1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:06,760 Forget the digital wizardry of the keyboard and the tablet - 2 00:00:06,760 --> 00:00:09,960 you can't beat the simplicity of the pencil. 3 00:00:11,360 --> 00:00:14,120 Which explains why we still buy 4 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:17,360 more than 180 million of them every year. 5 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:22,680 Not bad for a 400-year-old invention. Mm. 6 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:28,160 We've come to Germany to find out how they're made. 7 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:32,960 To the factory of the oldest pencil manufacturer in the world. 8 00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:35,320 MUSIC: Ride Of The Valkyries by Richard Wagner 9 00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:46,640 Whether you sharpen yours to the finest of points or chew the end, 10 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:49,560 we've all grown up with this classic writing instrument. 11 00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:52,400 HE LAUGHS 12 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:53,680 I'm Gregg Wallace. 13 00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:55,600 Oh! I feel like Uri Geller. 14 00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:58,200 And the sharp end of German engineering... 15 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:01,960 Those pencils are almost falling over those blades. 16 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:06,440 ..is rewriting everything I thought I knew about pencil production. 17 00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:10,920 I'm beginning to understand there is a bottom and a top. 18 00:01:10,920 --> 00:01:12,400 I'm Cherry Healey. 19 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:14,600 Wow! Oh, my goodness. 20 00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:16,360 That's so bright. 21 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:19,280 I'm taking a close up-look at the mind-blowing mineral 22 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:22,000 at the heart of every pencil... 23 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:24,280 It looks like shards of glass. 24 00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:25,720 OK. Is that good jug? 25 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:28,640 ..and creating my own colourful crayons. 26 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:30,040 Argh! 27 00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:31,240 You're kidding me. 28 00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:36,160 And historian Ruth Goodman sketches out the surprising origins 29 00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:37,800 of this simple tool. 30 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:40,880 Write with a rock. Yes! SHE LAUGHS 31 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:42,360 That's amazing, isn't it? 32 00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:51,840 Over the next 24 hours, this factory will produce 600,000 pencils. 33 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:54,040 And this is a fascinating story 34 00:01:54,040 --> 00:01:57,440 of how they get the lead into every single one. 35 00:01:57,440 --> 00:01:59,760 Welcome to Inside The Factory. 36 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:24,640 This is the Faber-Castell factory near Nuremberg in Germany. 37 00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:27,480 Pencils have been rolling off the production line here 38 00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:29,640 for more than 250 years. 39 00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:36,200 This old factory is unlike any I've visited before. 40 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:39,960 And, for once, I get a break from my usual hairnet. 41 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:44,160 It's packed with bespoke machines that craft premium pencils 42 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:47,480 in all colours, shapes and sizes. 43 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:52,440 But today we follow the production of their classic green HB pencil. 44 00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:57,240 The factory straddles the River Rednitz, 45 00:02:57,240 --> 00:02:59,520 in the South German town of Stein. 46 00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:02,160 The raw materials arrive 47 00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:04,960 on an 18th-century street in the bustling town, 48 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:07,920 and the company's newest recruit, Lukas Tartler, 49 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:10,400 is here to meet today's delivery. 50 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:14,400 Lukas? Hi. Gregg. I've come to find out about pencil-making. 51 00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:17,200 This is the place to come. This is where we make pencils. 52 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:21,480 What's on that lorry? 53 00:03:21,480 --> 00:03:25,480 On here we have the graphite, in bags, that go into our pencil lead. 54 00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:27,800 And then do you add lead to the graphite? 55 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:32,360 We don't. There has never been metal lead in the pencil lead. 56 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:34,120 Listen here, my friend. 57 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:37,920 We know for a fact that pencils are made out of lead! 58 00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:39,480 No? No. 59 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:42,840 Has been graphite since pencil-making started. 60 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:44,640 OK. I'll trust you. 61 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:48,880 20 bags of graphite powder are taken through 62 00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:51,560 this historic factory intake area. 63 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:54,320 How many pencils would you make out of that graphite? 64 00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:56,880 Over a million, just with this one delivery. 65 00:03:56,880 --> 00:03:59,200 Over a million pencils? Over a million pencils. 66 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:01,280 From that graphite? From that graphite. 67 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:04,840 The powder is walked 50 metres 68 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:07,480 through to the measuring room for weighing. 69 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,960 And, as the first bag is slashed open, 70 00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:20,400 our pencil production begins. 71 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:23,400 This is the graphite, right? 72 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:25,280 Um, part of it is. 73 00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:26,840 Bottom half - that's the graphite. 74 00:04:26,840 --> 00:04:28,720 But we also need clay for HB pencils, 75 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:30,320 and this is what we have here as well. 76 00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:34,840 Clay? Clay. Because the graphite is giving the pencil its colour, 77 00:04:34,840 --> 00:04:37,240 and the clay is giving the pencil its structure. 78 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:39,160 So we want clay there as well. 79 00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:42,040 Lukas, what exactly is graphite, please? 80 00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:44,520 Um, graphite is basically carbon. 81 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:47,480 So if you have charcoal when barbecuing at home, 82 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:51,240 that's basically the same thing in a different molecular structure. 83 00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:52,960 This good-looking gentleman over here, 84 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:56,200 with the shaved head and the glasses, what's he doing? 85 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:00,200 He is mixing the graphite and the clay in the proper ratio 86 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:02,160 to get the pencil which we want. 87 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:07,240 They make 16 different grades of pencil 88 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:09,480 leads here, from soft and dark... 89 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:13,000 ..to hard and light... 90 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:17,360 ..depending on the ratio of graphite to clay. 91 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:21,400 With more clay you'd be moving more towards the 6H, 92 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,040 H standing for hard in that case. 93 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:27,760 H means hard? H means hard. What does B mean? Black. 94 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:32,040 It means black. Really? Because the pencil writes blacker. 95 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:34,320 HB, B means black, H means hard? 96 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:38,000 Exactly. I've seen those letters on a pencil all my life 97 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:40,160 For ages. And never knew! OK. 98 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:46,160 We need a 50-50 mix of clay and graphite for our batch 99 00:05:46,160 --> 00:05:47,640 of hard black pencils. 100 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:51,760 We follow it into mixing, where the machines look familiar... 101 00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,040 ..even if the messy materials don't. 102 00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:04,040 So what is that? 103 00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:07,920 I'm guessing some sort of mixer? Huge kitchen aid in which we start 104 00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:11,800 putting together the graphite and the clay, adding some water. 105 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:16,440 And this is where we compose the mixture making up the pencil lead. 106 00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:19,520 Is he just going to hose it in? Pretty much, yeah. 107 00:06:20,840 --> 00:06:22,120 How... 108 00:06:26,280 --> 00:06:27,560 Very good. 109 00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:30,840 So is that going to deliver just the exact amount of water? Yes, it is. 110 00:06:30,840 --> 00:06:33,720 We're not working with guesstimates here, we're working precise. 111 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:38,600 That looks like volcanic, ash that looks like a volcano about to erupt. 112 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:44,920 You've got about 250 kilos of mixture. 113 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:47,800 How many pencils is that going to make? 114 00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:53,080 250 kilos will make about 200,000 different pencils. 115 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,560 The massive mixer has an equally heavyweight lid to seal 116 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:01,320 in the powder and water. 117 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:04,760 It'll take two hours of heating and stirring to combine them. 118 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:11,000 This traditional method dates back around 200 years, but pencils 119 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:12,960 themselves go back a little further. 120 00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:17,440 Ruth sketches out the story of their invention. 121 00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:28,640 Since the dawn of civilisation, humans have been making marks 122 00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:30,720 with all kinds of instruments. 123 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:35,800 But the pencil is relatively recent and it began here 124 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:37,560 in the Lake District. 125 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:43,960 I'm in the Borrowdale Valley to meet author and stationary fan James Ward. 126 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:48,560 What a wonderful place you've chosen! 127 00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:50,720 The story begins in the 16th century, 128 00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:54,400 in a field round here where monks were looking after some sheep. 