--- title: "How a Pencil Is Made: Graphite, Kiln and Cedar" canonical: "https://stationerytimes.com/guides/how-a-pencil-is-made/" description: "How a wood-cased pencil is made, from makers' own factory pages: graphite and clay fired at 1,000–1,200 °C, oil or wax baths, cedar slats, 9-pencil sandwiches." category: "Stories" published: 2026-10-21 updated: 2026-10-21 author: "Ellis Penhale" publisher: "Stationery Times" sources: 19 organizations: - name: "California Cedar Products Company" country: "United States" founded: "1917" brands: ["Blackwing"] source: "https://calcedar.com/company-history/" - name: "Dixon Ticonderoga Company" country: "United States" founded: "1827" parent: "F.I.L.A. Group" parent_since: "2005-02" brands: ["Ticonderoga"] source: "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000014995/000095012305001314/y05536exv99waw5wb.txt" --- # How a Pencil Is Made: Graphite, Kiln and Cedar > A wood pencil is two products joined: a core of graphite and clay, extruded and fired at 1,000–1,200 °C, then soaked in oil or wax, and a case of two grooved slats, usually incense-cedar. The cores are glued between the slats, milled into hexagons, cut apart, lacquered, stamped and fitted with a ferrule and eraser. - URL: https://stationerytimes.com/guides/how-a-pencil-is-made/ - Category: Stories - Author: Ellis Penhale - Published: 2026-10-21 - Updated: 2026-10-21 ![Drawing of how a wood-cased pencil is made: a 185 × 70 mm incense-cedar slat with 9 grooves, the glued slat sandwich with 9 cores, 9 hexagonal pencils cut apart, and a finished lacquered pencil with ferrule and eraser](https://stationerytimes.com/images/raster/how-a-pencil-is-made-16x9.png) *From slat to pencil, drawn in proportion from Mitsubishi Pencil's factory page: one 185 × 70 × 5 mm slat pair makes 9 pencils.* Original drawing (SVG): https://stationerytimes.com/images/how-a-pencil-is-made-cover.svg. Drawings © 2026 Stationery Times, reusable with credit under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ## Key takeaways - Mitsubishi Pencil fires its graphite-and-clay cores at 1,000–1,200 °C; Tombow says over 1,000 °C, and the method goes back to Nicolas-Jacques Conté's patent of January 7, 1795. - Mitsubishi Pencil's slats are 185 × 70 × 5 mm with 9 grooves, so one sandwich gives 9 pencils; Ticonderoga says its sandwiches give 10. - Tombow paints a pencil 6–7 times as a rule and more than 10 times for some models. - California Cedar Products, the Stockton company that has owned Blackwing since 2010, made incense-cedar pencil slats for about 100 years before shifting its focus to Blackwing in 2019. - Italy's F.I.L.A. bought Dixon Ticonderoga in February 2005 with about 93.5% of shares tendered at US$7.00 each; Ticonderoga says it sells over 700 million pencils a year. ## How is a pencil made? **A wood-cased pencil is made in two separate lines, a core line and a wood line, that meet when the cores are glued between two grooved slats.** Mitsubishi Pencil's factory page and Tombow's both describe the same sequence: mix graphite and clay, extrude, fire, soak in oil, then groove the slats, glue in the cores, close the "sandwich", shape it, cut it apart, paint it and stamp it. The core recipe is the one Nicolas-Jacques Conté patented in France in 1795, and the wood in most good pencils still comes from the same California and Oregon forests that pencil makers turned to around 1910. The diagram below shows the eleven steps with the figures the makers publish. ![Process diagram of how a wood-cased pencil is made: graphite, clay and water mixed; pressed into a 10.5 by 35 cm cylinder and extruded; fired at 1,000 to 1,200 °C; soaked in hot oil or wax; 185 by 70 by 5 mm incense-cedar slat; 9 grooves; glued; sandwiched; milled into hexagons and cut apart; lacquered 6 to 7 times; stamped and fitted with ferrule and eraser](https://stationerytimes.com/images/how-a-pencil-is-made-process.svg) *The three tracks of pencil making, with the figures Mitsubishi Pencil, Tombow, STAEDTLER, Faber-Castell, Ticonderoga and Cal Cedar publish.