According to Li Mengxi's knowledge, a pencil is made by mixing graphite and clay in a certain proportion to make a straight lead core, and then wrapping it with wood.

Li Mengxi took graphite and had it crushed into fine powder. Regarding the selection of soil, Li Mengxi took the best pure clay embryos from the pottery kiln.

It is known that there are only two components of pencil lead: graphite and clay, so the key issue is the ratio.

Li Mengxi prepared some ratios: ten parts graphite powder to ten parts soil, ten parts graphite powder to eleven parts soil, ten parts graphite powder to twelve parts soil, until the ratio was ten to fifty.

Then, in reverse order, with less graphite and more soil, mix another 50 parts.

After a total of one hundred ingredients were mixed, the next step was to stir and mix. Li Mengxi was too lazy to do it, so he left the work to the craftsmen.

Each craftsman was given a small stone mortar, and the ink clay was put into the stone mortar and pounded. Maybe it was too slow, so some people started to abandon their tools, take out the ink clay, knead it, and beat it.

Li Mengxi happened to see this scene. He found that using hands was more efficient than using tools. This was considered an improvement in craftsmanship, so he rewarded him on the spot.

As soon as pencil making began, technological improvements began simultaneously.

After a while, a craftsman asked if he could add some water. It was too dry to knead.

Li Mengxi hesitated for a moment. Should he add water to make a pencil? But what should he do if the pencil lead becomes too wet and soft after adding water? Li Mengxi realized another variable that he had not noticed.

After about two hours, the craftsmen mixed the lead clay roughly evenly. After kneading and beating it thousands of times, the lead clay all turned black, and there was no difference in appearance.

There are 100 parts of lead clay produced. These 100 parts of lead clay with different proportions need to be made into lead cores, and then see which proportion is most effective.

When it came to making the lead core, Li Mengxi felt a little thorny. He didn't know how to make a straight, long and round lead core as thin as a match.

Unable to figure it out, Li Mengxi simply gave up and asked the question directly to the craftsmen.

The craftsman camp now has a lot of technology accumulation, and the craftsmen found many ways to make lead cores without spending much time.

One of the methods that most people think of is the hand rubbing method, that is, rolling the lead clay into long and thin strips. From Li Mengxi's critical point of view, he doesn't think much of the length or thickness.

The lead core was in perfect condition, but Li Mengxi also knew that in fact, the lead core rubbed out by hand was barely usable.

The second method is that some craftsmen thought of the casting method. One craftsman got a small bamboo tube, stuffed the lead mud into it, and then used a thinner stick to compact the lead mud. After the lead core was formed, he put the whole

A lead core was knocked out.

The third method is that some craftsmen thought of using the slotting technology, which is the same technology as making pills and steel balls. The craftsmen use two wooden boards with circular grooves to buckle them together, put the lead mud in them, and press the two wooden boards together.

Then slide it back and forth. In this way, more than a dozen lead cores can be made at one time.

Because the craftsmen added water to the lead mud, the lead core became wet and soft after being made. As a last resort, they had to bake it on the fire. After baking like this, the problem arose again. Li Mengxi magically discovered that the lead core would

It even deformed after being baked, and a careless craftsman accidentally placed the lead core close to the fire, causing it to burn.

Lead is graphite, graphite is charcoal, and charcoal will definitely burn. This was an unexpected discovery.

After a period of busy work, most of the lead cores were dried and deformed.

There are a hundred different material proportions and three different production methods. Li Mengxi took a piece of white paper and took the lead lead and wrote on the paper one by one. When he tried the first lead lead, the lead lead only exerted a little force.

, with a slight stroke on the paper, a clear black mark immediately appeared on the paper. Seeing this, Li Mengxi knew that the lead core was successfully produced.

In subsequent tests, one hundred lead cores with different proportions were found to be too crispy, some too hard, some ink too dull, and some too dark.

After testing, Li Mengxi found that the ratio of graphite to soil was one to one.

Comparing the differences between different production methods, the plate and groove method is the fastest, while the lead core tamped by the casting method is the strongest. Therefore, combining the advantages of the two, when making the lead core, you can use the plate and groove method first, and so on.

After the lead core is made, use a wooden stick to compact it, so as to achieve both efficiency and quality.

The lead core has been successfully trial-produced, the material ratio has been determined, the production method has been determined, and the drying process remains.

The lead core is easy to deform when heated. The softer the lead core, the easier it is to deform. Li Mengxi speculated that the reason is uneven heating, and the method to make the heating even is the kiln.

The hot air in the kiln has a uniform thermal force, so the lead core can shrink evenly without deformation.

The craftsmen reconfigured a portion of the ink clay in a one-to-one ratio, rolled out the lead cores using the groove method, and then tamped them down with wooden sticks. It didn't take long for the craftsmen to make sixty or seventy lead cores.

.

Here, a temporary lake and a small kiln are ready. Put the lead core into the kiln, light a handful of firewood and burn it for a while. When the fire is out, take out the lead core and see that it has not only dried successfully.

It became hard and not a single hair was deformed.

The drying technology was successful and the lead core production technology was completely perfected.

Thinking about the next step, in order to facilitate writing, the lead core will be wrapped with wood, or the lead core will be fixed with an automatic lead structure. But how is the wood wrapping the lead core produced, and what is the structure of the automatic pencil.

A small pencil is very difficult to produce.

Li Mengxi told the craftsmen the general structure of the pencil, and he offered a large reward to encourage creation.

Two days later, a craftsman came and presented a solution.

The first pen presented by the craftsman had a willow wood barrel. The craftsman drilled a small round hole in the willow wood, and then inserted the lead into it. The pencil was almost as long as a finger and as thick as a finger. Li Mengxi took a look at it.