129 00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:56,920 At some point, there was a big storm, 130 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:00,720 and it knocked down one of these trees. Underneath it, 131 00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:05,280 the monks discovered some strange material, and it was this stuff. 132 00:08:05,280 --> 00:08:07,200 Graphite. 133 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:10,200 Well, it does initially just look like a rock, doesn't it? 134 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:13,800 But there already something odd's happened with my hands. 135 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:16,240 Well, that's exactly what they realised as well. 136 00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:19,320 And maybe if you want to try... OK. 137 00:08:19,320 --> 00:08:20,960 ..make a mark on that paper. 138 00:08:20,960 --> 00:08:22,920 See if I can write with a rock. 139 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:25,760 Oh, I am. 140 00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:27,520 It does if you do it in the right... Yeah. 141 00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:29,760 That's amazing, isn't it? 142 00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:32,600 To be able to just pick a rock out of the ground and write with it. 143 00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:37,200 The monks had stumbled across a deposit of pure graphite, 144 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:39,960 which they misidentified as a type of lead, 145 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:42,080 a name that stuck. 146 00:08:42,080 --> 00:08:46,000 By carving the graphite into sticks and wrapping it in string, 147 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:48,280 it became a handy new tool. 148 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:49,760 The pencil. 149 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:51,320 It's a very simple... 150 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:55,400 ..and easy thing to use, isn't it? 151 00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:58,000 No fuss, no mess. 152 00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:02,960 The innovation took off and the nearby town of Keswick became 153 00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:05,120 world famous for its pencils, 154 00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:07,640 developing a valuable trade with Europe. 155 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:11,240 No-one else had graphite as pure as ours. 156 00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:14,640 So when we went to war with France in 1793, 157 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:17,760 its sale was strictly embargoed, which, surprisingly, 158 00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:20,440 was a bit of an annoyance to the French military. 159 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:24,680 Why were the French so worried about not having pencils? 160 00:09:24,680 --> 00:09:26,840 Well, if you think about it, if you're in a war 161 00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:29,840 you've got your maps, you're planning where your troops are. 162 00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,440 They're moving all around all the time but if you're doing that in pen, 163 00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:35,400 pretty soon the map would be unreadable, 164 00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:37,200 but with pencil you rub it out. Yeah. 165 00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:38,520 Oh, I see. 166 00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:41,760 The French didn't have much graphite, did they? 167 00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:45,360 Well, they did have some, but it wasn't of great quality or quantity. 168 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:47,400 That's where this guy comes in. 169 00:09:47,400 --> 00:09:50,000 Now he's an interesting looking chap. 170 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:51,760 Yeah. Nicolas-Jacques Conti. 171 00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:57,000 Nicolas-Jacque Conti was a talented artist and inventor. 172 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:04,720 He worked out that you didn't need sticks of pure Borrowdale graphite to make pencils. 173 00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:07,240 James and I are going to follow his method. 174 00:10:10,680 --> 00:10:15,280 So we've got kaolin, which is sort of fine powder. Yeah. 175 00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:19,680 Fuller's earth, which is also clay, and then graphite here on the end. 176 00:10:19,680 --> 00:10:21,760 I love the way this looks. 177 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:23,840 It's got a sort of shininess to it. 178 00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:26,160 So only 20g. 20. 179 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:31,440 Conti discovered that by mixing low quality powdery French graphite 180 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:34,920 with clay he could make a good pencil without relying 181 00:10:34,920 --> 00:10:37,400 on the treasured graphite from the Lake District. 182 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:41,000 OK. Make sure you don't lick the spoon. 183 00:10:42,280 --> 00:10:46,800 It's definitely got the colour of that that one associates with the lead of a pencil, hasn't it? 184 00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:48,240 I mean, it's not black. 185 00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:51,520 It's sort of... It's that sort of silver grey. Silver grey. 186 00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:54,160 But it's still got that sort of shine and shimmer 187 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:56,400 from the graphite as well. Yeah. 188 00:10:56,400 --> 00:11:00,680 We roll our graphite mix into pencil leads and then bake them in the oven 189 00:11:00,680 --> 00:11:02,640 at 230 degrees C. 190 00:11:04,920 --> 00:11:06,880 Who knew that's all you needed? 191 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:09,560 Think we should wash our hands. Think we should wash our hands. 192 00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:13,160 20 minutes later, they're ready. 193 00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:15,360 Shall we try it? 194 00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:19,080 Shall we have a go? Oh, look at that. 195 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:20,800 Yes. Well, it behaves like a pencil, 196 00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:22,760 I can hold it like a pencil. Does it write? 197 00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:25,880 It does! Look at that! 198 00:11:26,920 --> 00:11:30,360 Conte's methods were quickly adopted, the old technique 199 00:11:30,360 --> 00:11:33,520 of using solid graphite was consigned to history 200 00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:35,760 and the modern pencil was born. 201 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:38,720 This is a very long one. 202 00:11:39,800 --> 00:11:41,400 Wow. 203 00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:42,840 That's pretty good, isn't it? 204 00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:44,480 That is pretty cool. 205 00:11:44,480 --> 00:11:46,040 So simple! 206 00:11:55,720 --> 00:11:59,160 In Germany, I'm following Conti's method, 207 00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:05,320 making what we all wrongly call lead on a much larger scale in the mixing room. 208 00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:13,600 Our 250kg of graphite, clay and water mix has been heated 209 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:15,680 and stirred for two hours. 210 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:17,360 Whoa. 211 00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:21,760 I never expected that, that looks to me like a lunar landscape. 212 00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:24,400 That's soft. 213 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:27,080 They look like pebbles, but they're quite soft. 214 00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:28,560 Quite remarkable. 215 00:12:28,560 --> 00:12:32,480 I've still got no idea how you get that into a pencil. 216 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:40,280 To find out how they turn these metallic space rocks 217 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:42,080 into thin pencil leads, 218 00:12:42,080 --> 00:12:44,960 I'm following them through to the extrusion room, 219 00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:47,920 where they're shovelled into a giant steel press. 220 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:54,840 That seems like a very big machine to make a little pencil. 221 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:56,800 It looks like an enormous piston. 222 00:12:56,800 --> 00:12:58,760 Like in a car engine. Yes. 223 00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:01,400 Is that what it's doing? Pushing it through? 224 00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:04,000 It really is pushing the mixture through the dye, 225 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:05,840 into the shape of the pencil lead. 226 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:12,000 A metre-long piston squeezes the soft graphite and clay mix 227 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:16,080 through a single two millimetre hole, spurting it out like spaghetti, 228 00:13:16,080 --> 00:13:19,560 then cutting it every 18.5 centimetres. 229 00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:24,120 Tonnes of machinery and an enormous great piston, 230 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:28,880 just to squeeze these tiny thin little tubes out of little holes. 231 00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:33,680 Yeah. It seems a big, oversized job for a result that's so tiny. 232 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:38,880 And that is now the inside of a pencil, right? 233 00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:41,320 That is the inside of the pencil. That's the lead. 234 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:44,000 Can I pick one up? Sure, go ahead. 235 00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:48,120 Oh, it's soft. 236 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:53,040 Ha-ha-ha-ha! 237 00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:55,200 Oh! 238 00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:56,400 I feel like Uri Geller. 239 00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:58,200 I didn't expect that. 240 00:13:58,200 --> 00:13:59,840 Why is it so soft? 241 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:02,760 Because there's still water in there. What we've put in earlier. 242 00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:05,880 Can I stay here and play for a little while? Afraid not. 243 00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:08,560 We've got to make pencils! Good? 244 00:14:08,560 --> 00:14:11,600 So what's the next step? You grab one of those. 245 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:15,640 Put the leads inside and put it into the dryer. 246 00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:19,760 We've made enough leads for 200,000 HBs, 247 00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:23,080 but nobody wants a bendy pencil. 248 00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:27,880 So we're carefully loading our soft strands into perforated drying tins. 249 00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:29,320 Good. 250 00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:31,200 OK. 251 00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:34,880 About 300 leads go into each one, leaving plenty of room 252 00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:36,320 for air to circulate. 253 00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:39,560 So this dryer here, that is just to get rid of the water content? 254 00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:41,400 That's just to get rid of the water. 255 00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:43,640 How long? About two and a half hours. 256 00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:44,920 Zweieinhalb stunden! 257 00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:51,280 They're dried gently at around 100 degrees Celsius. 258 00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:58,120 The water needs to come out, because next they're going 259 00:14:58,120 --> 00:14:59,680 into a blast furnace. 260 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:03,000 And if there's moisture in the pencil leads, they could explode. 