* | Step | What happens | Figures, by source | |---|---|---| | Mix | Graphite, clay and water are ground and kneaded | More clay makes a harder core (STAEDTLER, Mitsubishi Pencil) | | Press, extrude | Pressed into a cylinder, pushed through a die, cut | Cylinder 10.5 cm across, 35 cm long; cores cut to about 20 cm (Mitsubishi Pencil) | | Fire | Dried, then fired in a kiln | 1,000–1,200 °C (Mitsubishi Pencil); over 1,000 °C (Tombow) | | Impregnate | Soaked to make it smoother and tougher | Hot oil (Mitsubishi Pencil, Tombow); wax bath (STAEDTLER) | | Slat | Wood cut into thin boards | 185 × 70 × 5 mm (7.3 × 2.8 × 0.2 in), incense-cedar (Mitsubishi Pencil) | | Groove, glue, sandwich | Cores laid in glued grooves, second slat on top | 9 grooves (Mitsubishi Pencil, Tombow); 10 pencils per sandwich (Ticonderoga) | | Shape, cut | Top and bottom milled to shape, pencils separated | Hexagonal is the most common shape (Faber-Castell) | | Lacquer | Paint applied coat after coat | Usually 6–7 coats, over 10 on some pencils (Tombow) | | Finish | Ends trimmed, name stamped, ferrule and eraser glued | Ferrule and eraser glued on (Ticonderoga) | ## When did each step of pencil making start? **The modern pencil dates from 1795, when Conté patented a fired mix of graphite and clay, and most of the rest was in place by the early 1900s.** France's patent office, INPI, which keeps the original document, says Conté filed his patent for "crayons artificiels" on January 7, 1795, the 77th French patent since the 1791 patent law. | Date | Event | Source | |---|---|---| | 1564 | Pure lump graphite found at Borrowdale near Keswick, England | British Library | | 1760 | Kaspar Faber makes cores of graphite powder bound with sulfur | Mitsubishi Pencil | | January 7, 1795 | Conté files his patent for graphite-and-clay "artificial pencils" | INPI | | 1827 | Joseph Dixon founds the Dixon Crucible Company in Salem, Massachusetts | Ticonderoga | | 1832 | First Keswick pencil factory (Banks, Son and Co), now the Derwent Cumberland Pencil Company | British Library | | 1876 | Dixon adds erasers to its pencils | Ticonderoga | | 1905 | Faber-Castell launches the Castell 9000 | Faber-Castell | | By 1910 | Eagle Pencil's Hudson Lumber opens the first incense-cedar slat mill, San Leandro, California | Cal Cedar | | 1913 | Yellow No. 2 Ticonderoga introduced, with a brass ferrule | Ticonderoga | | 1917 | California Cedar Products Company founded | Cal Cedar | | 1960s | Faber-Castell introduces SV full-length core gluing | Faber-Castell | | 1993 | Faber-Castell introduces water-based lacquer | Faber-Castell | | April 2002 | Cal Cedar moves all slat production from Stockton to Tianjin, China | Cal Cedar | | February 2005 | F.I.L.A. completes its tender offer for Dixon Ticonderoga | SEC filing | | Fall 2010 | Cal Cedar reintroduces Blackwing | Cal Cedar | | 2019 | Cal Cedar shifts its focus from slats to Blackwing | Cal Cedar | ## What is a pencil core made of? **A pencil core is graphite and clay, with water to mix them, and contains no lead.** STAEDTLER's German site lists exactly those three ingredients: clay is the binder that gives the core its shape and strength, and graphite gives the silver-black line. Tombow's factory page says its graphite comes mainly from China and its clay from Europe. Mitsubishi Pencil mixes the two with water, crushes and kneads them, then presses the mass into a cylinder about 10.5 cm (4.1 in) across and 35 cm (13.8 in) long. That cylinder is forced through a die the thickness of a core and cut into soft rods of about 20 cm (7.9 in). The mix sets the grade. Mitsubishi Pencil and Faber-Castell both say more clay gives a harder core, and STAEDTLER adds that more graphite gives a softer, blacker one. ## How hot is a pencil core fired, and why is it oiled? **Mitsubishi Pencil fires its dried cores at 1,000–1,200 °C (1,830–2,190 °F); Tombow gives "over 1,000 °C".** Firing turns the clay into a ceramic skeleton that holds the graphite, which is the core of Conté's idea. The British Library's history of the pencil, by the Museum of Writing Research Collection's Alan E. Cole, puts Conté's original kiln at 1,900 °F (about 1,040 °C). A fired core writes harshly, so it is soaked next. Mitsubishi Pencil steeps its cores in hot oil and cools them slowly "to improve the glide", and Tombow dips them in oil for the same reason. STAEDTLER uses a wax bath, which it says makes the core firm and break-resistant. Colored pencils skip the kiln: Tombow says their pigment-and-wax cores are only dried, which is why they stay soft. ## Why is incense-cedar the standard pencil wood? **Incense-cedar machines, sharpens and takes lacquer well, and it replaced eastern red cedar when that wood ran short in the early 1900s.