Natural resources for making a pencil. How are pencils made? Pencil production

About the technology of making pencils

A 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, sketching.

The first description of a pencil was made by Konrad 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.

Pencil prototypes - lead and silver pins inserted into metal clips (giving a dark gray tone) - were used in the 12-16 centuries. In the 14th century, artists drew mainly with sticks made of lead and tin, they were called "silver pencils". From the 16th century. graphite pencils (the stroke of which has a low intensity and a slight sheen) and pencils made of burnt bone powder, fastened with vegetable glue (gives a strong black matte stroke), spread.

In the 17th century, graphite was commonly sold on the streets. Buyers, mostly artists, clamped these graphite sticks between pieces of wood or twigs, wrapped them in paper or tied them with twine. In England, the rod was a stick made of soft graphite, suitable for drawing, but not for writing. In Germany, graphite powder was mixed with glue and sulfur, thus obtaining a rod of not the highest quality. In 1790, wooden pencils were invented by the French scientist N. Conte. At the same time, the Czech I. Hartmut suggested making writing rods from a mixture of crushed graphite and clay. In principle, this method underlies modern technology production of pencils.

Modern production: At first glance, a pencil seems to be a simple object, consisting of a stylus and a wooden shell. But in order to make one pencil, more than 80 production operations are carried out within 11 days. In addition, the range of products manufactured by the factory uses more than 70 types of raw materials and materials. These are mainly natural food substances and products.

Pencil Shells The wood used to make pencil shells must have a number of specific properties:

To be light, soft and durable, not to break or crumble in the process of making pencils.

Have the same resistance to cutting fibers both along and across, should not delaminate.

The cut when cutting with a sharp knife should be smooth, shiny, the chips should curl, not chip or break.

Wood should be low hygroscopic, i.e. must not absorb moisture. All these qualities correspond to the virgin juniper, which grows in the USA.

None of the tree species growing in Russia fully meets all these requirements. The wood of cedar and linden is the closest in its properties and structure, but for use in pencil production, it must first be subjected to a special treatment - waxing (i.e., refining).

The boards are sawn into bars, the bars are cut along the length to the length of a pencil with allowances for machining and shrinkage, and then the bars are sawn into planks on a multi-saw machine. After that, the boards are impregnated with paraffin in special autoclaves. This procedure allows you to improve the mechanical and chinochny properties of the future pencil. All resins are removed from the boards for a couple, and the legnin of wood, when interacting with steam, changes its color to pinkish-brownish. Then the boards are thoroughly dried. For drying, they are folded into special "wells" using a machine tool. A special way of laying the boards for drying allows you to increase the area of ​​the board 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 boards are rejected, boards sawn on the wrong fiber, etc. “Refined” with paraffin and dried boards are sorted and calibrated - “grooves” (grooves) for the rods are applied to them. The graphite rod is made from a mixture of clay and graphite. Clay is pre-cleaned. To do this, it is crushed in special crushers, then mixed with warm water in special mills. Clay diluted in water during processing is poured with liquid glass, which, settling, 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.

For the manufacture of rods, a rod mass of a certain temperature and humidity is required. In no case should the mixture be allowed to dry out, otherwise it will be like a stone and lead to equipment wear - there will not be enough press pressure. The kneaded clay and graphite dough is pressed with a screw press for molding through special equipment - rollers with three different gaps. This is done for grinding and grinding the mass, averaging the humidity by volume and removing air bubbles. The thickness of the dough layer is first 1mm, when re-processed 0.5mm, then 0.25mm. Then the dough is passed through a die with holes, forming the so-called "noodles". "Noodles" are formed into cylinders, and a rod is pressed through the press through a diamond die desired diameter and length. 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, crucibles with rods are filled with the same “raw material”. The filling density of crucibles affects the quality of the rods. Firing is necessary in order to burn out the binder in the rod and sinter the clay to form the framework.

