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The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

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Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#41

Post by userbinator »

sharkweek wrote: post #14

I remember in like 4th grade I stabbed myself in the leg with a pencil on accident and snapped a piece of the "lead" off in my leg. My brain spiraled for weeks thinking I had essentially poisoned myself and would be dying shortly. Finally told my parents, who said "okay lets go talk to the doctor" who, very sweetly, told me that little piece of graphite in my leg would cause essentially no harm. It's still there, a l…

Even if it was real lead, I doubt you'd suffer much in the way of health effects either.

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#42

Post by sublinear »

lostlogin wrote: post #29
inetknght wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time I was stabbed in the knee with a pencil. It's still there 30+ years later. Both the knee and the pencil mark. It doesn't hurt at all.

I’m an outlier in the HN crowd - I was the stabber, not the stabee. Sorry Ben!

You're not an outlier. #thuglyfe

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#43

Post by brnaftr361 »

lostlogin wrote: post #29
inetknght wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time I was stabbed in the knee with a pencil. It's still there 30+ years later. Both the knee and the pencil mark. It doesn't hurt at all.

I’m an outlier in the HN crowd - I was the stabber, not the stabee. Sorry Ben!

Same, though on both counts it was totally unintentional.

Sorry, Logan.

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#44

Post by hackernewds »

nkurz wrote: post #2

I wanted to know when pencil leads stopped by made of lead, and was surprised to learn that they never had been: Going back to an earlier point, when the graphite was discovered the English thought they had unearthed a lead deposit, a misunderstanding caused because lead and graphite look uncannily similar in their natural form. It is because of this prevailing thought that the pencil was known as the lead pencil, a…

that's good. because I've definitely eaten my fair share with my friends when we were kids. we used to have those cool ones that you click on the end and a sharp thin cylinder of 'lead' comes out. they were crunchy and entertaining at least

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#45

Post by GolfPopper »

sharkweek wrote: post #14

I remember in like 4th grade I stabbed myself in the leg with a pencil on accident and snapped a piece of the "lead" off in my leg. My brain spiraled for weeks thinking I had essentially poisoned myself and would be dying shortly. Finally told my parents, who said "okay lets go talk to the doctor" who, very sweetly, told me that little piece of graphite in my leg would cause essentially no harm. It's still there, a l…

I was stabbed with a pencil in the arm in 4th grade, tip broke off. Had the little gray-blue dot in my arm for years. I could feel it if I poked at it, which I eventually stopped doing. I'd check it, or show it to someone every once in awhile. Sometime in 40s, I went to check it and it had disappeared.

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#46

Post by [deleted] »

GolfPopper wrote: post #45
sharkweek wrote: post #14

I remember in like 4th grade I stabbed myself in the leg with a pencil on accident and snapped a piece of the "lead" off in my leg. My brain spiraled for weeks thinking I had essentially poisoned myself and would be dying shortly. Finally told my parents, who said "okay lets go talk to the doctor" who, very sweetly, told me that little piece of graphite in my leg would cause essentially no harm. It's still there, a l…

I was stabbed with a pencil in the arm in 4th grade, tip broke off. Had the little gray-blue dot in my arm for years. I could feel it if I poked at it, which I eventually stopped doing. I'd check it, or show it to someone every once in awhile. Sometime in 40s, I went to check it and it had disappeared.

[deleted]

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#47

Post by Daub »

A precursor of the graphite pencil is the silverpoint. A silverpoint is no more that a metal wire. It can be made of silver, gold, copper just about any metal. The lines they produce are almost identical to pencil, but also change in color over time through oxidization. The only constraint is that the paper needs to be primed before the mark will show. Leonardo Da Vinci did most of his drawings with such a device. One advantage is that they remain sharp for years.

You can test the line such a device makes by taking a coin and dragging it over a painted surface, like a wall.

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#48

Post by rahimnathwani »

xdc0 wrote: post #37

I'm from a Spanish speaking country. In the 90s one of the ubiquitous pencil brands had on their pencils the phrase "Sin plomo" or "No contiene plomo", can't remember which one, these phrases translate to "Without lead" and "Does not contain lead" respectively. I never understood where it came from but it probably came from some English label translation perhaps? Where the distinction and labeling where the disambigu…

Maybe it meant the paint on the casing had no lead.

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#49

Post by HnUser12 »

sharkweek wrote: post #14

I remember in like 4th grade I stabbed myself in the leg with a pencil on accident and snapped a piece of the "lead" off in my leg. My brain spiraled for weeks thinking I had essentially poisoned myself and would be dying shortly. Finally told my parents, who said "okay lets go talk to the doctor" who, very sweetly, told me that little piece of graphite in my leg would cause essentially no harm. It's still there, a l…

I recently learned that there’s a subreddit dedicated to this. r/pencilStabbers.

Re: The history of lead pencils and their lack of any lead (2021)

#50

Post by somat »

adrian_b wrote: post #8
kazinator wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding had always been that there were never pencils where a rod of lead was encased in wood. However, in the Roman times, styluses were used for writing which were just sharpened rods of lead. Right or wrong, I pinned the etymology on that and didn't give it another thought. How can we be sure that someone's knowledge of those Roman-era instruments didn't influence the etymology of "pencil lead", in spite…

As tools for writing, normal styluses and lead rods, which were both used in Roman times, are distinct. A "stilus" (the modern spelling of the words "stylus" and "style" is a mistake, which was frequent when Latin words had been assumed to be Greek words with Modern Greek pronunciation) was a metal rod that was used to write on wax tablets. The Romans called it either "stilus" or "graphium", the latter form being dir…

Fairly obvious in retrospect, however I never put the two together until I read your post. but the stuff is called "graph"ite, that is, the stuff you write with. boom, mind blown.
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