** California Cedar Products' company history says eastern red cedar from the southeastern US was the main American pencil wood until rising demand strained the supply. By 1910 Eagle Pencil's Hudson Lumber had opened the first incense-cedar slat mill in San Leandro, California, and Cal Cedar was founded in 1917. Mitsubishi Pencil says it mainly uses incense-cedar from California's Sierra Nevada, shipped to Japan as ready-cut slats. Cal Cedar treated its slats with a pressurized emulsion of wax and stain for even color and cleaner machining and sharpening, and sells them under FSC and PEFC certification. Not every maker uses cedar. Faber-Castell's US site says it planted about 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of former wasteland in Prata, Brazil, with Caribbean pine (*Pinus caribaea*), mainly to supply its São Carlos plant, which can make about two billion wood-cased pencils a year. Faber-Castell Brasil counts 4.5 million trees on the plantation today. ## How are the slats grooved, glued and shaped into hexagons? **Each slat gets parallel grooves, the cores are glued into them, a second slat closes the sandwich, and cutters shape and separate the pencils.** Mitsubishi Pencil's slats measure 185 × 70 × 5 mm and carry 9 grooves, and Tombow also cuts 9, so one pair of slats makes 9 pencils. Ticonderoga's own description says its sandwiches are trimmed, shaped and cut into 10 raw pencils. Mitsubishi Pencil mills the top face to the pencil shape, then the bottom face, which also cuts the pencils apart. Faber-Castell says the hexagon is today's most common shape for school and office pencils because it is easier to grip and doesn't roll off the desk. How the core is glued matters. Faber-Castell's FAQ says the two slat halves used to be glued only at points, so cores could slip; in the 1960s it patented a way of gluing the core along its whole length, the Securalverfahren, stamped "SV" on its pencils. Faber-Castell says this makes the core more break-resistant and easier to sharpen, a claim we haven't tested; our [Castell 9000 guide](https://stationerytimes.com/guides/faber-castell-9000/) covers the pencil it appears on. ## How are pencils lacquered, stamped and fitted with erasers? **The raw pencils are painted in many coats, stamped with the name and grade, trimmed and, for many writing pencils, fitted with a ferrule and eraser.** Tombow says it applies 6 to 7 coats as a rule and more than 10 on some pencils, which is how the deep gloss on the [Tombow MONO 100](https://stationerytimes.com/guides/tombow-mono-100/) is built up. Faber-Castell says all its European-made wood pencils have used water-based lacquer since it introduced the technology in 1993. Ticonderoga says its pencils get many coats of its own lacquer before the green ferrule and eraser are glued on and the name is imprinted. Dixon added erasers in 1876, and the [Ticonderoga #2](https://stationerytimes.com/guides/ticonderoga-2-pencil/) ferrule was brass in 1913, switched temporarily to green plastic under World War II metal rationing. Blackwing splits the work between two countries. Its "How Blackwings are made" page says the graphite is formulated and the wood is worked in Japan, with multiple layers of lacquer hand-applied, while final assembly and packing happen at its headquarters in California (Cal Cedar's address is Stockton). Its film shows each pencil being tipped, imprinted and hand-packed. The [Blackwing 602](https://stationerytimes.com/guides/blackwing-602/) is the best-known result. ## How are pencil grades like HB and 2B set? **Grades come from the graphite-to-clay ratio, and the letters are a convention rather than an international standard.