“Lead is the soul of the pencil…”

Production of Graphite Leads
Graphite, clay and water are mixed in the ceramic mill (with more clay or graphite according to the intended graduation B, HB, H...) until a stable and uniform paste builds up. This paste is then stored in bags inside a greenhouse in order to remove most of the water.
This results in a stone of clay and graphite that is then ground and reduced into tiny mixture grains and these are later submitted to steamrollers in order to get away all the impurities from the clay.

After this process, the resulting product is then broken down in a hammer crusher forming a massive lead cartridge with a predetermined gradation that will then be placed in the press to produce the lead "threads." These "threads" are cut into the desired size of the pencil and then placed in a drying machine to remove the remaining water and then baked in an oven at 1.020ºC. In order to yield resistant soft leads able to write and erased they must be impregnated with by osmosis. (1)

Production of Colour Leads
Colour leads are manufactured with kaolin, tylose, water and the pigments for the desired colour.
These products are placed in the mixer to form a solid paste that is then crushed between the steamrollers to eliminate any possible impurities which could damage the efficacy of the coloured pencil.
The resulting material will then follow the course above mentioned between the hammer crusher and the drying machine, except that colour leads don't need to the baked in the oven and are then impregnated with stearin and other waxes instead of fat. (1)

After the production process the two types of lead are subjected to another manufacture phase.

Leads are really important concerning the pencil's final quality, and the wood involving is also decisive for its efficacy.

“ If the lead is soul of the pencil, the wood is the body…”


How the pencil acquires its form…
Several grooves are cut lengthwise into slats of American cedar (2); grooved slat (3),

where the leads are placed (4). A later properly grooved slat is then placed upon it in order to form the so-called "sandwich": two slats containing leads. (5)
These slats are then placed dried in a press for 24 hours. (6) After this step the "sandwiches" finally yield the different pencil formats by means of a separation process called "Rounding." (7)

After this operation the "raw" pencils (8) must acquire their own "personality" in the Polish Section for the final finish. They are first polished in proper machines, with each unit taking up to 4 or 6 polish baths to obtain a complete uniform colour. The tops are then cut to remove the residual polish and the pencils are submitted to all kinds of finishes (impression, eraser placement, painted heads, etc...).

The pencils are now ready to be wrapped and shipped to the customer.


The non-conforming materials are removed during the whole circuit of manufacture and stored away in proper places. Some of these pencils are used for experiments and machine-tuning; and those whose non-conformities are not relevant are donated to charity institutions; the remaining ones are destroyed and sent to the Sanitary Dump Stations.
Any non-conformity is always registered throughout these procedures for later statistical analysis and non-quality cost control.