The Invention of the Pencil ✏️

Morning lead head!

1) pencils don’t actually have lead in them.

2) This is how you sharpened a pencil in 1890:

I know!!

Better than one of these pieces of crap, lemme tell ya:

Say, how was the pencil even invented??

Basically, it was the mid-1500s.

England.

Ya, these clowns had discovered graphite.

A form of carbon that easily left black marks on things.

But, there’s a problem!

See, when you wrote with a graphite stick, the stuff got ALL over your hands.

It was a total mess.

So these renaissance humans started wrapping their sticks in cloth and twigs.

(they also used that piece of bread as an eraser 😂).

But eventually this french dude, Nicolas Conte started mixing water, clay, and graphite to control the weight of the graphite’s stroke.

That’s the HB (meaning Hard Black) you’ve probably seen on your own pencils.

When he did this, he also started encasing his graphite mix in wood slats to keep your hands clean!

Stay Cute,
Henry & Dylan 🌈

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