The degree of hardness (gradation) of a pencil from 6m to 7t depends on the ratio of clay, the temperature and duration of firing, and the composition of the fatliquoring bath. Depending on the gradation of the rod, firing is carried out at a temperature of 800 to 1200 degrees. After firing, a fatliquoring operation is carried out: the pores formed after the binder is burned out 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, aparatin is made from starch). The choice of substance for fatliquoring depends on the gradation (hardness) of the rod. For soft pencils confectionery fat is used, for hard ones - wax. Intermediate values ​​of hardness, for example, TM are achieved by greasing with stearin. Rods of large diameters are made on vertical masonry presses.

Colored pencil leads are made from a mixture of pigments, fillers, greases and a binder. "Assembly" The rods are placed in the grooves of the prepared plank and covered with the second plank. The boards are glued together with PVA glue, but the rod itself is not glued to the board, but is held due to the tightness of the board. The diameter of the rod is slightly larger than the diameter of the groove, so it is very important to properly compress the boards in a special mechanism (clamp), where future pencils are glued together. Each pencil size has its own pressure rating for pressing in, so as not to break the core. Next, the ends of the glued boards are processed - they are trimmed, the remaining glue is removed.

On the milling line, the blocks are divided into pencils. The shape of the future pencil depends on the shape of the knives - it will turn out round, faceted or oval. And the "newborn" pencils are sent on a conveyor belt for sorting. The sorter checks (“rolls”) all pencils, looking for and eliminating marriage. Then the pencils should be "dressed" - go for painting. Painting The surface finishing of the pencils is carried out by extrusion (broaching), and the end finishing is done by dipping. Extrusion is the process of passing a pencil through a primer. At the end of the conveyor, the pencil is turned over so that the application of the next layer of paint or varnish occurs from the other end. This results in an even 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 for finishing the butt, 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 by shock hot stamping. Pencil sharpening is automatic. All pencils are marked. Sharpened pencils are packed manually, unsharpened - manually and automatically: on automatic and semi-automatic machines. On a semi-automatic for one full shift you can pack 15 thousand pencils, on the machine - 180 thousand. The machines are capable of stacking both 6 and 12 pencils in boxes.

Quality control Incoming control of all raw materials and materials and technological control of the production process and finished products is carried out by the laboratory. Chemists check everything thoroughly! They also make 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 are widely used. According to their writing properties and production technology, pencils are divided into graphite (black), color, copying, etc., according to their purpose - into school, stationery, drawing, drawing, carpentry, dressing rooms, pencils for retouching, marking and marking on various materials. Special types of pencils are sanguine and pastel. Graphite drawing pencils of several degrees of hardness are produced in Russia; 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. Big number means greater degree hardness or softness. Abroad, instead of the letter M, they use the letter B, and instead of T - N. Automatic pencils are divided by design into: screw - with the supply of the writing rod by rotating one of the parts; collet - with a clip of the writing rod with a split sleeve-collet and the supply of the rod by pressing a button; multi-colored - with two, four or more rods pulled out one by one from the magazine.

Wrote on March 25th, 2013

Each of us with early years, doing creative work, or at 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 complicated the technological process of its production is.

By the way, in the production of a pencil, it goes through 83 technological operations, 107 types of raw materials and materials are used in its manufacture, and the production cycle is 11 days. If you still look at all this from the side of the whole product line, then a complex well-established production with careful planning and control is drawn.

In order to see with our own eyes the production process of pencils, we go to the Moscow factory named after Krasin. This is the oldest pencil production in Russia. The factory was founded in 1926 with the support of the government. The main task of the government was to eliminate illiteracy in the country, and for this it was necessary to make stationery available. After the collapse Soviet Union the Krasin factory remained the only pencil manufacturer in the CIS since full cycle production. This means that everything is produced at the factory - from the stylus to the final product - pencils. Let's take a closer look at the pencil manufacturing process.
For the production of pencils, the factory receives specially processed and stacked linden boards. But before they are used, it is necessary to make writing rods.

Let's move on to the workshop for the manufacture of pencil rods. 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 by conveyor to the next production site.

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

Installations for the preparation of a mixture of clay with graphite. Here, the mixture for future rods gets rid of impurities and is prepared for further processing.

It should be noted 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 semi-finished products obtained. There is practically no waste in production, as they reuse it.