261 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:10,280 The temperature in here is over 1,000 degrees C, that's 262 00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:12,840 close to the melting point of gold. 263 00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:15,640 Now you're cooking! Cooking on gas! 264 00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:16,960 Cooking with gas. 265 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:20,440 They're baked for three hours, which strengthens the clay inside. 266 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:25,640 Then they're cooled, and I'm expecting that after 267 00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:28,480 all that mixing, drying and baking, 268 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,840 our leads must be ready to go into pencils. 269 00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:33,800 But apparently not. 270 00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:35,960 Take one of these, for instance. 271 00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:37,200 Yeah, that's perfect. 272 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:41,440 That's the pencil lead from the kiln that we've just fired and we now 273 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:44,880 have tiny pockets of air in this piece of pencil lead. 274 00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:47,240 That intense heat has a side effect, 275 00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:50,400 creating microscopic holes in the pencil leads, 276 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:52,280 giving them a rough texture. 277 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:56,280 And if you were to write with this specific piece, 278 00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:59,080 it would scratch destroy the paper, not be a lot of fun. 279 00:15:59,080 --> 00:16:03,360 Fortunately, they've got a solution to this problem. 280 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:06,400 We have liquid hot wax to go into the pencil lead, 281 00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:09,360 and we fill those tiny pockets of air with wax. 282 00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:11,640 What? Wax. 283 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:13,200 All right. 284 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:14,840 It does sound a little bit odd. 285 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:18,040 So, ready when you are, feel free to drop the leads into the wax. 286 00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:20,400 OK. Thank you very much. 287 00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:21,720 I feel honoured. 288 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:31,560 Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. 289 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:38,920 The wax fills the tiny air holes, helping the leads to write smoothly. 290 00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:43,800 I would never have imagined a bath full of hot wax. 291 00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:46,240 In a pencil factory. 292 00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:48,200 Anywhere, to be honest. 293 00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:51,280 It looks like an enormous chip pan. 294 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:53,840 Pretty much, we're just missing the cod. 295 00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:55,680 You have fish and chips over here? 296 00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:59,080 I'm afraid not as good as your English fish and chips are. 297 00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:01,200 Now the lead is deep-fried, 298 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:05,640 or rather hot waxed, to thoroughly fill every jagged edge. 299 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:11,480 Every element going into these delicate sticks is vital, 300 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:13,560 but there's only one real star. 301 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:16,520 You can't make a pencil without graphite. 302 00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:20,800 But as Cherry is discovering, this mineral has made its mark 303 00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:22,440 in more ways than one. 304 00:17:24,320 --> 00:17:28,880 I've come to the University of Manchester, where Dr Sarah Haigh 305 00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:32,600 is studying the magic material inside every pencil. 306 00:17:34,680 --> 00:17:37,080 Wow, what is this place? 307 00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:39,800 Welcome to one of our scanning electron microscopy labs. 308 00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:44,080 We're using Sarah's electron microscope to take an extremely 309 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:48,040 close look at a pencil lead to understand how it works. 310 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:54,200 That is absolutely mind-blowing. 311 00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,640 It looks nothing like I thought it would look, so to see it like that, 312 00:17:57,640 --> 00:17:59,320 it kind of looks like a mountain range. 313 00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:02,240 Shall we zoom in so we can see the graphite? Definitely. 314 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:07,360 Look at that, it's absolutely incredible. 315 00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:10,960 It looks like shards of glass. 316 00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:14,720 So at this resolution we can see the individual pieces of graphite. 317 00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:17,880 So these individual shards are what break off and slide 318 00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:21,520 onto the paper creating the pencil mark? 319 00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:22,600 Yes. 320 00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:26,680 Next, we analyse how this graphite sticks to paper. 321 00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:30,280 So what we're looking at on the screen now is a pencil trace 322 00:18:30,280 --> 00:18:31,840 across a piece of paper. 323 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:35,600 The roughness of the paper has almost captured some of the graphite. 324 00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:39,240 Yeah, so the pieces of graphite would be transferred onto the paper. 325 00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:42,560 We zoom in now, we can see the individual pieces 326 00:18:42,560 --> 00:18:44,720 of graphite. Oh, my goodness me. 327 00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:47,560 That's absolutely amazing. 328 00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:53,720 But making marks on paper is only one of graphite's special powers. 329 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:56,040 So we're going to make the electricity 330 00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:58,400 pass between these two graphite rods. 331 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:00,760 So those are two tiny sticks of graphite. 332 00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:02,880 Yes, there's what you get inside a pencil. 333 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:05,680 And now you're passing electricity through them. That's right. 334 00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:07,400 And then we bring them close together. 335 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,280 Wow. 336 00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:10,960 Oh, my goodness. 337 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:12,520 That's so bright. 338 00:19:12,520 --> 00:19:15,600 So the current that we're seeing is like lightning, the graphite 339 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,240 that we use here, because it's a fantastic electrical 340 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:21,520 conductivity, is used in all kinds of applications like batteries. 341 00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:27,200 If you have a smartphone, a laptop or a hybrid car its lithium ion 342 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,920 battery probably relies on graphite. 343 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:31,160 That's absolutely amazing. 344 00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:33,760 That's just the same graphite is you'd find inside a pencil. 345 00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:35,080 Yeah, absolutely. 346 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:38,760 And that's not all. 347 00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:44,880 This is just an ordinary pencil and we've sharpened it at both ends. 348 00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:49,520 You can see that it's heating up, because the pencil wood has a much 349 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:53,200 lower temperature that it will survive than the graphite. 350 00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:56,320 That was amazing. 351 00:19:56,320 --> 00:20:00,320 The wood completely gone, incinerated. 352 00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:01,680 And yet the graphite is intact. 353 00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:04,440 The graphite can withstand a huge amount of heat. 354 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:09,360 Graphite is heat resistant to over 3,000 degrees Celsius, 355 00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:13,720 which is why it's used to contain the molten metal in steel mills. 356 00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:20,160 So it's really impressive stuff. 357 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:23,880 Yes, graphite conducts electricity fantastically well. 358 00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:28,880 It's a really good conductor of heat. And it's great for pencils. 359 00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:30,080 Absolutely. 360 00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:31,480 It's amazing stuff. 361 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:36,120 Impressive though this is, the future uses of graphite 362 00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:38,000 could be even more exciting. 363 00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:42,960 Only recently, it's been discovered that if you take one layer of 364 00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:44,840 carbon atoms away from graphite, 365 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:48,320 what you have is a different material, it's called graphene. 366 00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:50,600 So you've discovered a new material. Yes. 367 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,800 And the new material has even more exciting properties. 368 00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:58,200 Because graphene is just one carbon atom thick, 369 00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:00,640 it's nearly invisible. 370 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:04,280 So where is the graphene on this tennis racket? 371 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:08,240 The graphene is combined together with a plastic. 372 00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:12,440 And that combined graphene plus plastic is really strong, 373 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:13,800 but also really stiff. 374 00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:17,000 And that means that the tennis racket responds really well 375 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:18,240 when the player hits the ball. 376 00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:20,800 And it's not just for tennis racket frames. 377 00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:24,680 What's this? Don't tell me it can be used in phones? 378 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:28,040 So, at the moment, the screen of your phone is quite brittle. 379 00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:30,040 I don't know if you've dropped your phone. 380 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:32,480 No! I've got two children. It is never not smashed. 381 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:35,800 So, graphene we know is almost completely invisible 382 00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:38,480 but also fantastically conductive. 