On Location at Derwent

Our On Location collection reveals the place a few of the best-loved artwork supplies are made, and gives perception into the working strategies of the individuals who make them. This time, we travelled to England’s lovely Lake District in Cumbria to go to the Derwent pencil manufacturing unit. Right here, extremely skilled employees produce a variety of artists’ pencils, drawing instruments, and equipment, from their heritage Artists colored pencil vary and revolutionary Inktense collections to their premium Lightfast pencils.

High left and proper: The Lake District.
Backside left and proper: Contained in the Derwent manufacturing unit.

A Transient Historical past of Derwent

The unique Derwent manufacturing unit was based mostly in Keswick, near the historic Seathwaite graphite mine within the Borrowdale Valley. This web site, found within the 1500s, after a tree was upturned in a storm, was discovered to be wealthy in deposits of the purest graphite. At first, its potential was not realised, and native farmers, calling it ‘wad’, used it to mark their sheep. However progressively, its distinctive mark-making qualities started to be realised.

Images of the outdated Keswick Derwent manufacturing unit.

The pencil solely grew to become a industrial enterprise from the 1790s, and by the early 1800s, there have been 13 producers in Keswick, constructing a repute for the best pencils on the planet. Derwent outlived all of them, having its roots in one of many first pencil factories established by Banks, Son & Co. in 1832. This grew to become the Cumberland Pencil Firm in 1916 and was renamed Derwent (after considered one of its branded merchandise) within the Eighties.

Staff members laborious at work on the Derwent manufacturing unit.

Relocation to Lillyhall, Workington

Derwent’s manufacturing unit can now be present in Workington, nestled on the sting of the dramatic, awe-inspiring panorama that’s the Lake District. A brief distance from Keswick, the relocation to an enormous, super-efficient trendy house was designed to assimilate their expanded product vary, a extra eco-friendly manufacturing course of, and address the corporate’s ever-growing recognition with artists all over the world. The plane hangar-style premises comprise busy administrative places of work, a state-of-the-art laboratory, and at its beating coronary heart, the expansive manufacturing unit flooring.

The pigment mixing space.

How a Derwent Pencil is Made – From Color Mixing to Packing

Coming into from the reception space, a small entrance doesn’t put together you for the excessive halls of the industrious manufacturing unit flooring. Together with the sound of machines and employees busy at work comes an aroma not dissimilar to a bakery. As we made our method to the primary stage of manufacturing, we handed the packing space the place forklift vans load and unload completed merchandise from and onto banks of steel shelving items that attain into the rafters.

Pigment mixes being ready.

Mixing

Every product goes by a sequence of phases earlier than it lastly arrives within the packing space. The primary is to arrange the right combination, whether or not or not it’s including clays to pure graphite, pigments and waxes for color leads, or pigments and binders for paint pans. An knowledgeable color mixer consults a recipe type, referred to as a ‘works order’. This way lists the proper ratio of every half. A scoop is used to achieve the precise weight and proportion of the separate elements as they’re tipped right into a paper sack.

Pigments being churned and heated.

As soon as this batch preparation is full, the sack is taken to a financial institution of blending machines. A selected machine will probably be chosen based mostly on the color to be blended. This avoids contamination of colors, so yellows usually are not blended in the identical machine as blues, for instance. The combo is poured into the machine, and water is added to make a paste.

The machine churns and heats the paste to attain the precise moisture content material, a vital issue that permits for the manipulation and crafting of a selected vary. The one that is mixing will examine the moisture content material on a moisture steadiness. They will even examine the color utilizing what are referred to as ‘requirements’ – archived examples of the unique product, a few of which date way back to the Nineteen Thirties after they had been first conceived.

The billeting part.

Billeting and Urgent

With the color combine accomplished, it might probably go considered one of two methods, relying on the kind of product. Mixes supposed for pencils are put by a Loader. This machine begins the method of turning the combo into the ‘strips’ that type the color core of a Derwent pencil. It does this by compressing the combo collectively and utilizing a vacuum system, eradicating any pockets of air after which squeezing out massive rolls of pigment referred to as billets.

Accomplished billets.

The billets are loaded into the Press. The Press could be fitted with dies of various diameters acceptable to the product being produced. Thus, the bigger core of a Coloursoft pencil would require a bigger diameter of strip in comparison with the slimmer core of a Chromaflow pencil. The machine pushes out the strips and cuts them on the similar time.

Rolling Cans and pencil strips.

These are loaded into Rolling Cans, which constantly roll the strips. This rolling movement ensures they continue to be straight and prevents warping. The strips are then positioned in an oven and saved turning whereas they’re baked for between two and 4 hours, till absolutely dry. As soon as once more, they’re checked for the proper moisture content material as soon as they’ve left the oven.

Graphite strips being prepared for the furnace

Graphite strips being ready for the furnace.

