---
title: "What is a Pencil made of?"
description: "Graphite mixed with clay and fired, glued inside two grooved halves of softwood. No lead, ever. Every component, the material it uses, and the constraint that made t"
url: https://atoneplace.net/made-of/pencil/
site: "At One Place"
---

# What is a Pencil made of?

**What is a Pencil made of?: Graphite mixed with clay and fired, glued inside two grooved halves of softwood. No lead, ever.**

There has never been lead in a pencil. The Borrowdale graphite deposit found in sixteenth-century England was assumed to be a lead ore and called plumbago, "lead ore", and the name stuck through four centuries and several languages. The clay-and-graphite recipe that made cheap pencils possible was worked out by Nicolas-Jacques Conté in 1795, during a French wartime blockade of English graphite, and the ratio he invented still defines the grading scale: more clay gives a harder, fainter H grade, more graphite a softer, blacker B. HB sits in the middle, and the American #2 pencil is roughly the same thing.

## Component by component

*Every material is a choice, and the third column is the constraint that drove it.*

| Part | Material | Why that material |
| --- | --- | --- |
| core | graphite powder blended with clay, extruded and fired at around 1000 °C | Graphite alone is too soft and crumbly to write with; the clay is a binder whose proportion sets the hardness grade. |
| core treatment | wax or oil soaked into the fired core | It lubricates the mark so the core glides rather than scratches, and stops the graphite dusting off the page. |
| casing | incense cedar, basswood or poplar, in two grooved slats glued around the core | These woods sharpen cleanly across the grain without splintering, which almost no cheaper timber does. |
| ferrule | aluminium or brass tube, crimped | A soft metal can be crimped tight onto both wood and rubber without cracking either. |
| eraser | synthetic rubber or plasticised vinyl with abrasive filler | Factory-fitted erasers are made hard so they survive years in a pencil case, which is why they smudge more than a standalone eraser. |

## Other stationery and paper objects

- [Paper](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/paper/) — Cellulose fibres from wood pulp, plus up to a third mineral filler, sizing and brightener.
- [Ballpoint pen](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/ballpoint-pen/) — A tungsten carbide ball a millimetre across, rolling in a brass socket, fed by thick oil-based ink.
- [Glitter](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/glitter/) — Aluminium-coated polyester film, colour-coated and chopped into fragments — by definition a microplastic.
- [Crayon](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/crayon/) — Paraffin wax with pigment stirred in, poured hot into a mould and cooled. Almost nothing else.
- [Cardboard](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/cardboard/) — Two flat kraft paper liners glued either side of a fluted paper medium — the flutes do all the work.
- [Eraser](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/eraser/) — Either natural rubber with fine abrasive and oil, or plasticised PVC — two different ways of lifting graphite.
- [Blackboard chalk](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/chalk/) — Mostly calcium sulfate — plaster of Paris — rather than the calcium carbonate the name suggests.
- [Playing card](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/playing-card/) — Two sheets of paper laminated around a black glue core, then coated in plastic — or solid PVC.
- [Postage stamp](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/postage-stamp/) — Coated paper with phosphor bands, printed in security inks, on either water-activated gum or a self-adhesive.

## Common questions

### What is a Pencil made of?

Graphite mixed with clay and fired, glued inside two grooved halves of softwood. No lead, ever.

### What is the core of a Pencil made of?

Graphite powder blended with clay, extruded and fired at around 1000 °C. Graphite alone is too soft and crumbly to write with; the clay is a binder whose proportion sets the hardness grade.

### What is the core treatment of a Pencil made of?

Wax or oil soaked into the fired core. It lubricates the mark so the core glides rather than scratches, and stops the graphite dusting off the page.

## Related pages

- [Paper](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/paper/)
- [Ballpoint pen](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/ballpoint-pen/)
- [Glitter](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/glitter/)
- [Crayon](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/crayon/)
- [Cardboard](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/cardboard/)
- [Eraser](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/eraser/)
- [Blackboard chalk](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/chalk/)
- [Playing card](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/playing-card/)
- [Tennis ball](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/tennis-ball/)
- [Banknote](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/banknote/)
- [Golf ball](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/golf-ball/)
- [Glass](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/glass/)
- [Soccer ball](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/soccer-ball/)
- [Marshmallow](https://atoneplace.net/made-of/marshmallow/)

## Sources

- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)