383 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,120 So that's got graphene in it? 384 00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:42,800 Yes, that's got a layer of graphene on it. 385 00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:45,880 And we could use that to replace the brittle material 386 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:47,480 that is in your phone at the moment. 387 00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:50,080 But it would still have the touch-screen capacity 388 00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:53,080 and it would do everything that my phone currently does? 389 00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:55,600 Better than that, you could even have the potential 390 00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:58,360 to be able to fold your phone up and put it in your pocket. 391 00:21:58,360 --> 00:21:59,880 Mind blown. 392 00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:01,560 You could fold your phone. 393 00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:05,320 So from something as humble as a pencil, you've developed 394 00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,120 something that is almost science fiction. 395 00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:11,440 Yeah, we really have a next generation material. 396 00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:17,600 I had no idea that the stuff inside my pencil was so clever. 397 00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:23,600 It's astonishing that such an analogue device holds the power to transform 398 00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:25,440 so much digital technology. 399 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:28,000 Just amazing. 400 00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:38,120 At the pencil factory, the lead spindles that will go 401 00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:43,320 into our classic HBs have had a nice bath to rinse off the wax. 402 00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:47,760 Ten hours and 23 minutes in, they're wrapped in paper and sent 403 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:51,640 across the river to the larger woodwork factory. 404 00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:57,680 The raw pencil room is their first stop, where I'm meeting engineer Ziggy. 405 00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:01,040 Ziggy? Gregg. Hello. 406 00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:02,960 Nice to meet you. Good to meet you. 407 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,480 I've got my lead. This, I take it, is the wood? 408 00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:10,400 What wood do you use? Well, you can use different kinds of wood. 409 00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:12,560 This, for example, is Linden wood. 410 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:14,800 More important are the properties of the wood. 411 00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,160 They have to be very finely structured. 412 00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:20,360 So when you sharpen the pencil, sort of a flake should come off 413 00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:22,400 instead of pieces breaking out. 414 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:26,640 And it should be stable in form, so when the pencil is lying in the sun 415 00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:28,360 it should not bend like a banana. 416 00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:34,320 Ziggy's wood comes from sustainable straight grain trees 417 00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:36,200 like Linden and Cedar. 418 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:40,560 The blocks arrive pre-cut in eight by 18 centimetre slats. 419 00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:46,440 The trees grow over the road and they were cut into slats 420 00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,760 of the length of a pencil and half the thickness of a pencil. 421 00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:51,560 I understand the wood for the pencil. 422 00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:55,240 I've just got no idea how THAT becomes a pencil. 423 00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,640 Well, I can show you in the next room. Please. 424 00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,920 Right, now what happens to our pieces of wood? 425 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:10,480 Now the slats go into the machine, the machines smoothes the surface 426 00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:12,680 and inserts small grooves. 427 00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:15,480 So that is just cutting grooves in the wood? That's right. 428 00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,400 But that's very important, because that's where we fill in 429 00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:20,520 the leads afterwards. 430 00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,920 The slats rush along nose to tail through sanding, 431 00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:29,560 then, under rotating blades which carve out channels one millimetre deep. 432 00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:34,640 Now here you can see the grooves. 433 00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:38,280 So, one, two, three - nine grooves in here. 434 00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:42,480 Does that mean nine pencils? Exactly. That's what you get. 435 00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,360 Now here you can see the slats coming out, 436 00:24:48,360 --> 00:24:51,320 with the grooves inserted. 437 00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:53,760 And here, next very important step, 438 00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:57,480 a thin line of glue is filled into the groove. 439 00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:02,400 A strong but elastic glue is applied to the entire length of each slat, 440 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,560 which will hold the leads firmly in place. 441 00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,720 Now here the slats are split up in two parts. 442 00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:10,960 Yeah, that's like a paddle. Right, right. 443 00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,280 It's taking every second slat and knocking it over to the outside lane. 444 00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:19,280 Exactly. I'm beginning to understand there is a bottom and a top to this. 445 00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:23,120 It's basically... The same. ..split in half? Right, right. 446 00:25:23,120 --> 00:25:26,920 It's made of two halves, but, eh, it's done so precisely, 447 00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,400 when you sharpen a pencil at the end, 448 00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:31,800 you wouldn't see that it consists of two parts. 449 00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,360 Ziggy, is it not possible to get blocks of wood, 450 00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:38,680 drill a hole in the middle and just put lead in there? 451 00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,600 That would mean it would be no good, because you can't drill a hole 452 00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:48,000 so straight that the lead would fit in. It would be sort of wavy. 453 00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,360 The top and bottom of our wooden glue sandwiches are sent round 454 00:25:55,360 --> 00:25:58,520 for their special graphite and clay filling. 455 00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:05,520 That's my lead. Right. That's my lead that's been in the wax! 456 00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,960 Right, OK, so these leads are coming down here... 457 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,720 Right. ..onto this big wheel. OK. 458 00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,880 The wheel picks up the lead sticks and as the slats travel 459 00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,880 along the conveyor, it drops them neatly into the gluey grooves. 460 00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,040 Well, there you have it - your nine grooves, right? 461 00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:33,280 And your nine bits of lead, perfectly glued in! Right. 462 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:34,840 All right? 463 00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,360 Now the top slices, with their empty grooves, 464 00:26:39,360 --> 00:26:43,280 are moved into position so they line up precisely with the bottoms 465 00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,440 and are glued together. 466 00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,320 And here, the top slat comes over... 467 00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,560 ..to form sort of a sandwich. Right? 468 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,680 The problem is, there's like a clear separation here. 469 00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,000 There's a clear gap between these two bits of wood. 470 00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:04,000 We get rid of the separation in the next part of the machine. 471 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:09,040 100 multi-pencil sandwiches are stacked up in the drying chamber 472 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:11,320 at around 60 degrees C. 473 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:13,680 A vice squeezes them together, 474 00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,480 then they're slowly rotated so the glue dries evenly. 475 00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,280 Well, they are in here for about one hour. 476 00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,360 How many pencils have we got in there? 477 00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:29,280 Eh, about 40,000 pencils, approximately 40,000 pencils. 478 00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,520 40,000 pencils. 479 00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,680 Soon, thousands of people of all ages, and from all walks of life, 480 00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,880 could be using these pencils for drawing and writing 481 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,040 in their own unique style. 482 00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:45,640 In fact, many believe the way we write can reveal a great deal about us. 483 00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:49,520 But can you really tell anything about a person from their handwriting? 484 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,320 Cherry is sorting fact from fiction. 485 00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:02,200 Supposedly, big letters mean you've got a big personality. 486 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:06,120 And loopy letters indicate high aspirations. 487 00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:10,400 But does any of it stack up, scientifically? 488 00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,240 Chris French, professor of psychology at Goldsmiths University, 489 00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:23,160 is going to point me in the right direction. 490 00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:27,760 So, can you really tell what someone is like 491 00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:29,880 from just looking at their handwriting? 492 00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,480 Well, the idea that you can is referred to as graphology, 493 00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,320 the notion that our brains work in particular ways, 494 00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,760 they determine our personality and other characteristics 495 00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,520 and maybe that would show through in our writing. 496 00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,440 To see if it stacks up in the real world, 497 00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:50,880 we're taking to the streets of Lewisham armed with three different handwriting samples. 498 00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:54,080 Do you actually know what these three people are like? 499 00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,240 As it happens I do, because we got them to take a personality test 500 00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:59,280 before they gave us the handwriting. 501 00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,720 And so we've got good measures of them on those personality traits. 