A pencil has become a completely irreplaceable thing in human life. Starting from kindergarten, he accompanies a person at school, university, at home and in the office. Finally, it is simply necessary when solving crossword puzzles.
Pencil production
The total cost of a complete set of necessary equipment, which is required in order to organize the average production of pencils, starts with two million rubles.
The cost of a used line in a complete set. To this should be added the costs of renting a production building, which for a small workshop should have an area of at least fifty square meters, as well as the purchase of raw materials, workers' wages and utilities.
The exact payback periods of a business such as the manufacture of pencils is difficult to name. First of all, they depend on the volume of output and on the starting (initial) capital.
In addition, during the initial time, all of the profit received is most often invested in market promotion, since competition among companies that produce not only simple but also colored pencils is quite high, especially among Western factories with which domestic competitors have little competition due to high quality their products. However, many specialists call the minimum payback period for small enterprises two or three years.
Technology
The production of pencils is carried out according to the following technologies. Previously, the wooden blank is carefully sanded, then a fourfold primer of the body is made, since a decrease in the number of passes leads to insufficient surface smoothness. Soil, filling all the bumps in the tree, provides it with strength for subsequent painting. Then the body is painted.
Saving at each stage of the process, although it reduces the cost of the 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, are very fond of nibbling writing instruments. Therefore, the varnish should have a water base and not contain harmful chemical solvents.
What materials are needed
For the manufacture of simple pencils, not only the composition of the stylus - clay and graphite, is important. It affects the quality of the wood. How the pencil is made depends on how the finished product will subsequently look and how easy it will be to sharpen. The cheapest products, designed for consumers who are not demanding on quality, are made from alder. The wood of such pencils is unsightly in appearance, and has a gray color, and does not hold the lead very well.
Wood
The most common tree species that 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 better and, accordingly, more expensive pencil is a product made from pine, cedar, and also tropical jelutong tree, whose production characteristics are very high.But the most valuable is the raw material from California cedar. Stationery made from this tree is very expensive and 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 stylus. Moreover, the more graphite, the softer the structure will be. And vice versa, if the stylus has a lot of kaolin, respectively, the composition of simple pencils will turn out to be more solid.
It is very important how the stationery is sharpened. Accurate and even shavings ensure wood quality. At the same time, it is very important that the rod is located in the center of the case, because if this technology for the production of pencils is violated, the stylus is cut unevenly when sharpening.
In addition, many stationery manufacturers use the so-called SV-gluing of the stylus to prevent the core from breaking in the event of a pencil drop. In this case, it breaks only at the sharpened tip, and not inside the case.
Paint stage
This third and also very important element in the production does not allow less than seven layers of pencil coloring, 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 manufacture of high-price pencils involves painting up to eighteen, sometimes up to twenty times. Then this stationery will have high gloss and a literally mirror surface.
Equipment
Pencil making equipment diverse. To clean the clay, it is necessary to have a crusher and special mills. Clay diluted in water is poured with liquid glass to rid it of impurities, including sand. Then, according to the recipe, graphite and a binder made from starch are added to it. The core mass must have a certain temperature and humidity. The slightest deviation leads to spoilage of raw materials.
The thoroughly whipped “dough” mixed with graphite and clay is sent to a screw press, where it is molded 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 test after repeated processing is gradually reduced from one to 0.25 millimeters.
Then the mass is passed through a die with holes, where it turns into a kind of “noodle” - into cylinders, from which the press is already squeezing a rod with the required length and diameter. The rods are thoroughly dried in drying ovens, where there is continuous rotation for fifteen or sixteen hours. The humidity of the finished element should not be more than half a percent. After drying, they are calcined already in the furnace in special crucibles.
Colour pencils
Cores for colored pencils are made somewhat differently. They contain pigments, as well as fillers with binders and fatliquoring substances. Clay or kaolin is the main raw material.
Each more or less large manufacturer has its own recipe for the manufacture of leads, which is kept in great secret. 
Many factories use dyes and wax, as well as natural fillers and cellulose-based binders in the manufacture of additives.
The cores of colored pencils 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 color mark and keeps it on 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 lead is wetted in hot fat. Most often, this technology is used in the production of high-quality watercolor pencils.
With cold preparation, fat is added to the mixture.As a rule, this method is used when the production of medium-quality pencils with a stylus from organic pigments is set up.