At this production site, the rods themselves are already obtained, but in order for them to get into the pencil, a number of technological operations will be carried out on them.

The very technology of obtaining rods is reminiscent of extrusion. Carefully prepared and mixed mass is squeezed out through a special stamp with holes.

After that, blanks for writing rods are placed in a special container.

And dried in the closet for 16 hours.

After that, the rods are carefully sorted by hand.

This is what it looks like workplace for sorting rods. This is a very difficult and painstaking work. Cats sleep behind a 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 depends on the temperature, which has 17 gradations - from 7H to 8V.

After annealing, the rods are filled with fat under special pressure and temperature. This is necessary to give them the necessary writing properties: the intensity of the line, the ease of sliding, the quality of sharpening, the ease of erasing with an eraser. Depending on the required core hardness value, lard, confectionery fat or even beeswax and carnauba wax can be used.
Output product of the rod production area.

After that, the rods go to the assembly. Here on such machines, planks for pencils are prepared. Grooves are cut into them for the installation of writing rods.

The cutting part of the machine grinds grooves in planks.

The boards automatically enter such a clip.

After that, on another machine, the rods are placed in pre-prepared planks.

After laying, the halves of the boards are glued together with PVA glue, and they are left to dry under pressure. The essence of this operation is that the rod itself is not glued to the planks. Its diameter is larger than the diameter of the groove, and in order for the structure to close, a press is needed. The rod, on the other hand, will be held in the wood not due to glue, but due to the tension of the wooden shell (prestressing specially created in this way in the design of the pencil).

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

Pencils are gradually sawn over several processing cycles.

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

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

Next, on special lines, the surface of the pencil is primed. When painting pencils, enamels made at the factory are used. These enamels are made from components that are safe for humans.

Line for painting pencils.

I think that in stores we have seen gift pencils painted with colorful stains many times. It turns out that in order to color them like that, a whole specially developed technology is used. Here is a small snippet of the painting process.

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 sample. The tip of the pencil symbolizes our national flag. Pencils dry in a special technological framework. The regularity of the rows looks very unusual and attracts.

After painting, the pencils are stacked in batches for shipment to the following sections factories.

It is a great pleasure to look at thousands of pencils colored according to the factory's proprietary technology. This is a very unusual sight.

Technological surface finishing line.

Stamp storage cabinet. Here are stored stamps for the entire range of products.

If necessary, before packing, pencils are sharpened on a special machine. 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 produces and these are interesting pencils oval shape, used in construction and repair.

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

At the packaging area, the pencils are sorted and packaged by hand. There is a special atmosphere here. People work quietly and silently. Many employees have continuous work experience in the factory for more than 40 years.

The factory has its own equipped laboratory, where products are tested throughout the entire production cycle and new production technologies are developed. In the picture - Amsler's device for determining the resistance to breakage of writing rods.

Before leaving, I went into a room with demonstration stands for the factory's products. The emblem of the factory causes some kind of nostalgia. After all, these pencils are familiar to each of us since childhood.
The factory produces several product lines. Professional Series pencils for artists, decorators and designers.

Samples of pencils supplied to the government of the Russian Federation. For the design of the pencils, a drawing was chosen to match the color of standard malachite tableware for employees of the government of the Russian Federation. But besides this, they have other differences from ordinary pencils: firstly, their shape is made with maximum regard for the ergonomics of an adult’s hand, and besides, they use a special “lumograph” type rod for making notes in the margins and in the diary, it does not smear by hand, but it is well erased with an eraser without damaging the paper.

Engineering drawing pencils:

Original souvenir products of the factory.

The visit to the factory was very exciting and informative. It was very interesting for me to see how much original technology and labor is invested in the manufacture of what would seem to be such simple object like a pencil.

I want to express my deep gratitude to the chief production technologist Marina for her help and explanation of the production processes. At the end of the visit to the factory, its management presented the editors with their branded pencils, including those supplied to the government of the Russian Federation.

A short video on how pencils are made.