502 00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:07,600 But can people correctly identify these traits from the handwriting? 503 00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,800 So, first person - man or woman? 504 00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:16,600 Woman. It's quite neat, but it's not... it doesn't look overly neat. 505 00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:20,160 The letters are well formed, so, in a way, I think she's probably quite meticulous. 506 00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,200 The messier the writing, the more intelligent. 507 00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:27,200 Our street judges give each sample's author a score out of 100 508 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:31,640 for key personality traits, like open-mindedness. 509 00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,520 Percentage? Probably about 80%. 80. 80%. 510 00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,280 Extroversion. 511 00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:41,680 I'd say a 60% again. OK. It depends on their moods. Yeah! 512 00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:43,160 And neuroticism. 513 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:44,400 10%, maybe. 10%? Right. 514 00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:47,680 Now, for handwriting B. 515 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,240 Man or woman? I think that may be a man. OK. 516 00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,720 And do you think he's open to new experiences? Maybe so. 517 00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,960 Yes, because this is a very nice little twist on the Q. 518 00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:00,840 I would say about 70. OK. 519 00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:04,520 The writing looks open and jolly. 520 00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:08,480 Not very neat handwriting, but at the same time it's not overly scruffy. 521 00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,560 All right. Yeah, lots of spaces in between the letters. Yeah. 522 00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:15,640 What about our final sample? 523 00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:20,040 All right - person C, man or woman? I would go for a man. 524 00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,200 It's just, it's quite detailed, the writing, 525 00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:25,440 but it doesn't look ladylike, if that makes sense? 526 00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:30,000 I would say that he could be neurotic, so I'll put him at 70%. 527 00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,280 The letters lean in on each other. Hm-mm. 528 00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,840 And that suggests he has a short fuse. 529 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:38,000 The picture that I'm painting of him with this handwriting, is yes, 530 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,000 he'd be agreeable, but he'd be probably quite strong-minded? 531 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:42,720 I'm going to go 90% with this one. 532 00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:44,840 Yeah. He sounds a bit like he might murder someone, 533 00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:46,680 put them in the basement and then go to work! 534 00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,640 We take the street survey assessments back to Chris' office 535 00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,720 to cross-reference against the accurate psychological tests. 536 00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,400 OK. Let's just take sample A. 537 00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,760 This is the personality profile of that person. 538 00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,600 This is what that person is really like, because the idea is, 539 00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:08,480 that if graphology works, that, that ought to show through, 540 00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,080 that ought to come through with shining colours. 541 00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:12,680 So those are the real results. 542 00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,560 These numbers here are what people in the street were trying to guess? 543 00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:19,120 That's right. Let's see whether our members of the public picked up on that. 544 00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:25,800 Chris is marking up our street judges' scores for sample A. 545 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,480 Oh, this is so interesting. 546 00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:34,680 The one that's definitely the furthest away is neuroticism, 98%. 547 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,440 Yep. This is way off. And that's really way off! 548 00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,360 Basically, I think we can see from that, that certainly 549 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,840 for this handwriting sample, people could not deduce 550 00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:44,880 this person's correct personality. 551 00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,200 So that didn't quite work. What about the other two? 552 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:55,240 Did our testers get any closer to the accurate scores here? 553 00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,720 I don't want to sound sceptical, but it's all over the place. 554 00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,160 There's really no pattern, no system. 555 00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,200 So these were just random people on the street. 556 00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,480 What about a professional graphologist? 557 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,040 If you take a group of professional graphologists and get them 558 00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:15,960 to do a similar exercise, they perform just as badly as the general public. 559 00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,240 I mean, the British Psychological Society summed it up by saying 560 00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,360 that there's exactly the same level of validity for this technique 561 00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,160 as there is for astrology - that is zero. 562 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,920 Can you tell anything about the handwriting, anything at all? 563 00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:32,440 About 70% people guessing the gender is correct. 564 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,560 Let's just take sample A, for example. 565 00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:36,800 See, I think it's a woman. OK. 566 00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,400 In actual fact you do know who this person is. 567 00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,760 Do I know them? Oh, my God, it's Gregg! 568 00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:47,800 So it's really hard to tell anything about someone. 569 00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,400 Yeah. So do not judge someone on the basis of their handwriting? No. 570 00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,280 I'm making the most of my personality traits to try 571 00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,760 and produce the perfect HB pencil. 572 00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:09,120 In the raw pencil room, my wooden sandwiches have been drying 573 00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:12,240 in a rotating vice for an hour. 574 00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:16,160 Once released from the clamp the sandwiches waltz away 575 00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,520 on conveyor belts. 576 00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:22,280 Each one is trimmed to exactly 175 millimetres. 577 00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,960 The standard length of a pencil is exactly seven inches. 578 00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,680 Why? Well, that's convenient. 579 00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:35,080 It's long enough to be able to sharpen a couple of times, 580 00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:38,600 but it's not so long that it bends your hand back when you are writing. 581 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,040 Seven inches, but it'll get shorter as it gets older? 582 00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:45,160 Right. That is smooth... 583 00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:47,560 ..like a greengrocer's head. Right, right. 584 00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:53,200 The trimmed slats head into to the shaping machine, 585 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,640 and ten seconds later, individual pencils emerge, nine at a time. 586 00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:06,320 Hey-hey! 587 00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:08,600 Ziggy, we've got pencils! Right! 588 00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:10,680 We have got pencils. 589 00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:12,080 May I? 590 00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,480 They are perfect hexagonals. Right. 591 00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,000 Last time I saw them, they were an oblong block. 592 00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:22,480 Right. How have they become that shape? 593 00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:23,720 I can show you. 594 00:34:23,720 --> 00:34:28,080 Inside the machine we have rotating reels, knives, 595 00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:30,120 that rotate at a very high speed 596 00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:34,000 and you can see the knives, it's the cross section of a pencil. 597 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:35,920 I can clearly see... 598 00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,520 ..the groove, the hexagonal shape. 599 00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:45,720 Why hexagonal shape? 600 00:34:45,720 --> 00:34:49,760 They avoid the disadvantage of round pencils to roll off the table 601 00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:50,920 and fall down. 602 00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,160 Round ones roll off the table. Right. Is that honestly why? 603 00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,920 There are so many things I didn't know 604 00:34:59,920 --> 00:35:03,760 about the ridiculously simple pencil, but it's genius. 605 00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:04,800 It is. 606 00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:15,480 The helpfully hexagonal pencils are carried into the painting room, 607 00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,120 where they're stacked onto conveyors. 608 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:23,400 I like that. 609 00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:25,600 I think that's a really good sight. 610 00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,240 That, to me, because of the shape, looks like honeycomb. 611 00:35:29,240 --> 00:35:33,040 These raw pencils are about to receive their coats of honour, 612 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,720 a dark green shade of paint chosen back in 1905, 613 00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:39,400 when this pencil was designed. 614 00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:44,120 Do you know why it's green? 615 00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:46,520 I mean, it's a classic, but why is it green? 616 00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:48,040 Well, that's an old story. 617 00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:52,480 Alexander Faber-Castell, he was originally a military man. 618 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:58,360 He remembered that the colour of the uniforms of his regiment 619 00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,520 was what he called a military green. 620 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:04,120 And he thought it might be a good idea to apply it to his pencils. 621 00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,960 If you paint them, where do you hold it? 622 00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:08,560 It must be on a clamp somewhere. 