Within the case of graphite merchandise, corresponding to the long-lasting Graphic vary, they’re positioned in a furnace in a single day at as much as 1000 levels centigrade. The ball clay utilized in graphite merchandise is crucially altered by the extraordinary warmth, giving it its key writing properties.

Inktense blocks nearly prepared for packing.

One other route is taken by extra painterly merchandise, together with Inktense blocks and paint pans, as soon as the color combine has handed by the identical billeting stage. Earlier than the billets are pressed, an imprint template should be chosen, which embosses the batch with the suitable branding and related product info. These merchandise are baked in a single day to achieve the proper moisture content material (beneath 0.5% as a rule) earlier than being despatched for packing by way of high quality management.

Vats of wax.

Wax Preparation

Apart from pastel and charcoal pencils, which at the moment are prepared for Woodwork, all different pencil strips are loaded into tins for wax preparation. The strips are marinated in vats of wax for between two and 24 hours. There are several types of waxes used for various ranges, together with watersoluble, gentle, and laborious waxes. The waxing course of offers the strips their distinctive texture, integrity, and character.

The centrifuge.

If a strip has not absorbed the required quantity of wax, it’ll reveal a hoop within the centre. As soon as that is checked, the tins are loaded right into a centrifuge, which, because it spins, removes any extra wax answer. At this stage, samples are despatched to the laboratory the place checks are carried out for diameter, breaking pressure, and texture, in addition to color and diploma grade integrity.

The woodworking space.

Woodwork

The Derwent skilled vary of pencils is made utilizing Californian cedar wooden. Its qualities, together with the shortage of knots and the convenience with which it sharpens, make it the proper wooden for the crafting of artists’ pencils. The cedar wooden is available in slats, skinny strips of wooden that are despatched by a Grooving Machine. This is applicable eight or 9 grooves to every slat. A particular, customised PVA glue is utilized, and the slats are then sandwiched along with the pencil strips inside. These are then despatched alongside a conveyor belt to the Clamping Machine, which firmly compresses them collectively.

Wooden slats in manufacturing.

Shaping

The glued slats at the moment are prepared for shaping, the place they are going to both be lower right into a spherical or hexagonal form. A machine planes the slats one aspect at a time into the specified form. The sawdust created from the woodworking part isn’t discarded. Reasonably, it’s gathered collectively and recycled as an vitality supply to warmth the manufacturing unit. Astonishingly, this gives two-thirds of the manufacturing unit’s heating in winter and all of it in summer season.

Barrels prepared for portray.

Barrel Portray

Now that the pencils have been lower to form, the barrels are prepared for portray. A Works Order specifies the suitable branding color combine, which is made utilizing color chips in lacquer to attain a sturdy paint. A color match is shipped to the laboratory for approval earlier than the complete batch is painted.

The barrels are positioned in a Hopper, which pushes them by cylinders the place the pre-mixed lacquer is utilized. Every coat is intentionally skinny to attain a clean end, and an extended conveyor belt permits for drying between every of the 4 coats of lacquer wanted.

Painted barrels and stamping.

Finish Rounding, Stamping, and Sanding

The painted pencils at the moment are loaded onto a machine that lightly rounds off the ends. Data distinctive to every model of pencil is then stamped onto the barrels utilizing warmth and pressure to use the new foil. To finish this stage, a sanding belt shapes and sharpens the pencil ideas.

The dipping space and pencils drying.

Dipping

Every pencil should now be vat-dipped with two-colour end-tips utilized at a slant – the slant being a signature of the Derwent model. The primary color denotes a selected vary, whereas the second signifies the pencil’s color.

Pencils are loaded onto angled dipping boards and queued for the Dipping Machine. The machine slowly lowers the guidelines into the dipping lacquer to keep away from any sloshing or waves, left submerged for a short while, and lifted out once more. As soon as the second color band has been utilized in the identical approach, the racked-up pencils are rolled right into a Scorching Field (a big steel cabinet), which absolutely dries the lacquer.

Pencils present process ultimate examine earlier than packing.

Unloading

Earlier than packing, the pencil racks are faraway from the Scorching Field, and a machine is used to switch the pencils from the dipping racks into cartons that create a ‘gross’ (roughly 144 pencils per gross). That is additionally the possibility for yet another high quality examine earlier than they’re stacked on cabinets within the packing space.

Units being picked and packed.

Packing

That is the world the place employees field, shrink wrap, and label all of the merchandise earlier than they make their approach internationally. All of the machines talked about beforehand are fastidiously manned and monitored by specialised employees, and it was good to find that the packing division is similar, with minimal reliance on automation. Derwent describe this as an additional extension of their high quality management and a testomony to the attentiveness and diligence of their packing workforce.

The Horseshoe.