, no need to ask, you know that drilling a straight circular hole as long as a tachyon must be very difficult and the processing time must be very long.

If pencils are not cheap enough and cannot be mass-produced, they have no value at all.

This first sample is not good.

The second one, the craftsman who made the second sample seemed much smarter. The craftsman cleverly divided the pen holder into two halves, then made a groove in each half, and then put the two halves of the pencil together. Maybe it was because it was divided into two parts.

Half of the pencil was difficult to fix. The craftsman used a rope to tie the pencil from top to bottom. At one end of the pencil, Li Mengxi magically saw that there were logs on the end of the pencil that looked like erasers.

.

Li Mengxi pointed to the log at the end of the pen and asked curiously, "What is this used for?"

The craftsman replied that the lead core was easy to fall out, so he blocked it with wood.

Li Mengxi was stunned for a moment. He thought it was rubber.

The pencil lead will fall out on its own, so how can you write? When Li Mengxi was thinking about the practicality of this kind of pencil, the craftsman next to him said, "If you get some glue or cover it with tissue paper, it won't fall off."

."

Li Mengxi nodded, feeling that it made sense.

Li Mengxi thought that this kind of pencil might be produced. He could make a thin piece of willow wood, crack it in half, and then cut a long groove in the middle. Then wrap the lead core with a layer of tissue paper, wrap the lead core and put it in the wooden groove...

Li Mengxi's eyes suddenly lit up, and he suddenly remembered that he used a paper pencil when he was a child, which was rolled out of newspaper.

If you use newspapers to make pencils, you don't need wood, and you don't have to work hard to carve grooves. You only need to take a lead core, a piece of paper, apply some glue on the paper, just a roll, and the pencil becomes

!

Li Mengxi immediately went to find paper, and then went to the craftsman's camp to find some glue. He applied a thin layer of glue to a piece of thin linen paper, and placed the lead lightly on it. The paper rolled and rolled to wrap the lead in it. In the blink of an eye,

In the meantime, a round and straight pencil is rolled up.

Li Mengxi held a light, round and straight pencil in his hand and looked at it again and again. He felt full of accomplishment. This pencil is so good. It becomes round when rolled up. It must feel good to write with, and it also feels good.

It's light and easy to peel.

Li Mengxi went to find a knife and used it to cut the two ends of the pencil. Then he swiped the knife a few more times to sharpen the tip of the pencil. The lead was exposed from the paper. Li Mengxi pulled it with his hand. The lead was firmly stuck and motionless.

.

After sharpening the pen, Li Mengxi took the pencil and wrote a page, which made him feel like he was back when he was a child.

The words written on the paper are small and delicate, not much bigger than soybeans. Because the pencil handwriting is so delicate, such small words can be read extremely clearly. This is an advantage that a writing brush cannot match.

Pencils are hard pens, and hard pens are easier to master than soft pens. Easy mastery means faster learning; pencil handwriting can be very small, and the advantage of small handwriting is that it can save a lot of paper, and the writing speed can be increased by three to five times.

When it is increased by three to five times, the learning speed is also increased by three to five times; the manufacturing cost of pencils is low, and the cost is lower than that of brushes. The low cost means that it is easier to produce on a large scale, and it also means that it is easier to promote.

A small pencil is a major reform of education. A pencil can increase the efficiency of talent training by more than three times.

Li Mengxi wanted to see how quickly pencils could be produced. He asked the craftsmen to start from scratch. The craftsmen resurrected the ink mud from scratch, rolled out the lead core in a plate trough, heated it in a kiln, rolled it into a pen body with paper, and then

, cut off both ends, and shape the pencil.

In two hours, the craftsmen produced thirty-seven pencils.

If the scale is expanded and assembly line operations are used, and each person is only responsible for one step of production, the efficiency will be faster. Li Mengxi estimates that it will not be a problem for one person to produce three to five hundred pencils a day.

The raw materials for making pencils include graphite, clay, paper, and glue.

The consumption of graphite is not large. One piece of graphite can make hundreds of pencils, not to mention mud. Mud has no value at all, and glue cannot be used so much. The only material that is even more expensive is paper.

Paper may be precious elsewhere, but in Julu, the Julu papermaking industry is extremely prosperous. With more paper, more people use paper to write, and a lot of waste paper will be produced.

In the past, the arrangement of waste paper was that it could be used to make paper nails, windows, and other things. Now, waste paper has better uses. Using waste paper to roll pencils is an excellent choice.

Calculating the overall cost of producing pencils, the cost of pencils is extremely low, much lower than writing brushes. With only two to three hundred craftsmen required, it is not a problem to produce 300,000 to 50,000 pencils per day.

There used to be a shortage of writing brushes in the military, and children had to use wooden sticks to write on the sand table when learning calligraphy. The successful development of pencils directly changed from a shortage of pens to an overcapacity of pens.

Li Mengxi knew that pencils were easy to use, and the paper material for making pencils was only available in Julu, which created another extremely competitive monopoly product.

Pencils can only write on paper, and their applicability is not as good as brushes. They can be bundled for marketing, opening the way with paper first, selling the paper, and then selling the pencils.

This involves deep-rooted habit factors. If you rush to promote pencils, others may not want to use them. Therefore, you must find ways to enhance the competitiveness of pencils.

The first way to enhance the competitiveness of pencils is to use sophisticated packaging. Anyway, Julu has paper and printing technology. Just print some beautiful drawings and paste them on the pencil, and the pencil will immediately become taller.

Also, pencils have unique advantages. Once written with a brush, it cannot be removed, but once written with a pencil, it can be erased with an eraser. Come to think of it, no matter how cheap the paper is, there are still many people who can’t afford it.

For those who cannot afford paper, using a pencil to practice writing means that you can write and erase, which means that a piece of paper can be used for a year.
To be continued...