The history of the invention of graphite pencils goes back to the distant sixteenth century, when English shepherds found a strange black mass in the ground near their village, which very much resembled coal, but for some reason did not want to burn at all. Soon, the new material was nevertheless found to be used - they began to make thin sticks from it that could be used for drawing, as they left good clear marks on canvas or paper. However, these sticks were not widely used because they were very impractical: they often broke and stained the fingers. Everything changed only when, in 1863, the first in the world was made in Germany. wooden pencil, the form of which has not changed much over the past centuries and has survived to this day.

How pencils are made

The production process at a modern pencil factory consists of several dozen separate technological operations. For the manufacture of one pencil, about a hundred types of various consumables are used, and it takes at least ten days.

What is a pencil made of?

The main materials for the production of pencils are graphite, clay, color pigments and polymers. All of them are used to make the "heart" of a pencil - its writing rod.

The second, no less important component of each pencil is a wooden shell that reliably protects the core from mechanical damage, and our hands from graphite dust. Not every wood is suitable for such a responsible task. Pencils are made only from alder, linden, pine and cedar.

How a pencil is made: production of a pencil

The production of any pencil begins at the sawmill, where the logs are debarked and made into timber. Next, the beam is cut into short pieces, each of which is then sawn into planks of a given thickness.

The boards are sorted, non-standard ones are rejected, suitable ones are collected in packs and loaded into the autoclave. There, the boards are finally dried, and then impregnated with paraffin.

The boards prepared in this way enter the next workshop, where they are passed through a complex machine, which simultaneously grinds their surface and makes parallel thin and long grooves on it on one side. Subsequently, the rods of future pencils will fit into these recesses.

In the meantime, writing rods are already being made in another workshop. They are made from a mixture of graphite and clay, which are ground into a fine powder. Then the powder is mixed with water and rods are formed by squeezing the resulting “dough” through thin holes made in a special stamp, much like spaghetti is made. Then the semi-finished products of the rods are dried, after which they are baked at a temperature of about one thousand degrees in a special electric oven.

After annealing, the rods are impregnated with fat. This is done so that later the rods can be written.

The finished rods are sent to the assembly shop, where the machine will put them into the grooves already cut in the plank, and then the second plank lubricated with glue will be placed on top so that the edges of the grooves in the upper and lower parts exactly match. The resulting pencil "sandwiches" are stacked and pulled together with clamps so that the glue "grabs" well and both halves stick tightly to each other.

The stacks are dried for several hours at a temperature of 40 degrees, then the clamps are removed and the boards are taken to the machine, which will already divide them into individual pencils. In the same place, the pencils will be given the usual round or hexagonal shape for us and the ends will be carefully cut.

Ready "naked" pencils are then sent for painting. To make new pencils smooth and shiny, they are painted not once, but three, and sometimes even four, and then varnished several more times. In the same place, in the paint shop, markings and the company logo are applied to the pencils.

Bright, shiny, smelling like fresh paint, pencils are transported to the packing shop, where they are laid out in cardboard boxes, which are then packed in large boxes and sent to stores.

There are two main types of pencils - plain and colored. A simple pencil has a graphite lead and writes, depending on the hardness of the graphite, in gray from light to almost black. Simple pencils differ in lead hardness, which is indicated by the letters M (or B in the English version) - soft and T (or H) - hard. Normal - a hard-soft pencil is marked with the letters TM or NI (sometimes it is also indicated with the letter F). This marking is applied to the body of the pencil. If the pencil is not marked in any way, it means that it is hard-soft. Colored pencils also come in several types: classic colored (one-sided and double-sided), wax, pastel, watercolor, etc.

Although graphite pencil popularly called "simple", its production technology turns out to be much more complicated than the technology for making colored pencils, since, unlike the latter, it requires additional firing.

stylus simple pencils is made from white clay - kaolin and graphite, and the core of colored pencils consists of kaolin with colored pigments. Moreover, the pigments themselves can be both synthetic and natural. Grill, which includes natural ingredients, more convenient to use, provides soft application, gives bright saturated colors that do not fade even under direct sunlight. In stylus watercolor pencils special emulsions are added, which dissolve upon contact with water, creating a uniform layer of paint on paper - the so-called watercolor effect.

