Where do pencils come from?
Pencil, an everyday object you might just glance at before walking away yet every piece of a pencil would’ve been in a long and endearing adventure before being put together and sold out to you. This writing report will tell you all about how a pencil reaches your hands and fingers.
Pencil lead, the silver-grey stuff in between the wood, is not actually lead. It’s made up of a non toxic material called graphite and some clay mixed in. For a softer and darker point of a pencil, you’d need to add more graphite then clay. Which means, you can’t poison and kill yourself with just eating some pencils though the graphite and clay can still damage areas of your gut.
Graphite powder is dug out of the ground first, separated and cleared from said rocks, and mixed together with water and clay. Then they are dried and compressed into cylinders, placed into a tube and squeezed out into your average pencil led shape. Yet the process isn't done yet. They bake the leads over 1000 degrees celsius, hardening the clay so it is as sturdy as you can get it. And finally, they place them in wax and fill in the holes in the lead so it writes easily on paper.
Cedar wood is the most common wood type made into pencils. It’s a softwood that wouldn’t snap under the pressure of our fingers and is a perfect candidate for mass production hence it being the most favourable one to use.
They cut the wood into blocks which then goes through a machine with a blade which cuts grooves into said-block which are then going to have leads placed into them later on. It goes through another machine that places glue into the holes. The wood pieces are separated so some have lead placed in while others are then placed on top of the block with the lead. The blocks of wood are compressed and are left to dry for an hour so the glue steadys. And finally the wood is ready to be cut. Machines shape and separate the wood and the pencils are then painted, sharpened and shipped out to be bought by people like you to use.
So now you know. A pencil comes from many areas and things from forests to mines. So next time you lose another pencil, think about how much time it took to make that little stick.
