Pencils

Pencils are the most used and most common writing utensil. They work by leaving material that adheres to the object your writing on. There are many different kinda of pencils, some are hexagonal or cylindrical in shape, but did you know that they come in different writing types too? Pencils are graded by H and B. H being for hard, and B for black. B pencils are softer and leave a more distinct mark. H pencils leave a more faded mark. This is because a soft material will adhere to the paper more, coming off easier from the pencil. Pencils are H or B but, they are also scaled on how soft or how hard.

The original pencil was made of camel-hair, and was a very-fine brush, instead of a hard lead or chalk to leave a mark, it left thin marks of paint or ink. Lead pencils then began in 1565 when people found a large, very pure deposit of graphite was found. But, chemistry was uninformed of the material graphite, so they thought of it as another form of lead, and started using graphite as lead. Pencils have been thought to have lead, but pencils never contained lead, this rumor started before people understood that graphite was not lead. Lead poisoning actually came from the exterior paint of the pencil, congaing high concentrations of lead.

Pencils started to get more sophisticated around 1795. Nicolas-Jacques Conté invented the method of mixing clay and powdered graphite and putting it in a kiln. He also observed that he can change the ratios of clay to graphite to make softer, or harder cores. This was the birth-place of the cores we use in 2016. Then 1858 Hymen Lipman patented the idea of putting an eraser on the end of pencils, who then sold the patent for $100,000 to Joseph Reckendorfer. Although, in 1875 the supreme court denied his patent.

Pencils are a part of our everyday lives, for students, tax payers, office workers, mothers and fathers helping out their child, and anyone that needs the amazing writing utensil, named the pencil.