When assembling a set of color pencils, for instance, every workforce member is assigned six or extra colors from the set’s sequence of colors. The workforce works in tandem, hand-loading their quota as every tin passes alongside a conveyor belt, selecting the pencils from an angled shelf in entrance of them. The financial institution of cabinets and conveyor belt is in a horseshoe form, permitting as much as 12 individuals to work on this approach.

Laboratory workbenches and the Drive Gauge in motion.

The Lab

An integral a part of the pencil-making course of in addition to a spot of innovation, Derwent’s Laboratory is a clear, modest house comprising three compact rooms with workbenches, cabinets, and scientific-looking equipment. The primary room is the place common assessments are carried out on present batches of artwork supplies as they go by the totally different phases of their manufacturing journey.

Within the case of pigments, every batch is examined by taking a pattern, which is blended with somewhat oil utilizing a muller. A shade testing guide permits employees to check the combo with examples towards the requirements talked about earlier. The color chips used for colouring the pencil barrels are examined equally, besides they’re blended with a lacquer binder.

In the case of Graphite pencils and their numerous levels, that is checked by analyzing their color, texture, and even their sound. All pattern cores, whether or not graphite or color, are examined on a Drive Gauge, which breaks the strip and reviews the breaking pressure. Paint pans are examined by their weight.

The ‘requirements’.

A second room is dedicated to lightfast testing. Derwent makes use of considered one of two strategies, relying on the kind of product. The primary relies on the Blue Wool Scale. That is actually a wool swatch, which is used to check a color’s lightfastness as soon as it has been uncovered to gentle utilizing a particular Mild Machine, not dissimilar to a standard-sized fridge. Swatches are ready on strips and uncovered to gentle in increments of 25, 50, 100, and 200 hours. These are then in contrast towards the wool swatch.

Derwent’s Lightfast pencil vary requires a extra rigorous check as a result of its ASTM D-6901 ranking, which is the final word normal for lightfast integrity. For this, color batches are despatched to a US firm that exposes them to the fierce desert solar in Arizona. An accelerated Mild Machine is then used for in-depth comparability.

The third room has a extra experimental really feel. That is the place new merchandise are explored, developed, and examined. Derwent are continually innovating, and that is the place the magic occurs and new concepts are born. Advert hoc product testing and random checks are additionally carried out right here. Moreover, this house is the place new or substitute pigments are taken by their paces.

Entrance to the Derwent Museum.

A Go to to the Derwent Museum

Derwent’s lengthy presence within the Lake District has made them an icon of the group, and that is mirrored not solely within the loyalty of its domestically employed employees (lots of whom attain down the generations) but additionally by the favored Derwent Museum. Based mostly in a modest outbuilding on the unique manufacturing unit web site in Keswick, it was opened in 1981 and now receives nicely over 70,000 guests a yr. Notable guests have included Chris Evans and John Craven, and it was even used as a location within the 2012 Ben Wheatley movie Sightseers.

Show cupboards on the museum.

The museum not solely tells the story of Derwent’s historical past and evolution, but it surely additionally paperwork the historical past of the pencil by the ages. You enter by a reproduction of the Seathwaite graphite mine with its darkish, twisting tunnels and life-size fashions of mine employees to emerge right into a brightly lit house the place info panels, show instances, and artefacts take you on a journey of all issues pencil-related. This consists of two of the oldest color pencils (one in pink, the opposite blue), which had been made between 1820 and 1887 by stationery firm Smith & Warner. Unique Banks, Son & Co. pencils from 1834 can be seen, together with examples of Derwent’s Lake District-inspired packaging from the Nineteen Thirties onwards.

Derwent’s large Studio pencil.

On the coronary heart of the museum is likely one of the world’s longest pencils. Measuring almost 8 metres lengthy and weighing nearly 450 kilograms, this absolutely working Derwent Studio Pencil solely lacks a large sharpener to go together with it. Different highlights embody considered one of two specifically crafted Derwent pencils topped with a crown embellished with 60 diamonds – the opposite gifted to the Queen to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee. One other is Derwent’s intriguing WW2 Pencil. MI9 secret service agent Charles Fraser-Smith (rumoured to be the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s James Bond gadget-master, Q) commissioned the pencil in 1942. It was requested that the pencil was to hide a compass and a map for airmen in the course of the battle. Derwent’s best technicians labored lengthy hours to provide you with an answer, and the consequence was so ingenious that later makes an attempt to remake it had been by no means fairly pretty much as good.

The outdated manufacturing unit constructing subsequent to the museum, the WW2 Pencil with secret map, and two of the oldest color pencils on the planet.

We left the museum absolutely sated with the historical past of the pencil and Derwent’s essential function in how this deceptively easy however important artist’s device has been crafted and improved over the centuries. We headed out alongside the attractive banks of Derwentwater in quest of the outdated Seathwaite mines, the place all of it started, all these years in the past.