Rods for pastel pencils produced by pressing natural pigments and linseed oil. And in the composition of the stylus wax pencils as a binder, as the name implies, wax is included. It creates a strong hold on the lead, leaves a wide oily trail and provides a better glide on the paper.

The process of production of pencils in a wooden shell is fully automated and consists of several stages: the manufacture of a lead, boards, the connection of components and the processing of blanks. First of all, the lead of future pencils is made from a mixture of clay and graphite. The proportions of the components at the stage of mixing graphite and clay determine the hardness of the future lead. The more graphite is added to the lead, the softer its structure will be. If kaolin predominates in the lead, the pencil will be harder.

Clay is pre-cleaned. To do this, the raw material is first crushed in crushers, then mixed with warm water in special mills. Clay diluted in water is poured with liquid glass to get rid of impurities - sand, etc. Then graphite is added to the clay, according to the recipe, and a binder, which is boiled from starch.

The core mass must be at a certain temperature and humidity. The slightest deviation from the norm will lead to damage to the raw materials. For example, if the mixture dries out, it will become too hard, which can cause damage to the equipment. Carefully kneaded "dough" of graphite and clay falls into a screw press. There it is molded through rollers with three different gaps. As a result of this procedure, the mass is crushed, becomes homogeneous, air bubbles and excess moisture are removed from it. The thickness of the dough with each re-processing gradually decreases - from 1 mm to 0.25 mm.

Then the mass is passed through a die with holes, after which it turns into the so-called "noodles". It is formed into cylinders, from which a rod of the required length and diameter is squeezed out on a press. The rods must be dried. This is carried out in drying cabinets with continuous rotation for 15-16 hours. The moisture content of the finished rod should not exceed 0.5%. After drying, the rods are calcined in special crucibles in a furnace. During the firing process, the binder is burned out in the core, and the sintered clay forms the skeleton of the stylus.

In addition to the ratio of clay, the degree of hardness of the finished pencil is also affected by the temperature and duration of firing, as well as the components that make up the so-called fattening bath. The firing of the lead, depending on the desired gradation, is carried out at a temperature of 800 to 1200 degrees Celsius. After firing, the rods are placed in a special fat bath. As a result of this operation, the pores that have formed in the graphite after the binder has been burned out are filled with fat, stearin or wax under pressure at a certain temperature.

Sometimes edible and confectionery fats, as well as additional binders (for example, based on starch), can be used as raw materials. The choice of substance that is used for fatliquoring depends on the hardness of the rod. For example, confectionery fat is used for soft lead pencils, and wax is used for hard lead. Stearin for fatliquoring is used for the manufacture of leads of intermediate hardness (for example, hard-soft). Rods of large diameters are produced on vertical masonry presses.

Colored pencil leads are made somewhat differently. They include pigments, fillers, binders and fattening agents. Clay (kaolin) is the main raw material. Pigments, astringents and, in some cases, fat additives are added to it. Each manufacturer has its own recipe for making leads, which is kept in big secret. Many factories use other additives, including dyes, natural fillers, waxes, and cellulose-based binders.

After mixing all the components, the mixture is extruded using a press, and the rods of the desired diameter are obtained at the output. They are cut into pieces of a predetermined length and then dried at room temperature. As we mentioned above, only graphite rods are hardened. Leads for colored pencils are not heat treated, as under the influence of high temperature, color pigments are destroyed (if we are talking about components of natural origin) or significantly change color (this applies, first of all, to inorganic components).

At the step of adding fat, which gives a color mark and keeps the colored particles on the paper, two different technologies can be used: the so-called cold or hot "preparation". With cold preparation, fat is added to the mixture during mixing of the components. As a rule, this technology is used in the production of inexpensive medium-quality pencils, the lead of which consists of organic pigments, which, in turn, are contraindicated in high temperatures.

Hot preparation is carried out immediately after the drying of the rods. As a result of this procedure, the leads are wetted in hot fat. This method is used in the production of quality art (especially watercolor) pencils. The composition of such a bath is one of the main trade secrets of the factory, but, in any case, it contains high quality organic fats (for example, coconut or sunflower oil).