623 00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,240 Oh, it doesn't have to. 624 00:36:10,240 --> 00:36:12,720 Let's go around the corner, I show you. 625 00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:19,120 You can see here the colours inside these boxes, 626 00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:22,520 and the pencils are pushed through and pick up colour. 627 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,960 You are just pushing those pencil through a tin of paint. 628 00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:33,800 But that's not green! 629 00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:35,480 That's the primer. 630 00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:39,720 You're putting a primer on, exactly as we would paint a door at home? 631 00:36:39,720 --> 00:36:41,280 Right, exactly. Exactly the same. 632 00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:48,400 Two layers of primer go on. 633 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,920 And then, one by one, our pencils receive 634 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,600 their traditional military topcoat. 635 00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,760 That's a lovely rich green colour, isn't it? It is. 636 00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:00,600 How many coats does it get? 637 00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:03,280 Four coats of green. 638 00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:07,240 Four?! Four. It's altogether six layers of colour. 639 00:37:07,240 --> 00:37:11,160 My little green soldiers march into a heated tunnel, 640 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:13,400 which helps their coats dry. 641 00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:16,960 Finally, a shiny lacquer is added 642 00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,640 that will act as armour against any chips or scratches. 643 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:28,240 The ends of the pencils are sanded to remove excess paint. 644 00:37:28,240 --> 00:37:31,200 Then there's some ceremonial polishing to be done. 645 00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,920 What are you doing, Ziggy? Are you decorating your pencil? 646 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:41,480 No. We are branding, or embossing the pencils, 647 00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:45,880 so stamped, you know. Whatever you want to have on your pencil, 648 00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:47,880 it's written on the stamp, 649 00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:51,480 and it pushes on this foil, warms it up a little bit, 650 00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,080 and leaves the mark on the pencil. 651 00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:57,600 Here, we print the barcode on the pencil. 652 00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,960 The heat sticks the white plastic barcode along one edge. 653 00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:03,760 The next two machines are loaded 654 00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,640 with plastic, backed with gold coloured aluminium. 655 00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:13,160 The pencils are swivelled 120 degrees to print the name in gold. 656 00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,480 Then they're turned again for "Made in Germany". 657 00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:20,760 We print it on one end, 658 00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,320 and you start sharpening the pencil on the other end. 659 00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,760 Is that why all the information is down the blunt end? 660 00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:28,120 Of course, of course. 661 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,200 The pencils have been decorated, 662 00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,320 and Ziggy can't wait to tell me about the crowning glory 663 00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,680 that awaits our classic HBs. 664 00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,880 But Cherry is waxing lyrical about another writing implement. 665 00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:45,280 Making a colourful mark 666 00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:48,160 is one of the first things children learn to do. 667 00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:51,400 My weapon of choice for colouring when I was a toddler, 668 00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:55,320 and now actually, if I'm honest, was one of these. 669 00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,120 A wax crayon. 670 00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:01,360 As a parent, these vibrant colours brighten up my world. 671 00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:03,320 But, how are they made? 672 00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:07,680 I'm in Southampton, visiting the UK's best selling children's crayon 673 00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:09,960 manufacturer, Stadium Crayons. 674 00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:15,760 Last year, this small factory turned out 675 00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:18,880 25 million little sticks of joy. 676 00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:23,440 General manager Dave Ayling is here to explain the magic. 677 00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:26,080 Are you going to show me how it's done? I'm not going to show you, 678 00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:27,920 I'm going to let you make them yourself. 679 00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:29,520 Ah, that's how it goes? Oh, yes. 680 00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:36,400 The life of the wax crayon begins as you might expect, with wax. 681 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:39,760 This is paraffin wax, which is derived from oil, 682 00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,120 and it also can be used in candles. 683 00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,200 So paraffin pellets. Is that it? 684 00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,320 The wax is only about 50% of the crayon. 685 00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:48,480 We have this stearic acid, 686 00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:50,880 a fatty acid that is derived from plants, 687 00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:52,600 similar to vegetable oil. 688 00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:57,760 This actually softens the wax enough to help it to draw on paper better. 689 00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,880 The first step is to blend these two ingredients together 690 00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,560 in a huge 1,200 litre heater. 691 00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,960 It's maintained at a constant temperature of 120 degrees, 692 00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:13,360 which ensures that, once the mixed is melted, it stays melted. 693 00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:15,840 There's just one more ingredient to go in at this stage, 694 00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:18,320 and that is called PEG. What is PEG? 695 00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:21,120 PEG is actually a polymer, which has a low melting point, 696 00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,520 and it helps a colour take to the wax. 697 00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:29,760 PEG, or Polyethylene glycol, also makes the crayons water soluble. 698 00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:33,280 A big help when it comes to washing them off the walls at home! 699 00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,520 Into our big crayon-y mix. 700 00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:40,480 And there we have it. 701 00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,000 With the big melt in progress, 702 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:49,520 I head to the paint shed, where Jim Belbin can create any colour 703 00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:52,240 from just a small number of powdered dyes. 704 00:40:52,240 --> 00:40:56,280 So, what colour crayon are we making today? We're making red today. 705 00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:59,480 I imagine, if you're making a red crayon, on your need red dye. 706 00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:01,320 We have to mix two shades of red 707 00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,800 in order to get the red that we make here. 708 00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,760 We wear masks to keep the nontoxic, but superfine pigments, 709 00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:13,760 out of our lungs, and start scooping 600g of bright scarlet, 710 00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,880 and 200g of a darker base red. 711 00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:21,720 It'll give us that perfect tone for colouring in tomatoes. 712 00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,560 All I need now is that hot wax. 713 00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:31,000 Oh, my goodness. It looks like water! 714 00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,200 It's hot wax and it'll go into the mould. 715 00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,480 I'll take the light one. Lucky I work out. 716 00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:39,840 They've certainly got me pulling my weight. 717 00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:44,720 First, I pour the liquid wax into a kind of heavy cauldron. 718 00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:49,120 Just like this? Yeah. It holds 40 litres. 719 00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,920 And then I pour in our red powder blend. 720 00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:54,600 It's so beautiful. 721 00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:57,440 Enough for 10,000 crayons. 722 00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:01,080 And then I give it a good whisk. 723 00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:05,480 This tank actually keeps the wax at about 110 degrees centigrade. 724 00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:07,880 It's really molten the whole way through. 725 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:10,120 Now, there's one final ingredient. 726 00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:11,680 What is this stuff. 727 00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:13,280 Well, it's essentially chalk powder. 728 00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:15,040 So first you add something to soften it, 729 00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,000 and then you add something to make it harder? 730 00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:19,760 If we don't add this, when they set they can become quite brittle. 731 00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,080 Here we go. Whoa! 732 00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:24,080 Do I get the job? Er... 733 00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,480 I'm ready to turn my concoction into crayons, 734 00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,360 using this metal mould, which has 960 holes. 735 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:36,840 How do you get this boiling hot wax into those moulds? 736 00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:38,480 Well, it's really technical. 737 00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:39,880 We use a jug. 738 00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:41,880 OK. Is that a good jug. 739 00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:44,240 Ahh, it's very splatty! 740 00:42:44,240 --> 00:42:45,680 Am I doing it right? Yeah. 741 00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,280 They all need to be filled up, so we can now start 742 00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,440 to move the wax around as it cools down. 743 00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:54,240 Cold water circulating around the back of the mould 744 00:42:54,240 --> 00:42:57,080 helps bring the heat down from over 100 degrees 745 00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,120 to around room temperature. 746 00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:02,960 It's a tricky balance, making sure all the crayons are solid, 747 00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,840 with no air holes, before the wax hardens. 