** Faber-Castell's FAQ says H stands for hard, B for black and probably F for firm, and that hardness grades were never standardized internationally, so the exact grade depends on the maker. STAEDTLER sells wood pencils in 20 grades, from 9H to 9B, and our [Mars Lumograph guide](https://stationerytimes.com/guides/staedtler-mars-lumograph/) shows how its drawing range stretches further. Ticonderoga uses US numbers alongside the letters, from #1 (B, extra soft) to #4 (2H, extra hard). Our [pencil grades guide](https://stationerytimes.com/guides/pencil-grades-explained/) compares the scales maker by maker. ## Who makes Blackwing, and how is it related to Palomino? **Blackwing is the brand of California Cedar Products Company (Cal Cedar), a family-owned slat maker in Stockton, California.** Its company history says Charles Berolzheimer, from a family that founded a pencil factory in Fürth, Bavaria, in 1855, bought the company in 1927. The family is now in its third and fourth generations of ownership. Cal Cedar relaunched its Pencils.com store in 2008, and its history says that during this period its Palomino pencils gained a following among fans of the discontinued Blackwing 602. It then secured the Blackwing name and reintroduced the pencils in fall 2010. In 2019 it decided to move its focus away from slat-making to Blackwing, after moving all slat production from Stockton to its own plant in Tianjin, China, by April 2002. ## Who owns Dixon Ticonderoga? **Dixon Ticonderoga has belonged to Italy's F.I.L.A. (Fabbrica Italiana Lapis ed Affini) since February 2005.** F.I.L.A.'s press release of February 8, 2005, filed with the SEC, says its subsidiary's cash tender offer of US$7.00 a share closed on February 7 with about 93.5% of Dixon's shares tendered, to be followed by a merger. F.I.L.A., founded in Florence on June 23, 1920, lists the purchase in its own history. Ticonderoga traces its roots to Joseph Dixon's crucible company of 1827, says it was making 86,000 pencils a day by 1872, and now sells over 700 million pencils a year from its headquarters in Appleton, Wisconsin, where it moved in 2019. ## Are any of these facts disputed? **Three details differ between sources.** Faber-Castell measures its Prata forest as about 10,000 hectares on its US page and as about 11,000 football fields on its Brazilian page, so treat the area as approximate. Faber-Castell's product pages call SV "Spezialverleimung" (special gluing), while its FAQ calls it "Securalverfahren". Our Blackwing 602 guide dates the current 602 to 2011, while Cal Cedar's history dates the brand's return to fall 2010; both may be right, since the brand and the 602 model aren't the same thing. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is there lead in a pencil? No. STAEDTLER's German site points out that a pencil core contains no lead at all: it is graphite, clay and water. The name survives from the lead styluses used before graphite. ### How hot is a pencil core fired? Mitsubishi Pencil fires its cores at 1,000–1,200 °C, and Tombow says above 1,000 °C. The British Library's history of the pencil gives 1,900 °F (about 1,040 °C) for Conté's original 1795 process. ### Why are pencil cores soaked in oil or wax? The fired core is hard but scratchy, so makers soak it to make it smoother and tougher. Mitsubishi Pencil and Tombow soak cores in hot oil; STAEDTLER uses a wax bath and says it makes the core firm and break-resistant. ### What wood are pencils made of? Mostly incense-cedar from California and Oregon, which Mitsubishi Pencil, Tombow and Blackwing name. Faber-Castell grows Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea) on its own plantation in Prata, Brazil, for its São Carlos plant. ### How many pencils come from one slat? Mitsubishi Pencil and Tombow cut 9 grooves into each slat, so a glued pair makes 9 pencils. Ticonderoga says each of its sandwiches gives 10 raw pencils. ### Who makes Blackwing pencils? Blackwing is the brand of California Cedar Products Company (Cal Cedar) of Stockton, California, which secured the name and reintroduced the pencils in fall 2010. Blackwing says the graphite and woodworking are done in Japan and final assembly and packing at its California headquarters. ### Who owns Ticonderoga pencils? The Dixon Ticonderoga Company, which has belonged to Italy's F.I.L.A. (Fabbrica