1760, the Faber family business in Nuremberg, Germany, had a business. Pencils were made of ground graphite at that time, but the business was not very successful. 1795, a man named Conte mixed graphite and clay, ground them into sticks, and then put them in a kiln to make pencils. The current pencil manufacturing is based on this method.
The pencil you are using now does not contain lead, but it contains a mineral called graphite. Like lead, graphite leaves a black line when it passes through paper, so graphite is also called black lead.
At present, the procedure of making pencils is generally like this: first, dry graphite powder and clay are mixed with water, so that the refill will be hard if there is more clay, and soft if there is more graphite. After being made into paste, it is pressed into a molding machine to make a smooth string shape, then it is put straight, cut into equal-length strips, dried and baked in a large furnace. At the same time, a wooden hollow rod of a pencil is prepared, the penholder is made of Chinese fir or pine, the penholder is made into two halves, and a groove is left in the middle to hold the refill; the prepared refill is inserted into the groove, the two halves of the penholder are glued together, then sawed into a pencil, and finally the surface of the penholder is ground flat by a molding machine.