How the World’s Finest Pencils Are Made. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srixb98N6Tk

Welcome back. Today we are visiting one of the world's finest pencil and pen manufacturers that has been around for over 200 years. Up there is yard OLED. We're in the heart of industrial Birmingham in the jewelry quarter. So this place is absolutely steeped in history and this workshop is utterly beautiful. Oh, wow. This is just so beautiful. Hello, Alec, I'm Alex. Nice to meet you. Welcome to the Ardel, Ed. Thank you so much for having us, Alex. I'm very grateful to be here. I am thrilled that you're going to be showing us around. I hear that we're going to be making a mechanical pencil model today that is called the Diplomat. We certainly are. Yeah. We're making the Diplomat hexagonal barley pencil. We have one here. This is gorgeous. It's made out of sterling silver. I mean, we've all used dozens and dozens of mechanical pencils. You know, cheap plastic things, right? Yep. The first mechanism for how that mechanical pencil runs that has its roots right here at yarder lead 94 years ago. It certainly does. It does. And it's still the same today. It's not changed for over 94 years. Awesome. Right, let's get to it. See the raw material. Let's go. There's a silver tube come to us in length. So they're all sterling silver. They're all sourced in the uk. So every single pen and pencil we produce have to be hallmarked. Hallmarking. It's effectively an approved stamp by a governmental organization. Exactly. This is legitimately sterling silver of this grade. It properly certifies the material is what you say it is. The next process here, once they've been cut, is to create the noses. It's annealed. And now it's into the swaging machine. Exactly. So this machine here we will use today uses dies. They're the dies that sit inside. The dies will sit in there and. And it will go at high speed and the dive will do this. Okay, so they're hammering together. Oh, beautiful. She fits. Beautiful. So if the nose fits in that hole there, that's a ball pen. Yeah. If the nose fits in that one there, that is a pencil and that's how we know. So, Alec, would you like to have a go at making your pencil nose? Nothing would make me happier. There we go. See if I can break it. Oh, you can feel it draw in, eh? This is such a fascinating machine. And those highly polished eyes are leaving a fabulous surface finish. They are. Right, we're going to take it and we're going to form it into a Hexagonal barrel. Now, Tavia, come with me. Alec, we're going this way. So the fly presses again, all original to the company. As you can see, the sheer amount of usage that's not polished up, that's polished up by hand. We don't buy tube pre shaped. We will shape every single one ourselves. Slide this on the mandrel. Slide this die in. Oh, they've EDM'd a taper on the die as well. They have. Not only is there a beautiful relief radius here, but it is tapered. And is this your stripper plate sliding around? Correct. That's a strip of plate. Feed it down nice and steady and it will just locate down. She squeezes. Look at that. Now the stripping tool comes across. Yeah. And then back the way you came. There we go. Oh, hello. Beautiful tooling. Beautiful process. That has turned it from this to that. And now we can do the engine turning process. And this is getting those beautiful fine details on each of the facets. Correct. Engine turning. Let's go through to the next room. Through to the next room. Now here's Amy, our engine turnician. Good to meet you. This machine is beautiful and a work of art in itself, but I really have no idea what I'm looking at. You know, this, for all I know, it is just a work of art. So I'm really excited to see how this, how this thing works. So we put the barrels over these mandrels and then we use this wheel. It goes up and down. This lever here is to change the direction of the pattern. So if the pattern's sort of like waving that way, it will change to wave the other way. And then this lever, it will move the diamond tip across the facet of the pen. I mean, are you punching into it or kind of scratching off material? Is this like an embossing or like a material removal? It doesn't take any material away, it just kind of like presses into it and will move the metal rather than cut any out. So this is the lever that engages the pen when you're moving up and down. It will sort of score it into the metal. Awesome. So I just press against the pen and then move the wheel up. And then it leaves a zigzag pattern on the pen like that. That's crazy. And then I change the pattern to the other way. Move this over slightly so it's probably about a millimeter that moves to the right and then go up again. Move over, go up. Repeat that again and then that's the first facet done. So for the second facet. This is how we move the pen around. So this is another wheel. Oh, wow. That's kind of effectively. That's indexing it to the next face. And then we can start the pattern all over again. What an incredible machine. That's that one done. So would you like to have a go on another facet? I'd love to. I'm still trying to figure out how it works. What's making the vibrations, what's making the knocking here. The pattern bar here. So basically, as I move up with the wheel, it will catch on a little notch there. So it will shake this part of the machine, which is what this is connected to. So it's shaking this sideways, which is then kind of allowing that vibration to knock into there. So we can change the pattern bar as well. That's what the bar looks like. These are the different sort of patterns from those bars. This is the operator's view here. Wow. I'm gonna spin these barrels. Yeah. Need to go a little bit more. Now the left wheel. Move it all the way down. So we're starting at the bottom. Now engage the diamond tip. Little forward pressure. Yep. And then now go down with the hand wheel. Yep. Wow. And all the way until you can't go anymore. Take off and then go all the way back down. That zigzag is incredible. Wow. There we go. That's done. There we go. This is another incredible handmade tool that they use to mark out the starting and stopping of the engine turning. So you can mark like that. That's sick. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Take them off the mandrel, and that's what you've done. Look at that. So we've taken it from a more polished version of this and turned it to that. Thank you so much. So next we're going to put the internal parts in. So you can do one, and I'll do one from the top. The nose cone. So that will sit in the nose. This goes inside. So it's the spiral, which holds the slider tube and the lead holder, which we also have to put together. Let's quickly go over how a mechanical pencil even works. This is a plastic example where rotating the tip advances and retracts the pencil lead so that as it gets worn, you can bring a little bit more out the yard. Lead Diplomat does it by rotating the cap at the top. But the basic principle is quite the same. The idea is translate rotational motion into linear travel of the pencil lead. This is achieved by having a lead holder that travels along a spiral. This is the Lead holder. And these are the teeth that engage with the spiral. While we're back here at the workshop, I want to talk to you about Sali. It is an ESIM service provided by Nord Security. They're the sponsor of this video. And with them gone are the days of arriving in a foreign country and having to mess around with changing the actual SIM in your phone. No more queuing up at dodgy SIM sales places outside the airport to get overpriced data. Ah, ah. You can get a way better deal on your data with Saily. 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And then we have the magazine which holds all of the leads. So to hold the yard of lead, we have 12 individual leads that fit in all these little slots which will sit around the spiral. And that's the unique way that yard of lead got its name, is that it has 123 inch long pieces of lead held within the pencil. Hence yardo led. Yeah, that's some very, very clever. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Okay, so I'll just get a clip as well because we'll solder a clip on. We punch out all our clips as well. We press the yarder lead into it. That is the coolest little burner I have ever seen. It's like a science Bunsen burner, isn't it? Look at that thing. Is that an oxygen line? Is it compressed air or oxygen? Compressed air. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That is so cool. So that's why you've got these two lines, right? Here. Yeah. Is in order to get your better flame, you have compressed air plumbed through this line. It mixes and then that's how you're able to. Am I allowed? I messed it up. No, it's okay. Don't worry. So I use this solder here. It's kind of like electrical solder. So it's like a quick melting, low temperature. Yeah. Correct. And then some flux in this little pot here. So I'll dab that onto the spiral. And then I put the nose cone onto the end of that, heat it up again, and then push it so it's nice and flush to the end. And then I can put the magazine over the spiral. This is the nut that goes on the end just to keep that in place as well. This is now finished. Soldering the tip to the spiral. And then push against there. And then I'm gonna put some more solder on the end so we can solder it into the actual barrel. The next stage that I'm gonna do is put the clip on. So basically we'll rivet and we're going to be using a little mini press tool. So we've got all the different tools for the different shape pens. So this is the one for the hexagonal. So that comes down and then I've punched the little holes in. Sweet. I can do the same on mine. Yep. All right, I'll go grab it, Slide it on. There you go. That is adorable. This is the tool to make the rivet. So we just slide the wire on and then press it down. And then it will shaped it. It's a U shaped rivet. Yep. That is so cool. So you're gonna slot the U inside the two holes and then rivet over the ends. What incredible tooling. And all of the tooling that you guys use is made literally just down the road. Yeah. Tool and die company down the road makes all this stuff. Yeah. Do you want to do yours while we're wrapping it? Yes, please. Okay. That is just incredible. Give it a squeeze off it comes. Perfect. So now we're gonna solder the clip on. So not only riveted, but also soldered just for some extra. Extra security. Yeah. We're gonna go over to the lathe to just remove the rivet that's inside of there. And so now that it's soldered, you're effectively grinding off the bottom of that U. Yeah. And next we're gonna put the internal parts inside, heat it up and push against the wood that's in there now. And it won't come out. So just give it a little test. You can put the leads inside of the gaps and this refill nut will go on. So it'll stop all the leads from falling out when you tip it upside down. Cos this is all spare lead that's gonna. This is none of the lead that's actually used to write with at the exact moment in time. And then we're now going to work on the actual mechanism that feeds the lead to the end of the pencil. Yeah. So this is the carriage that slides the lead up the spiral tube that was soldered inside the assembly earlier. Okay. So the next part is to put the lead holder inside of this solder tube. So it allows the lead to go up and down the pen like that. But it will all twist as one unit down the spiral like that. After that, we put the stopper on the end so it won't come back out. And then we can solder that in place. Usually I'll just check first if the top will actually go over it. And if it doesn't, that means we need to take a bit of metal