How do they get the lead into a pencil?

Question

How do they get the lead into a pencil?

Answer 1

A pencil is constructed by sandwiching a lenght of graphite in between two pieces of wood (Cedar). The shape is derrived by the manufacturing process where by pencils are fabricated 10 at a time.

Basically you start with two flat pieces of wood into which lenghtwise grooves are cut. (The bread slices)

Graphite rods are placed into the grooves of the bottom slice and glued into place. The top slice of wood with its mating grooves is then pressed on top and held together with glue.

You now have a plank of 10 pencils which are then seperated by cutting the wood inbetween each graphite rod. If you seperated the pencile by just making a single cut you would end up with square shaped pencils.

A square pencil would be rather uncomfortable to write with. So by making angled cuts(when seperating the pencils) and sanding

you will get the familar hexagon cross section.

This shape is approximately circular and doesn't have the sharp uncomfortable corners a square has.

The individual pencil is sanded, painted, stamped with a logo, afixed with a ferrule and finally topped off with a soft eraser.

The #2 refers to the grade of graphite. The grade indicates how hard or soft the graphite lead used is. The graphite is mixed with clay, the more clay mixed in the harder the pencil. Soft pencils with less clay leave a darker mark but wear down quickly. Harder pencils with less graphite and more clay leave a lighter mark and wear down slower.

Answer 2

The wooden portion is made in two parts, put the lead in the center,then pasted together.

Answer 3

The wooden part of the pencil is actually two separate pieces glued together. A high strength glue is used and it's finished to hide the seam. Small canals are carved into each side of the wooden portion, the lead (actually graphite, usually) is inserted onto one side. Glue is applied to each side and they are pressed together. You can actually kinda see the seam between the two sides towards the tip.

Answer 4

You might notice a seam in the wood, running down the length of the pencil.  It is in fact made of two pieces of wood, bonded to each other and to the graphite using adhesives.

Answer 5

The lead is pressed between two symmetrical wood pieces...

Answer 6

because of strongness

Answer 7

The wood part of the pencil is made in two halfs (split down the middle). The lead (its actually graphite) is placed into a tiny channel cut into the middle of the two halves and the halves are glued and pressed  together.

There you go....a pencil!

Answer 8

See this website

Answer 9

The wood of the pencil is really two halves (look closely) which are glued together around the unbroken lead (which is actually graphite, I believe).