All colored pencils are conditionally divided into school (high-quality, inexpensive and cheap) and art. The latter differ most high quality and good coloring properties. But, in any case, regardless of the price category, the rods of both simple and colored pencils must go through several stages of quality control, unless, of course, the manufacturing company cares about its reputation.

Simultaneously with the production of rods, pencil cases are also produced. The pencil body is made from various tree species, which determines the quality of the finished product. So, for example, wood of an alder and a poplar is considered low-quality. In order to achieve a satisfactory body quality, this material requires expensive processing, which can not be afforded by small producers who choose such wood. Linden wood is considered satisfactory in quality. It is used most often for the production of inexpensive school pencils. The wood of pine, jelutong and cedar (Siberian and Californian) is considered high quality, expensive and is used for the production of special art pencils.

The process of manufacturing a wooden case for a pencil consists of several steps. First of all, you will need ready-made bars of wood. They end along the length of future pencils with allowances for machining and shrinkage. Wooden blanks are sawn into individual boards on a multi-saw machine and impregnated with paraffin in autoclaves to improve the mechanical properties of the finished product. The thickness of each plank is half the thickness of the finished product. During steam treatment, resins are removed from the planks, and the wood acquires a light brown color with a pink tint.

After that, the boards are dried in the "wells", where they are folded using a machine. The laying method used makes it possible to increase the area of ​​the plank that is in contact with hot steam. On the one hand, this optimizes the production process, and on the other hand, it allows you to remove moisture from the raw materials as much as possible. "Wells" are moved to drying rooms, where they stay for 72 hours. Then the boards are taken out and sorted. During sorting, rejects are removed (split blanks, incorrectly sawn boards, etc.). The boards impregnated with various compositions and dried are sorted and calibrated by size.

Grooves or grooves for the stylus are made on each board, and then PVA glue is applied evenly on it. After that, the pencil is assembled: a lead is inserted into one of the two boards, and then it is covered with a second board. In this case, the rod itself is not glued to the board, but is held due to the tension of the “shell”.

Since the diameter of the rod is slightly larger than the diameter of the groove, the correct compression of the plank in a special device - a clamp, where pencils are glued together, is of great importance. According to the production technology, for pencils of a certain size and type, a different pressing pressure is used. Deviation from the recommended indicators leads to a large number marriage: pencils simply break under pressure.

The resulting blocks enter the milling line, where they are divided into pencils using knives. The type of knife determines the shape of the future pencil - faceted, oval or round. Then almost finished pencils sent for sorting on a conveyor belt. Sorters check each pencil, identifying and seizing defective products.

The workpieces obtained as a result of crimping are sawn along the length of the pencil, leveled, sanded, primed and covered with paint and varnish. The surface of the pencil is opened with paint and varnish by drawing (extrusion), and its ends - by dipping. In the first case, the pencil is passed through the primer. First, it moves in one direction while applying varnish or paint, and then at the other end of the conveyor it turns over and comes back. This helps create an even and even coverage.

Dark-colored pencils are covered with paint at least five layers, and varnish - four. IN light colors the pencil is painted with at least seven layers of paint and four varnishes. But ideally, in order for the surface of the pencil to be even, without smudges and “burrs”, the total number of layers of varnish should be at least seven to eight (the more layers, the more expensive the finished product). The maximum number of layers is 18.

The so-called dipping machine is used to color the ends of the pencils. With its help, the frame with pencils is gently lowered into the paint tank. But in some cases, paint and varnish are not required. For example, cedar-bodied pencils go on sale without additional wood treatment. It is believed that the very texture of the tree is quite beautiful and does not require painting and varnishing. The designation of the lead hardness is applied to the pencil by impact hot stamping using colored foil tape.

Pencils are sold in two types - sharpened and unsharpened. Products of the first type are packed into boxes exclusively manually, and the second - manually and with the help of a special automatic and semi-automatic equipment. On a semi-automatic machine, you can pack about 15 thousand pencils per shift, on an automatic machine - more than ten times more. The machines pack boxes of six or twelve pencils each. The capacity of the pencil packing machine is 350-550 packs per hour on average.