off this before soldering in place. So I'll take that off again and we'll go back over to the layers. And I'm going to change the head here over to sort of like a holding tool. Literal hand turned brass. Wow. So we're going to add some solder to the end so we can solder the top onto that bush there. So I'll just sort of run the solder round. I use this cloth and it runs around nice and evenly. You were able to wipe the molten solder around the whole diameter there? Yeah. So it'll be nice and smooth around it. Now it's my turn to do the handheld lady. Ha. No way. There you go. Okay. That is just the coolest thing. Trying to like round it. Yeah, it wants to be rounded a little bit, right? Yeah. It's like woodturning. It is. Yeah. Brass. Check it fits. Look at that. That's pretty good. Now it's stuck in there. Rookie mistake. Before we put the top on, we're gonna put some graphite through the pen for the pencil. Sorry. So this will like loosen everything up because brass can get a little bit textured. So you just want to make sure everything's nice and smooth. So it sort of works as like a sanding down process, I guess, but we're just using graphite to do it. Now the final bit is just to put the top on. And we've already prepped it with the Solder on the end. And that's finished. What a set of operations to put all that together. That is no joke. Yeah, I definitely did not remember all of that. Now it's my turn. Okay. And then take it out the flame to solder. Yeah. And then push against the wood so it's nice and flush. Give it a tug. See if it comes off. We'll go again. I'm certain I've messed it up again. There we go. Done it. It didn't pop off. Perfect. Unbelievable. Okay, so now we have to file. Yeah. These little sharp bits. Transition smoothed up. Blob of solder on the tip. Yeah. So that's ready. Once the rivets been cleaned up. There. Yeah, that should be enough grand drip a little flux in there. Do you just go in between the two rivets or do you try and hit one rivet, then the next? Just on top's fine. And it will flow out, so it doesn't matter too much. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, and then heat again. Yeah, there we go. It actually doesn't look terrible. Now I'm going to burr off the little remnant of the U on the inside. There it is. Smoothed off. This. Now goes in like that. Yeah, about now. Yep. Push against. There we go. Press and hold. Yeah. Perfect. You guys have really good processes. I'd be fiddling for just weeks trying to sort this out if I had to try and figure it out myself. There we go. It works. So now we can put the legs in. One, two, three. It's got lead. I think just to make sure the lead doesn't fall out. I'm gonna put this nut on there. Yeah. I'm getting nods. So I need to. I'm gonna say assemble this. So we're gonna put together the lead holder first. Got it wrong. Gotta assemble the lead holder. My guess was wrong. Can you believe it? They make that tiny thing in house. It's insane. And the lead carrier is punched and sheared in house too. All the way down. And then I'm crimping that flat bit. Yeah. One, two. Oh, amazingly. Yeah. I did the thing. Thank you. Good instructions. Now slide it into the tube. Slide that on here and push it against the wood. This gets soldered. Yeah. And then just a little blob. Yeah. That's enough. I've just melted the rag onto it. No, there we go. Now onto the cloth and twist. Faster. Not. Yeah, there we go. Oh, there we go. Got it that time, didn't we? Pull it out and in. Jamie, it is a miracle. It's done. It just needs polishing. Thank you so much for your help. You're welcome. I really appreciate it. You're welcome to the polishing room. Beautiful buffing machines from Birmingham as well. They certainly are. Yeah. Yeah. All locally made. So special. I know some crazy history in these parts. So we gotta take it all apart again. We certainly have. Yeah. So that's right. So that's apart there. So we come over here. Grease mop with a hard compound mop. So we're looking to remove any kind of making marks. Now, of course, when Amy makes it go through all those processes. The riveting, the soldering, it's going lots of buffing, lots of filing, picks up scratches. Oh, it will pick up lots of things in the workshop when it's kind of going around all those processes that you've put it under. So nice and steady. I'm working the nose. And now we use a whitening process, which will basically allows. This is a kind of cleaning compound mixed with water. So basically I'm trying to get into these areas now to draw out any core polish, any. Any kind of. So this is like, almost like a degreaser of some sort. It's kind of. What is it called? After a Paris mint. I've never seen this before. That's so interesting. There we go. And then on this brid bristle brush, it'll clean out all the buffing out any of the buffing compound. Wow. And then what we do with this, there's been a tie in here. We run it underneath the clip, make sure there's no cords underneath there as well. We've done the grease, we've done the whitening. So now it's a finishing mop, which will be the rouge mark, which will be behind you. So the wheel. Yeah, that's it. In goes the mechanism. Yeah. This is so exciting. Yeah, in it goes. There you go. And then out comes the lead. That's a functioning mechanical pencil. That is an utter treat. Wow. Thank you to you. Thank you to Amy. Thank you to the rest of your team. No, no. It was a pleasure. This is such a treat. What a special bit of engineering, craftsmanship, silversmithing. I'm so grateful, but we got to see how this beautiful craftsmanship is executed. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming. Hope you guys go and check out yard oled and their beautiful pens and pencils. Please don't Forget to get 15% off your ESIM data plan with Saily by scanning the QR code on screen and using code forge at checkout. Thank you. Bye. Bye.