The Life Cycle of a Pencil

1
The Life Cycle of a Pencil

• Harry and Dominic

2
Design

•  The pencil is a small wooden writing utensil
  with an rubber eraser at one end and a stick of
  graphite in the center. The materials used to
  make it are wood, aluminum or brass, glue,
  rubber, and graphite, and usually paint. The
  graphite may be mixed with clay to soften it. It
  was most likely not expected to last long, since
  they are sold in packages of about 12.

3
Materials Acquisition

• For a pencil, first the wood is from timber, or
  trees. Secondly, the graphite is mined from
  places like Finland and Italy. If needed to
  soften the graphite, clay is mined all around the
  world, even some places in the United States of
  America. Rubber comes from a milky white liquid
  that some trees excrete instead of sap as usual.
  The metal, aluminum, is mined usually in
  Australia.

4
Pencil Materials Processing/Manufacturing

• Graphite    Graphite can be made into the stick
  in the middle in two different ways. The first is
  when the graphite and a waxy mixture are forced
  through a mold, creating a spaghetti-like string.
  The string is then cut into precise measurements,
  then dried in ovens.     In the second method,
  the graphite and a clay mixture is poured into a
  machine, a billet press. There is then a ram
  placed just over the press. The ram comes down,
  and out comes a hard cylinder, called a
  billet.Wood Casing 
•        The cedar will usually arrive at the
  factory already pre-dried, stained, and waxed to
  avoid warping. Next, logs are sawed into thin
  strips, called slats. They are all about 7.25
  inches long, and about .25 inches thick. They are
  then put on a feeder, then dropped one at a time
  onto a conveyor belt which is always moving along
  at a constant rate.     After that, the slats
  are planed to give them a flat surface. Next,
  they pass under a cutting head that makes
  parallel circular grooves in the wood-one half as
  deep as the graphite is thick-along the length of
  each wooden slat. Continuing their journey along
  the conveyor belt, half the slats are covered in
  a layer of glue, and cut graphite is laid in the
  clue-covered slats.    The slats with neither
  glue nor graphite on them are continued down
  another conveyor belt, where they will be picked
  up and turned over so that the grooves are facing
  down. When the two belts meet, the slats without
  glue drop on the ones without, and they form a
  sandwich. When the sandwiches have been removed
  from the conveyor belt, they are clamped
  together, and will stay that way until the glue
  dries.  When the glue has dried, the ends are
  trimmed of excess glue.

5
Materials Processing/Manufacturing Cont. 

• Shaping the pencil    Next comes shaping, the
  step in which those 'Sandwiches' become pencils.
  The sandwiches are then placed on a conveyor belt
  with cutters coming from the top and the bottom
  of the belt. The cutters above cut the top half,
  while the ones on the bottom cut the bottom half
  and separates the pencils when they are
  completely cut. The majoraty of all pencils is
  hexagonal to keep them from rolling off the
  conveyor.  A single sandwich will hold enough for
  six to nine pencils.
• Finishing Steps
•     After pencils have been cut, they are moved
  to sanders that will make them smooth, like the
  ones you get fresh out of a box.  Varnish is then
  applied to their surface, then dried.  This is
  done with varnishing machines, that dip the
  pencils in a pot of varnish, then feed them
  through a felt disc to remove excess varnish.
   This process is done many times until the wanted
  color is achieved.  The pencil will
  then receive a final coat.
•     The pencils are then sent on yet another
  conveyor belt, this time another shaping one.  It
  will ensure not only that no excess varnish has
  accumulated on the end of the pencil, but also
  that they are all the same length.  
•     Finally, the erasers are attached.  They are
  held in place by a thin metal binding called a
  ferrule.  The ferrule is either attached by a
  coating of glue of small metal prongs.  The
  ferrule is first attached on to the pencil, then
  the eraser is clamped inside.  The final step is
  when the company logo is stamped on.  The pencil
  is complete!

6
Packaging 

• The hexagonal shape of the pencils allows them to
  be tightly packed together to reduce packaging
  demand and empty space. The packaging is made of
  cardboard. Cardboard is made from wood from pine
  trees. The wood is then shredded to a pulp and
  sent to a paper machine where the pulp is pressed
  and rolled until it is sent to corrugating plants
  to be made into cardboard. Corn starch glue is
  used to bond the flattened pulp to liner sheets.
  After a few more steps, bold designs are applied
  then it is shaped into a thin container to hold
  the pencils.

7
Distribution

• Pencils are not distributed individually, but
  instead in packs of 12, give or take a bit. They
  are often made in China or Vietnam, as quite a
  few products are, but that probability is
  actually about the same for every continent, with
  the obvious exception of Antarctica. Penguins
  don't make pencils.

8
Use

• A pencil is used by writing on a piece of paper,
  or drawing on paper, along with hundreds and
  hundreds of other ways, both practical and
  impractical, including but not limited to darts.
  A pencil is slowly becoming obsolete because of
  our rapidly increasing technology. However,
  millions of people still use both technology and
  pencils, like the creators of this presentation.

9
Reuse/Recycling

• The greatest thing about pencils is that they
  have uses for everybody, artists, authors, and
  even office workers alike. Also, pencils can be
  sharpened until they're roughly the size of your
  thumbnail, so they can last years if used wisely!
  And another bonus is that when you buy a whole
  pack of pencils, if one breaks, who cares? You
  have 11 more at your disposal to do whatever you
  please. There are also many decorative uses for a
  broken pencil. For example, you can get some
  colorful duct tape and then even the least
  artistic of people could create a pencil-flower!
  Unfortunately, nothing is forever, so even the
  most scarcely used pencil has to be disposed of,
  as seen in the next slide.

10
Disposal

• The most heartbreaking part of owning a pencil is
  the death- AKA the disposal. Fortunately if
  they're sharpened to the last tiny bit, they will
  have served a good purpose. Pencils, like all
  items don't last forever, and eventually end up
  in a landfill. Unfortunately from this point,
  there is nothing you can do about it. Pencils
  cannot be recycled, so buying a mechanical pencil
  or a pen is a smart decision.

11
Bibliography

• http//www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Pencil.html