748 00:43:09,720 --> 00:43:11,880 We can normally do about 60 batches here, 749 00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,080 so we make about 60,000 crayons a day on this one machine. 750 00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:19,680 Now, the moment I've been waiting for. 751 00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,520 Have I filled the moulds correctly? 752 00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,240 Oh, that is ridiculously satisfying. 753 00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,280 960 crayons are about to be born. 754 00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:35,560 They are, as soon as you pull this lever here. 755 00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:37,600 If only child birth was this easy! 756 00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:38,920 Oh! 757 00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:40,600 You're kidding me! 758 00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:43,960 Almost perfect. 759 00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,120 There's just one rogue crayon. 760 00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,040 Look what I found. 761 00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:51,320 A wafer thin crayon. Ah! 762 00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,840 That is an Inside The Factory crayon. 763 00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:58,360 Not bad for a first attempt. 764 00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:04,000 The remaining 959 are labelled, ready for boxing. 765 00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:10,080 There's just one thing now that my red crayon needs, 766 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,920 and that is a yellow, a blue, 767 00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:14,760 and a green, 768 00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,320 ready to entertain my child, 769 00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:18,840 and perhaps yours. 770 00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:31,880 In the German pencil factory, it's been nearly 13 hours, 771 00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,840 and my HBs are looking the business. 772 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,360 They've been painted and embossed, 773 00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:39,960 but there's still a final flourish to come. 774 00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,560 And that happens in Rounding. 775 00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:48,520 What's this? 776 00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:51,040 OK, this is our rounding machine. 777 00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:55,360 It smoothes off the hexagonal edges from the very top of the pencil. 778 00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,600 So that's the result of this rounding process. 779 00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:02,120 You can see, it's clean, and it's lightly rounded. 780 00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:09,000 Every single step of the way, it's another tiny little detail. 781 00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:10,360 Exactly. 782 00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,240 Now we need to paint the rounded end, 783 00:45:13,240 --> 00:45:14,880 which is harder than it sounds. 784 00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,280 The pencils are gathered up and pushed into trays 785 00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:21,640 that hold 138 individual shafts. 786 00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:23,760 Now, when the plate is filled, 787 00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:25,640 the plate moves on here 788 00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,360 to the first position of dipping. 789 00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,600 The tray of pencils is spun upside down, 790 00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:34,320 and dipped into metallic paint. 791 00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:41,280 How do you know how far to dip the pencils in? 792 00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,320 We measure the depth of the paint in the bowl, 793 00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:46,600 as you can see here, with this red dot, 794 00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,200 which is a laser to measure the depth. 795 00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,760 And then we tell the machine that it should come up 796 00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:54,600 a millimetre more than before. 797 00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,480 As the pencils dip and the level of the paint goes down, 798 00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,680 so the machine pushes the tray of paint? Exactly. 799 00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:02,520 You guys are clever! 800 00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:04,480 OK. Thank you. Very clever! 801 00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,280 That's a nice process. 802 00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:09,840 Then there's a certain elegance about that, isn't there? 803 00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:11,720 It's a nice, slow process. 804 00:46:11,720 --> 00:46:13,360 You could set that to music. 805 00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:22,320 A new regiment of pencils joins the dance every 30 seconds. 806 00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:25,920 Then 690 of them take a synchronised dip. 807 00:46:35,720 --> 00:46:38,120 Once their crowning glory has been applied, 808 00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:42,000 the switching machine twirls them back the right way around... 809 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,200 ..before they trip the light fantastic to drying. 810 00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,240 We have a box of almost finished pencils. 811 00:47:10,240 --> 00:47:12,720 What you mean almost finished? Is not sharpened yet. 812 00:47:12,720 --> 00:47:15,520 Right. How do you sharpen the pencil? 813 00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:19,400 Well, that's a process that takes place here in this box. 814 00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,720 Inside we have a cylinder, 815 00:47:21,720 --> 00:47:25,360 which has a lot of sort of razor blades. 816 00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:27,640 It turns around, like this. 817 00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:33,680 A belt mechanism pulls each pencil 818 00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,440 over a series of rotating razor blades, 819 00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:39,680 angled to create the perfect point at the tip. 820 00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:44,560 Well, that is an incredible sight. 821 00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,360 Those pencils are almost falling over those plates, 822 00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,240 and those plates are spinning really quickly. 823 00:47:51,240 --> 00:47:54,800 Finally, our HB pencils are born. 824 00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:20,240 How many pencils will go through here a day? 825 00:48:20,240 --> 00:48:22,840 Per day it's about 600,000 pencils. 826 00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:25,880 That is millions of games of bingo! 827 00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:27,000 Right. 828 00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:31,400 In theory, each of these pencils is capable 829 00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:34,680 of drawing a line about 35 miles long, 830 00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:37,720 or writing around 45,000 words, 831 00:48:37,720 --> 00:48:40,520 if they pass quality control. 832 00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:46,600 For 400 years, the pencil has been the simplest tool 833 00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:50,680 at our disposal for writing a note, a list or a letter. 834 00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:55,040 Ruth is checking out the past, present and future of handwriting. 835 00:48:58,000 --> 00:48:59,920 Almost every word written these days 836 00:48:59,920 --> 00:49:03,160 is created without putting pencil to paper. 837 00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,480 They're typed on a keyboard, or a touch screen. 838 00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:13,560 In 2016, Finland stopped teaching joined up handwriting in schools, 839 00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,240 and many parts of America have done the same. 840 00:49:16,240 --> 00:49:19,520 Will handwriting become as unfamiliar to our grandchildren 841 00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,320 as steamships and telegrams are to us? 842 00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:26,720 I'm meeting Professor James Daybell... 843 00:49:26,720 --> 00:49:28,680 James, hello! Nice to meet you. 844 00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:30,480 Ruth, lovely to meet you too. 845 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:33,320 ..an expert in the history of the written word. 846 00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,440 Should I take all the pens and pencils in the house 847 00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:38,840 and just ditch them? 848 00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:42,240 People have been asking that exact same question for centuries! 849 00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:48,160 Over 500 years ago, people were concerned with the advent of print, 850 00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,160 that that was going to replace handwriting. 851 00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:52,640 Exactly! 852 00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:57,080 And it's all down to this particular text that we have here. 853 00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:00,280 This is a copy of a page from the Gutenberg Bible. 854 00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:04,160 Right. It's one of the first printed texts. 855 00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:06,360 It's funny actually because I would have thought 856 00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:08,240 that was a handwritten manuscript. 857 00:50:08,240 --> 00:50:11,040 It doesn't look printed. It's meant to replicate handwriting. 858 00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:13,800 That's precisely the point in it. 859 00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:18,920 Before the printing press, books had to be written out word for word, 860 00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,880 mostly by specially trained monks. 861 00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:26,640 Gutenberg's invention meant unlimited copies could be made 862 00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:28,680 at speed by machine. 863 00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:30,520 No monks required. 864 00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:35,080 The idea was that print would make their jobs redundant. 865 00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:39,920 People were concerned that the art of handwriting would be dead. 866 00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:44,160 But, surprisingly, printing had the opposite effect. 867 00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:47,760 As books exploded in popularity, 868 00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:51,720 more people sought an education, and overall literacy grew. 869 00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:56,600 In 1550, only 16% of British adults could read and write. 870 00:50:56,600 --> 00:51:00,560 By 1870, it was 76%. 871 00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:05,320 So, by the end of the 19th century, handwriting is everywhere. 872 00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,240 It's absolutely everywhere. 873 00:51:07,240 --> 00:51:09,880 But if we go over here, I'll show you something 874 00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,920 that knocked it off its perch one more time. 875 00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:14,880 So, here we are. 876 00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:19,280 Oh, of course! 877 00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:22,400 The typewriter. The typewriter. 878 00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:27,680 The first commercially successful typewriter was invented in 1868. 879 00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:31,440 Meaning anyone could type from the comfort 880 00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:33,200 of their home or office. 881 00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:38,720 As it took off, the funeral bell for handwriting tolled again. 882 00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,240 I've got an example here from the Daily Mail. 883 00:51:42,240 --> 00:51:45,160 7th March, 1936. 884 00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:49,360 "The truth is that penmanship is a dying art. 885 00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:53,120 "The typewriter, the Dictaphone and similar modern contrivances, 886 00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:55,120 "have sealed its fate." 887 00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:58,600 And yet, you know, we all know perfectly well 888 00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:00,240 that handwriting did not stop. 889 00:52:00,240 --> 00:52:03,120 So why did people carry on handwriting? 890 00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:05,880 Well, I think we should have a competition. 891 00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:09,320 James is going to retype this doom-laden article, 892 00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:11,720 while I write it out longhand. 893 00:52:11,720 --> 00:52:12,760 Right. 894 00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:15,040 Okey doke. On your marks... Go! 895 00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:23,120 Oh! My keys have stuck. 896 00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:26,560 That's supposed to be a capital P. 897 00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:29,960 I seem to have missed out an E. 898 00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:32,560 So, where are you at James? 899 00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:34,720 I'm still on the first paragraph. 900 00:52:34,720 --> 00:52:38,120 How have you done? I've done to Browning. There we go. 901 00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:40,880 Oh, show off! And yours looks immaculate! 902 00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:44,520 So... This is riddled with errors. 903 00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,840 See, and this is why handwriting continues. 904 00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,920 Typing was a professional skill. Right. 905 00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,400 Whereas everybody was taught to write. 906 00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,480 Everybody was taught to write at school. 907 00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:00,960 It would take many decades for typewriters 908 00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,560 to evolve into handwriting's most serious threat yet, 909 00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:06,480 the personal computer. 910 00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:10,800 For the first time, writing without putting pen to paper 911 00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:14,520 was simple, fast, and easily correctable. 912 00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:17,280 If when we come back to the present, 913 00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:20,080 it's like you can do everything that you did on a PC, 914 00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:21,760 but now you can do it anywhere. 915 00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:24,840 So, is this the death of handwriting? No. 916 00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:26,560 There's a lot of hysteria about it. 917 00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:29,680 Handwriting is still being used in different ways. 918 00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:32,400 And it also it also overlaps with digital technologies. 919 00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,440 You have there a stylus... I do indeed. ..for that tablet. 920 00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:36,680 I do indeed. 921 00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:38,600 And yes, you can write on it. 922 00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,520 So you can annotate a digital text 923 00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,720 in the same way that in, say the 17th century, 924 00:53:44,720 --> 00:53:48,080 people might have annotated a 17th century book. 925 00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:50,520 Handwriting is never going to go away. 926 00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:51,960 It's never going to die. 927 00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:53,440 Just different. 928 00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:03,880 Our pencils are finished, and given a visual check to ensure 929 00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:07,760 that the paint is perfect and that the leads are sharp. 930 00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:14,320 But Lukas has invited me to do an additional test 931 00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:17,440 at the castle which houses the company museum. 932 00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:21,120 What a place. 933 00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:23,400 What a place. How have you been? A fantastic place. 934 00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:25,320 I've got some finished pencils. 935 00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:27,920 I've heard there's one final quality test. 936 00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:31,160 One final quality test and it'll happen right here in the castle. 937 00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:34,200 You see that window up there? Yeah, what? 938 00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:37,840 We're going to drop the pencils out of the window, into the castle yard. 939 00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:39,240 Why would you want to do that? 940 00:54:39,240 --> 00:54:42,520 It's a quality test, to test if the pencil, the lead, 941 00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:46,560 is rigid enough to withstand a drop from up there all the way down here. 942 00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:49,640 But have they got a lift? We're going to walk up there. 943 00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:52,120 Come on. Let's go. 944 00:54:53,960 --> 00:54:56,880 The factory castle was built in 1906, 945 00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:00,600 when production had just started on the Series 9000 pencil 946 00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:04,520 we're about to chuck out of the 25 metre high window. 947 00:55:07,240 --> 00:55:10,960 High, isn't it? You're going to throw the pencils out of the window! 948 00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:12,280 You're going to do it. 949 00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:15,120 Like that. Just like that. 950 00:55:18,720 --> 00:55:21,800 They invented this test to demonstrate the strength 951 00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:23,160 of the pencil lead. 952 00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:27,960 So... 953 00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:29,720 ..what do you think? 954 00:55:29,720 --> 00:55:32,840 Well, they look all right. They are the... Not bad. 955 00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,360 You haven't swapped them, have you? I have not. 956 00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:37,560 Right, OK. They look OK. 957 00:55:37,560 --> 00:55:39,720 How are you going to tell whether the lead's OK? 958 00:55:39,720 --> 00:55:41,200 Because... 959 00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:43,440 ..we've got this guy. 960 00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:45,920 So, got the knife, got the pencil... 961 00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:53,240 And see? The lead is still intact. 962 00:55:53,240 --> 00:55:55,280 Yeah. OK. 963 00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:57,600 Very impressive. Proof enough? 964 00:55:57,600 --> 00:55:59,200 Very, very impressive. 965 00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:00,840 I've got one more test. 966 00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:03,080 It's a British test of quality, 967 00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:05,360 to make sure your pencil is OK. What is it? 968 00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:09,560 Yep, that works. That's awesome! 969 00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:18,920 Test passed, 12 pencils are popped in a packet, 970 00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:23,440 and 24 packets squeezed into a box, ready for distribution. 971 00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:29,320 They're dealing with the company's busiest period, 972 00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,600 supplying pencils for the start of the school year. 973 00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:34,480 Hello! Florian? 974 00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:35,800 Ah, hello. 975 00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:37,040 Truck being loaded? Yes. 976 00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:42,240 Florian Swartz uses hand operated electric forklifts 977 00:56:42,240 --> 00:56:45,840 to pack the company lorry with wrapped pallets of pencils. 978 00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:51,040 So on that truck, is that a day's worth of pencil production? Yeah. 979 00:56:51,040 --> 00:56:53,680 Half a million pencils are on the truck. 980 00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:56,560 Do you know how many pencils you produce in a year? 981 00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:57,920 200 million. 982 00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:00,520 If you lay all the pencils we produce here, 983 00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:02,680 you go once around the equator. 984 00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,480 After 14 hours and 46 minutes of production time, 985 00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:11,240 my HB pencils are loaded up and sent on their way. 986 00:57:11,240 --> 00:57:12,960 That's it! 987 00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:15,840 There's a lot of sketches and letters on that truck, isn't there? 988 00:57:15,840 --> 00:57:18,760 Yeah. Thank you, Florian. Thanks. Thank you very much. 989 00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,320 From Nuremberg, these pencils are exported to Britain 990 00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:27,880 and 80 other countries across six continents. 991 00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:34,160 I've enjoyed my time in Germany. 992 00:57:34,160 --> 00:57:36,680 It's most certainly one of the better looking factories 993 00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:39,240 I've been in - lots of natural light and fresh air, 994 00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:42,600 and I've learned three things about our HB pencil. 995 00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:45,440 One, it's made from two separate halves, 996 00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:49,400 two, it's hexagonal so that it doesn't roll off the table, 997 00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:51,640 and three, there's no lead in it. 998 00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:55,960 There never was! In fact, there was never any lead in any pencil ever! 999 00:57:55,960 --> 00:57:57,880 Well, who knew?! 1000 00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:00,360 Next time... 1001 00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:04,880 It's nice and squeezy... 1002 00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:08,840 ..as I head to Gateshead to make spreadable cheese. 1003 00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:11,560 That's a massive fondue, isn't it? It is. 1004 00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:13,280 Big, cheesy smell. 1005 00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:15,920 And Cherry causes a stink. 1006 00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:18,720 Holy Moley! 1007 00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:22,680 If I smell that in my trainers, they are going in the bin! 1008 00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:24,520 And yet with this, I can't wait to eat it. 1009 00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:25,880 It's so odd.