Yellow Pencil with Red Eraser
Camel hair
Pencil, from Old French pincel, from late Latin penicillus a "little tail" originally referred to an artist's fine brush of camel hair, also used for writing before modern lead or chalk pencils.
Though the archetypal pencil was an artist's brush, the stylus, a thin metal stick used for scratching in papyrus or wax tablets, was used extensively by the Romans and for palm-leaf manuscripts.
As a technique for drawing, the closest predecessor to the pencil was silverpoint or leadpoint until, in 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), a large deposit of graphite was discovered on the approach to Grey Knotts from the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale parish, Cumbria, England.
This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. It remains the only large-scale deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form.
Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead.
Consequently, it was called plumbago (Latin for "lead ore").
Because the pencil core is still referred to as "lead", or "a lead", many people have the misconception that the graphite in the pencil is lead, and the black core of pencils is still referred to as lead, even though it never contained the element lead
The words for pencil in German (Bleistift), Irish (peann luaidhe), and some other languages literally mean lead pen.
The value of graphite would soon be realised to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannonballs; the mines were taken over by the Crown and were guarded.
When sufficient stores of graphite had been accumulated, the mines were flooded to prevent theft until more was required.
The usefulness of graphite for pencils was discovered as well, but initially graphite for pencils had to be smuggled out of England.
Because graphite is soft, it requires some form of encasement. Graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin for stability.
England would enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method of reconstituting the graphite powder was found in 1662 in Germany.
However, the distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s. The town of Keswick, near the original findings of block graphite, still manufactures pencils, the factory also being the location of the Derwent Pencil Museum.
The meaning of "graphite writing implement" apparently evolved late in the 16th century.[18]
Wood encasement
Palomino Blackwing 602 pencils
Around 1560, an Italian couple named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil.
Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the halves then glued together—essentially the same method in use to this day.
Graphite powder and clay
The first attempt to manufacture graphite sticks from powdered graphite was in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662. It used a mixture of graphite, sulphur, and antimony.
English and German pencils were not available to the French during the Napoleonic Wars; France, under naval blockade imposed by Great Britain, was unable to import the pure graphite sticks from the British Grey Knotts mines – the only known source in the world.
France was also unable to import the inferior German graphite pencil substitute.
It took the efforts of an officer in Napoleon's army to change this. In 1795, Nicolas-Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with clay and forming the mixture into rods that were then fired in a kiln.
By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied. This method of manufacture, which had been earlier discovered by the Austrian Joseph Hardtmuth, the founder of the Koh-I-Noor in 1790, remains in use. In 1802, the production of graphite leads from graphite and clay was patented by the Koh-I-Noor company in Vienna.
In England, pencils continued to be made from whole sawn graphite. Henry Bessemer's first successful invention (1838) was a method of compressing graphite powder into solid graphite thus allowing the waste from sawing to be reused.
United States
Pencil manufacturing.
The top sequence shows the old method that required pieces of graphite to be cut to size; the lower sequence is the new, current method using rods of graphite and clay
.
American colonists imported pencils from Europe until after the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin advertised pencils for sale in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729, and George Washington used a three-inch (7.5 cm) pencil when he surveyed the Ohio Country in 1762. William Munroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812.
This was not the only pencil-making occurring in Concord. According to Henry Petroski, transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau discovered how to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite using clay as the binder; this invention was prompted by his father's pencil factory in Concord, which employed graphite found in New Hampshire in 1821 by Charles Dunbar.
Munroe's method of making pencils was painstakingly slow, and in the neighbouring town of Acton, a pencil mill owner named Ebenezer Wood set out to automate the process at his own pencil mill located at Nashoba Brook. He used the first circular saw in pencil production. He constructed the first of the hexagon- and octagon-shaped wooden casings. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with anyone. One of those was Eberhard Faber, which built a factory in New York and became the leader in pencil production.
Joseph Dixon, an inventor and entrepreneur involved with the Tantiusques graphite mine in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, developed a means to mass-produce pencils.
By 1870, The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the world's largest dealer and consumer of graphite and later became the contemporary Dixon Ticonderoga pencil and art supplies company.
By the end of the nineteenth century, over 240,000 pencils were used each day in the US. The favoured timber for pencils was Red Cedar as it was aromatic and did not splinter when sharpened. In the early twentieth century supplies of Red Cedar were dwindling so that pencil manufacturers were forced to recycle the wood from cedar fences and barns to maintain supply.
One effect of this was that "during World War II rotary pencil sharpeners were outlawed in Britain because they wasted so much scarce lead and wood, and pencils had to be sharpened in the more conservative manner – with knives.
It was soon discovered that incense cedar, when dyed and perfumed to resemble Red Cedar, was a suitable alternative. Most pencils today are made from this timber, which is grown in managed forests.
Over 14 billion pencils are manufactured worldwide annually. Less popular alternatives to cedar include basswood and alder.
In Southeast Asia, the wood Jelutong may be used to create pencils (though the use of this rainforest species is controversial).
Environmentalists prefer the use of Pulai – another wood native to the region in pencil manufacturing.
Eraser attachment
Attached eraser on the left; Pencil lead on the right
On 30 March 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil.
