PENCILS

how are pencils made?

Pencils are made of a mixture of powdered natural graphite and clay baked in specific temperatures.

Varieties of pencils

Lead pencils are made of graphite refill encapsulated inside a wooden wrapper of cedar.

Mechanical pencils have thicker graphite cartridges

Hardness

The amount of clay will determine the hardness of the lead. The pencil can be classified in two groups according to their hardness:

Hard pencils: With dry, tenacious , grayish and somewhat narrower refills.
Soft pencils: with oily, fragile, dark and thicker refills.

Within these two classifications there is a wide range of options to meet various needs, ranging from the superhard pencil to the supersoft one . To be able to differentiate them, besides testing them on paper and seeing the marks they make, we can look at the numbers and letters on the outside of the pencil..

Hard pencils have the letter H (hard, hard in English) or high numbers: 3,4,5,6...
Soft pencils, on the contrary, are identified by the letter B (bold, marked in English) or low numbers 0,1...

We can also find those that mix numbers and letters to differentiate the diverse hardness:

Hard pencils are defined by the letter H continued by a number (when higher, harder): 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H...
Soft pencils are defined by the letter B continued by a number (when higher, softer):2B, 3B, 4B, 5B...

EXERCISES

1. Write these grades of pencil in order from softest to hardest: H, 3B, 5H, HB, 6B, 3H

2. Copy and complete:

a. Drawing pencils can be classified into two types:........................ and ........................
b. In technical drawing, we use pencils  which are harder than ........................... grade.
c. The hardest pencil is ...................... and the softest.............................
d. Hard pencils are identified by the letter ........................ They enable you to draw........................... and are used for..............................
e. Soft pencils are identified by the letter .............. The lines that they draw are.................. and they are used for........................

3. Choose the correct option:

a. A3 format paper is bigger/smaller than A5.
b. The format number of the paper size is higher/lower, if the paper is smaller.

4. Say true or false and correct.

a. A1 format is the biggest format of the DIN A series.
b. A5 format is bigger than the A4 format.
c. A3 format is half size of the A4 format.
d. A1 format is twice as big as the A2 format.