Italiana Lapis ed Affini) since February 2005. F.I.L.A. announced the completed cash tender offer, at US$7.00 a share, on February 8, 2005. ### What does SV mean on a Faber-Castell pencil? It stands for Securalverfahren, a patented process Faber-Castell introduced in the 1960s to glue the core to the wood along its whole length. Faber-Castell says it makes the core more break-resistant and easier to sharpen. ## Sources - [Mitsubishi Pencil: えんぴつができるまで (How a pencil is made: Ø10.5 × 35 cm cylinder, ~20 cm cores, 1,000–1,200 °C firing, hot oil, incense-cedar from the Sierra Nevada, 185 × 70 × 5 mm slat with 9 grooves)](https://www.mpuni.co.jp/special/tour/pencil.html) - [Mitsubishi Pencil FAQ: 鉛筆はいつ誕生したのか (When was the pencil born: Borrowdale 1560s, Kaspar Faber 1760, Conté 1795)](https://www.mpuni.co.jp/customer/pencil/qa_14.html) - [Tombow KIDS: えんぴつ工場 (Pencil factory: graphite from China, clay from Europe, over 1,000 °C, oil soak, 9 grooves, 6–7 coats, 10+ on some)](https://www.tombow.com/sp/kids/pencil/factory.html) - [STAEDTLER (Germany): Bleistifte und Zubehör (How is a pencil made: graphite, clay, water; kiln firing; wax bath; 20 grades 9H–9B)](https://www.staedtler.com/de/de/produkte/bleistifte-und-zubehoer.html) - [Faber-Castell (Germany): FAQ Stifte (SV = Securalverfahren, 1960s; water-based lacquer from 1993; grades not internationally standardized; hexagonal shape)](https://www.faber-castell.de/service/frequently-asked-questions/faq-pens-and-pencils) - [Faber-Castell: Sustainable forestry project in Latin America (Prata, about 10,000 ha of Pinus caribaea; São Carlos plant, about 2 billion pencils a year)](https://fabercastell.com/pages/sustainable-forestry-project-in-latin-america) - [Faber-Castell Brasil: A floresta da Faber-Castell (4.5 million trees, over 15 million planted in 3 decades, up to 2 billion EcoLápis a year)](https://www.faber-castell.com.br/nossa-floresta) - [Faber-Castell (Germany): Castell 9000 Bleistift HB (1905 launch, 16 grades, Spezialverleimung SV)](https://www.faber-castell.de/produkte/Castell9000BleistiftHB/119000) - [California Cedar Products Company: Company History (founded 1917; Berolzheimer purchase 1927; slat production moved to Tianjin by April 2002; Blackwing revived fall 2010; focus on Blackwing from 2019)](https://calcedar.com/company-history/) - [California Cedar Products Company: About Us (Blackwing: California incense-cedar and Japanese graphite)](https://calcedar.com/about-us) - [California Cedar Products Company: California Incense-cedar (Genuine Incense-cedar slats, FSC and PEFC certified)](https://calcedar.com/california-incense-cedar/) - [Blackwing: How Blackwing pencils are made (graphite and woodworking in Japan, multiple hand-applied lacquer layers, final assembly in Stockton)](https://blackwing602.com/pages/how-its-made) - [Ticonderoga: About (how a Ticonderoga pencil is made: slats, glued cores, sandwich, 10 raw pencils, lacquer, ferrule and eraser)](https://weareticonderoga.com/about) - [Ticonderoga: Tracing Our Roots (Dixon Crucible Company 1827; 86,000 pencils a day by 1872; erasers 1876; Ticonderoga 1913; F.I.L.A. 2005; 700 million pencils a year)](https://weareticonderoga.com/history) - [Ticonderoga: Pencils (#1 B Extra Soft to #4 2H Extra Hard)](https://weareticonderoga.com/products/pencils) - [SEC: F.I.L.A. press release, February 8, 2005 (cash tender offer for Dixon Ticonderoga completed, US$7.00 a share, about 93.5% tendered)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000014995/000095012305001314/y05536exv99waw5wb.txt) - [F.I.L.A. Group: La nostra storia (Our history: founded in Florence June 23, 1920; Dixon Ticonderoga acquired 2005)](https://www.filagroup.it/il-gruppo/la-nostra-storia/) - [INPI (French patent office): L'histoire du crayon Conté (patent for crayons artificiels filed January 7, 1795; graphite and clay fired; cedar or juniper case)](https://www.inpi.fr/l-heure-de-la-rentree-decouvrez-l-histoire-du-crayon-conte) - [British Library: The history of the pencil, by Alan E. Cole, Museum of Writing Research Collection (Conté 1795, kiln at 1,900 °F; Borrowdale 1564; Keswick factory 1832)](https://www.bl.uk/stories/blogs/posts/the-history-of-the-pencil)