Yellow Pencil with Red Eraser
Camel hair
Pencil, from Old French pincel, from late Latin penicillus a "little tail" originally referred to an artist's fine brush of camel hair, also used for writing before modern lead or chalk pencils.
Though the archetypal pencil was an artist's brush, the stylus, a thin metal stick used for scratching in papyrus or wax tablets, was used extensively by the Romans and for palm-leaf manuscripts.
As a technique for drawing, the closest predecessor to the pencil was silverpoint or leadpoint until, in 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), a large deposit of graphite was discovered on the approach to Grey Knotts from the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale parish, Cumbria, England.
This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. It remains the only large-scale deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form.
Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead.
Consequently, it was called plumbago (Latin for "lead ore").
Because the pencil core is still referred to as "lead", or "a lead", many people have the misconception that the graphite in the pencil is lead, and the black core of pencils is still referred to as lead, even though it never contained the element lead
The words for pencil in German (Bleistift), Irish (peann luaidhe), and some other languages literally mean lead pen.
The value of graphite would soon be realised to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannonballs; the mines were taken over by the Crown and were guarded.
When sufficient stores of graphite had been accumulated, the mines were flooded to prevent theft until more was required.
The usefulness of graphite for pencils was discovered as well, but initially graphite for pencils had to be smuggled out of England.
Because graphite is soft, it requires some form of encasement. Graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin for stability.
England would enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method of reconstituting the graphite powder was found in 1662 in Germany.
However, the distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s. The town of Keswick, near the original findings of block graphite, still manufactures pencils, the factory also being the location of the Derwent Pencil Museum.
The meaning of "graphite writing implement" apparently evolved late in the 16th century.[18]
Wood encasement
Palomino Blackwing 602 pencils
Around 1560, an Italian couple named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil.
Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the halves then glued together—essentially the same method in use to this day.
Graphite powder and clay
The first attempt to manufacture graphite sticks from powdered graphite was in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662. It used a mixture of graphite, sulphur, and antimony.
English and German pencils were not available to the French during the Napoleonic Wars; France, under naval blockade imposed by Great Britain, was unable to import the pure graphite sticks from the British Grey Knotts mines – the only known source in the world.
France was also unable to import the inferior German graphite pencil substitute.
It took the efforts of an officer in Napoleon's army to change this. In 1795, Nicolas-Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with clay and forming the mixture into rods that were then fired in a kiln.
By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied. This method of manufacture, which had been earlier discovered by the Austrian Joseph Hardtmuth, the founder of the Koh-I-Noor in 1790, remains in use. In 1802, the production of graphite leads from graphite and clay was patented by the Koh-I-Noor company in Vienna.
In England, pencils continued to be made from whole sawn graphite. Henry Bessemer's first successful invention (1838) was a method of compressing graphite powder into solid graphite thus allowing the waste from sawing to be reused.
United States
Pencil manufacturing.
The top sequence shows the old method that required pieces of graphite to be cut to size; the lower sequence is the new, current method using rods of graphite and clay
.
American colonists imported pencils from Europe until after the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin advertised pencils for sale in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729, and George Washington used a three-inch (7.5 cm) pencil when he surveyed the Ohio Country in 1762. William Munroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812.
This was not the only pencil-making occurring in Concord. According to Henry Petroski, transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau discovered how to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite using clay as the binder; this invention was prompted by his father's pencil factory in Concord, which employed graphite found in New Hampshire in 1821 by Charles Dunbar.
Munroe's method of making pencils was painstakingly slow, and in the neighbouring town of Acton, a pencil mill owner named Ebenezer Wood set out to automate the process at his own pencil mill located at Nashoba Brook. He used the first circular saw in pencil production. He constructed the first of the hexagon- and octagon-shaped wooden casings. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with anyone. One of those was Eberhard Faber, which built a factory in New York and became the leader in pencil production.
Joseph Dixon, an inventor and entrepreneur involved with the Tantiusques graphite mine in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, developed a means to mass-produce pencils.
By 1870, The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the world's largest dealer and consumer of graphite and later became the contemporary Dixon Ticonderoga pencil and art supplies company.
By the end of the nineteenth century, over 240,000 pencils were used each day in the US. The favoured timber for pencils was Red Cedar as it was aromatic and did not splinter when sharpened. In the early twentieth century supplies of Red Cedar were dwindling so that pencil manufacturers were forced to recycle the wood from cedar fences and barns to maintain supply.
One effect of this was that "during World War II rotary pencil sharpeners were outlawed in Britain because they wasted so much scarce lead and wood, and pencils had to be sharpened in the more conservative manner – with knives.
It was soon discovered that incense cedar, when dyed and perfumed to resemble Red Cedar, was a suitable alternative. Most pencils today are made from this timber, which is grown in managed forests.
Over 14 billion pencils are manufactured worldwide annually. Less popular alternatives to cedar include basswood and alder.
In Southeast Asia, the wood Jelutong may be used to create pencils (though the use of this rainforest species is controversial).
Environmentalists prefer the use of Pulai – another wood native to the region in pencil manufacturing.
Eraser attachment
Attached eraser on the left; Pencil lead on the right
On 30 March 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil.