Evolution Of Pen, B

EVOLUTION OF PEN

INTRODUCTION • HISTORY OF PEN • BALL POINT PEN • INK PEN • PENCIL • FIBER TIP

• WRITING Implements, manual devices

used to make alphanumeric marks on or in a surface. Peculiar to inscription is the removal of part of a surface to record such marks. The writing tool is usually controlled by movement of the fingers, hand, wrist, and arm of the writer. The development of writing implements in the West has been determined by the interplay of the demand and skills of the writer and the writing materials available.

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PENS

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The rise and spread of Christianity increased the demand for permanent written religious documents. As the size of writing became smaller, both writing tools and surfaces changed. Vellum or parchment books replaced the papyrus roll, and the quill replaced the reed pen. Although quill pens can be made from the outer wing feathers of any bird, those of goose, swan, crow, and (later) turkey, were preferred. The earliest reference (6th century ad) to quill pens was made by the Spanish theologian St. Isidore of Seville, and this tool was the principal writing implement for nearly 1300 years.

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To make a quill pen, a wing feather is first hardened by heating or letting it dry out gradually. The hardened quill is then cut to a broad edge with a special penknife.

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The writer had to recut the quill pen frequently to maintain its edge. By the 18th century the width of the edge had diminished and the length of the slit had increased, creating a flexible point that produced thick and thin strokes by pressure on the point rather than by the angle at which the broad edge was held. Also by the 18th century, paper had replaced vellum as the chief writing surface, and more writing was being done for commerce than for church or Crown. During this period attempts were made to invent a lasting writing tool that did not require recutting. Horn, tortoiseshell, and gemstones were tried, but steel was eventually used for permanent pen points.

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Although pens of bronze may have been known to the Romans, the earliest mention of “brazen pens” was in 1465. The 16th-century Spanish calligrapher Juan de Yciar mentions brass pens for very large writing in his 1548 writing manual, but the use of metal pens did not become widespread until the early part of the 19th century. The first patented steel pen point was made by the English engineer Bryan Donkin in 1803. The leading 19thcentury English pen manufacturers were William Joseph Gillot, William Mitchell, and James Stephen Perry. Use of the quill rapidly declined during that century, especially after the introduction of free public education for children; more emphasis was then placed on the teaching of writing than on teaching the skill of quill cutting.

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In 1884 Lewis Waterman, a New York insurance agent, patented the first practical fountain pen containing its own ink reservoir. Waterman invented a mechanism that fed ink to the pen point by capillary action, allowing ink to flow evenly while writing. By the 1920s the fountain pen was the chief writing instrument in the West and remained so until the introduction of the ballpoint pen after World War II.

A The Ballpoint Pen

• dynamic timeline • Biro Brothers Develop Ballpoint Pen • As early as the 19th century, attempts had been made to

manufacture a pen with a rolling ball tip, but not until 1938 did the Hungarian brothers Georg and Ladislao Biro invent a practical ballpoint pen. Its success was based upon a viscous, oil-based ink. Early ballpoint pens did not write well; they tended to skip, and the slow-drying oil-based ink smudged easily. But the ballpoint pen had several advantages over the fountain pen: The ink was waterproof and almost unerasable; the pen could write on many kinds of surfaces and could be held in almost any position for writing, and the pressure required to feed the ink was ideal for making carbon copies. Ink formulas were improved for smoother flow and faster drying, and soon the ballpoint replaced the fountain pen as the universal writing tool.

• B Fiber-Tip Pens • In 1963 fiber-tip markers were introduced into the U.S. market and have since challenged the ballpoint as the principal writing implement. The first practical fiber-tip pen was invented by Yukio Horie of Japan in 1962. It was ideally suited to the strokes of Japanese writing, which is traditionally done with a pointed ink brush. Unlike its predecessors, the fiber-tip pen uses dye as a writing fluid. As a result, the fiber-tip pen can produce a wide range of colors unavailable in ballpoint and fountain pen inks. The tip is made of fine nylon or other synthetic fibers drawn to a point and fastened to the barrel of the pen. Dye is fed to the point by an elaborate capillary mechanism.

• Felt-tip markers are made of dense natural or artificial fibers

impregnated with a dye. These markers can be cut to a variety of shapes and sizes, some up to an inch in width. A modification of the ballpoint pen using a liquid dye fed to a metal or plastic ball was introduced in the U.S. from Japan in 1973.

THE PENCIL

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dynamic timeline

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Black Lead Pencils Introduced

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One of the most popular tools for ephemeral writing is the pencil. Pencil marks, unlike those made by writing implements using fluids, can be easily erased. Although commonly called lead pencils, they do not contain any of that metal but are composed of a mixture of graphite (a form of carbon) and clay (see Carbon; Graphite). In 1795 a way was devised of mixing powdered graphite with clay, cutting the resultant mixture into strips, and baking it. The hardness of these “lead crayons” depends on the proportion of graphite to clay: The more graphite used, the “softer,” or darker, is the mark made. In 1812 the American William Monroe invented a process still used today by which the graphite-clay mixture could be encased between two pieces of cedar wood.

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The mechanical pencil, patented in 1877, consists of a cylindrical piece of pencil lead inserted into a metal or plastic barrel against a movable rod that can be adjusted by a screwing motion to expose part of the lead. The basic design of the mechanical pencil changed little until a modification of a mechanical drafting pencil was introduced in 1976. This pencil, holding up to 12 leads, feeds the leads from the barrel through a fine metal tube by means of gravity. The lead is held in place by a spring-activated clamp around the lead. This process has made possible the use of leads as small as 0.3 mm (about 0.01 in) in diameter that would otherwise break in the standard mechanical pencil. Originally marketed as a trade tool for engineers, drafters, and artists, the thin-lead mechanical pencil is now used by the general population.