So, the quality and, consequently, the cost of the finished product is affected by the exact observance of the technological process in the production of the stylus and body and during assembly. The core of the pencil should be located strictly in the center of the body. If the centering of the stylus is broken, then when sharpening it will be cut off unevenly and it will be impossible to draw with such a pencil.

When sharpening a pencil, the type of wood used is also important. Material Bad quality crumbles, and the wood of linden, pine or cedar gives even, neat chips when sharpening the product. Great importance has a high-quality double gluing of the stylus. It protects the rod from deformation inside the housing. Such a pencil is not afraid of falling even with high altitude. The "rule of eight layers" provides not only an aesthetic appearance products from alder, linden or poplar, but also protects against splinters. And, of course, the safety of the materials used in the production is of particular importance - from wood to paint and varnish. In particular, only safe water-based varnish is used for the production of pencils.

total cost necessary equipment for the production of simple and colored pencils starts from 2.5 million rubles. This is how much the cheapest used line will cost (most likely, in an incomplete configuration). Add to that the cost of rent. industrial premises(minimum 50 sq. meters for small production), utility bills, wages employees.

To work in the production of pencils, the following specialists will be needed: a calibrator of tablets, a sharpener of pencils, rods and sticks, a picker of pencils and rods, a pencil ink, a printing machine operator, an operator of an automatic production line white pencil, graphite rod burner, pencil assembly machine operator, rolling line operator, dispersion mixer operator for core mass preparation, automatic pencil finisher, pencil block presser, core presser, pencil board impregnator, core impregnator, pencil mass grinder, core unroller, thread cutter cores, mixer, sorter in the production of pencils, core dryer, blender, core grinder, pencil stamper. Of course, the exact number and types of specialists that will be required to work at the factory depend on the size of production, the assortment, the technologies used and the budget.

Finished products sold, as a rule, through wholesale companies. The batches of pencils produced are too large, so work with retail chains directly to manufacturers is impractical.

It is difficult to name the exact payback period for the pencil manufacturing business. First of all, they depend on the volume of production and the initial start-up capital. In addition, during the first time, all profits will most likely be invested in promoting their products on the market, since competition among manufacturers of pencils and colored pencils is very high (especially among Western manufacturers, with which domestic factories cannot yet compete in terms of the quality of their products). their products). The minimum payback period, according to some data, is from 2-3 years (for a small enterprise).

Lilia Sysoeva
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A pencil is such a common thing that it seems unremarkable and a simple tool for drawing. However, in order to make it, a rather complicated production technology is used. I want to talk about this little-known process.

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

The pencil lead is made from a mixture of graphite powders and special clay. Graphite powder itself is made from slate. A mixture of graphite and clay is thoroughly mixed with water, then dried, then again ground into powder, and at the end a small amount of water is added again until a thick paste is formed. The ratio of graphite and clay in this paste will determine the hardness of the pencil. 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 goes to special equipment, similar to an extruder. Graphite paste is pressed through the shaping holes of the stamp and at the exit you can see the familiar pencil core. However, he is still far from the finished rod.

The resulting lead blank is dried. Then fired at high temperatures in a special oven. During firing, graphite and clay are combined, 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 in the lead and the lower the firing temperature, the softer the pencil will be. As you know, the hardness is indicated on pencils either 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 is also a different degree of hardness of the pencil. 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, graphite rods are placed in special wooden blanks for future pencils. These blanks are wooden plates, half a pencil thick. They are usually made from cedar or linden. This wood is soft and has fibers well suited for making pencils. From each such blank board, either 6 or 8 pencils are obtained, depending on the production standard. Accordingly, 6 - 8 grooves are sawn in these planks, for graphite pencil rods.

Next, the rods are placed in the sawn grooves. Then, a wooden plate with rods is covered with exactly the same plate from above. The graphite rods are placed between two wooden plates. The rods are securely fixed in a 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 by means of 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 halves of a hexagon, or halves of a circle. With such cutters, a wooden blank with rods is sawn, and at the same time a hexagonal or round shape is given to the resulting pencils.

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 colored, a marking is made on it indicating the manufacturer, the degree of softness of the pencil, etc. Such embossing is done using paint or foil.

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