means "soft". Accordingly, the Russian letter “T” means hard, and the Russian letter “M” means “soft.” There are also different degrees of pencil hardness. For example, 2B or 2M is double soft, and 2H or 2T is double hard. In total, there are about 17 degrees of pencil hardness: from 8M to 8T.

After firing, the graphite rods are placed into special wooden blanks for future pencils. These blanks are wooden plates, half the thickness of a pencil. They are made, as a rule, from cedar or linden. This wood is soft and has fibers well suited for making pencils. Each such blank board produces either 6 or 8 pencils, depending on the production standard. Accordingly, 6 - 8 grooves are sawn into these boards for graphite pencil leads.

Next, the rods are placed into the sawn grooves. Then, a wooden plate with rods is covered with exactly the same plate on top. Graphite rods are placed between two wooden plates. The rods are securely fixed in the wooden shell in two ways: either by means of glue, or by squeezing the wooden halves of the future pencil. The halves themselves in both cases are connected using glue and a press.

At the next stage of production, these blanks are fed to a special machine, the cutters of which have teeth in the form of half a hexagon or half a circle. These cutters are used to saw a wooden blank with rods, and at the same time give the resulting pencils a hexagonal or round shape.

Well, now the pencil is almost ready! But it hasn't been painted yet. Painting is done with special enamels. And when the pencil is already painted, a marking is made on it indicating the manufacturer, the degree of softness of the pencil, etc. This embossing is done using paint or foil.

This is how it is - the difficult process of making a seemingly simple pencil.

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.
Go...

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 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.

2. 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.

3. In the next section, special mills are installed, where the clay is ground more finely and mixed with water.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. After this, the writing rod blanks are placed in a special container.

9. And dry in the closet for 16 hours.

10. After this, the rods are carefully sorted by hand.

11. This is what it looks like workplace for sorting rods. It's very complex and painstaking work. Cats sleep behind the table lamp.

12. 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.

13. 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 the line, ease of sliding, 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 of the rod production area.

14. After this, the rods go to the assembly. Pencil boards are prepared on such machines. Grooves are cut into them for installing writing rods.

15. The cutting part of the machine makes grooves in the boards.

16. The planks automatically go into a clip like this.

17. After this, on another machine, the rods are laid in pre-prepared planks.

18. 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).

19. After drying, the workpiece is sawn with special cutters into individual pencils.

20. Pencils are gradually sawn through several processing cycles.

21. The output is ready-made, but not colored pencils.

22. Already at this stage, the shape of the pencil is established due to the type of profile of the cutting cutter.

23. 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.

24. Line for painting pencils.

25. I think that in stores many times we have seen gift pencils painted with colorful stains. 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.

26. When visiting the paint shop, I happened to see a batch of pencils for delivery to the government of the Russian Federation of a new 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.

27. After painting, the pencils are put into batches to be sent to the next sections of the factory.

28. Looking at thousands of pencils colored using the factory’s proprietary technology gives great pleasure. This is a very unusual sight.

30. Surface finishing technological line.

32. Cabinet for storing stamps. Stamps for the entire range of manufactured products are stored here.

33. 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.

34. The factory also produces these interesting oval-shaped pencils, used in construction and repair.

35. Arrays of stacked pencils look very unusual and attractive. You won't see this anywhere else.