What is a ballpoint pen made of? Who and when invented the ballpoint pen: from the first inventor to the modern look. Ballpoint pen designs

Ball pen

Tip ballpoint pen with ball: magnification

Ball pen- pen, using the so-called core for writing (a tube filled with pasty ink) with a ballpoint writing unit at the end. The channel through which the ink passes is blocked at the end by a small metal ball, which rolls on the surface of the paper when writing, with back side drenched in ink. A small gap between the ball and the walls allows it to rotate and leave a mark on the paper as it rolls. These are the cheapest, simplest and therefore the most common pens. The ink paste used in ballpoint pens is different from the ink used for fountain pen writing. It was created on oil based and thicker, which prevents it from flowing out of the rod.

The principle of the pen was patented on October 30, 1888 in the USA by John Loud. In subsequent years, various designs of ballpoint pens were invented and patented: May 3, 1904 - by George Parker, in 1916 - by Van Vechten Reisberg.

The modern ballpoint pen was invented by the Hungarian journalist László József Bíró in 1938. In Argentina, where the journalist lived for many years, such pens are called "biromes" after him.

They were originally ordered by the Royal Air Force of Great Britain, as conventional fountain pens leaked in aircraft from the decrease in atmospheric pressure during climb.

In 1953, the Frenchman Marcel Bich (Marcel Bich) improved and simplified the design, having received the cheapest (disposable) model of a ballpoint pen in production called BIC (Bic Cristal).

In the USSR, ballpoint pens became widespread in the late 1960s, after they were mass production started in autumn 1965 on Swiss equipment. For quite a long time in Soviet schools, elementary school students were not allowed to use ballpoint pens, believing that it was impossible to develop a correct and beautiful handwriting with them. This ban gradually faded away in the 1980s.

There are two main types of ballpoint pens - disposable and refillable.

see also

• Space Pen - Fisher's space pen

Notes

Links

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what a "ballpoint pen" is in other dictionaries:

BALLPOINT PEN, a device for writing, consisting of a reservoir (rod) filled with thick ink (paste), which is closed at one end with a small ball; the ball, when pressed on the rod, rotates and transfers the paste to the paper. ... ... Scientific and technical encyclopedic dictionary

See the handle ... approach the handle .. Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. under. ed. N. Abramova, M .: Russian dictionaries, 1999. pen pen, drawing pen; lever; shaft; chapyga, whip, ballpoint pen, hand, handle, foot ... Synonym dictionary

The style of this article is not encyclopedic or violates the norms of the Russian language. The article should be corrected according to the stylistic rules of Wikipedia. This term has other meanings, see Pen ... Wikipedia

Wiktionary has an entry for "pen" Pen: A pen is a writing implement that can be used to leave an ink mark on a surface. A fountain pen is a writing utensil for writing on paper with liquid ink. Ballpoint pen, ... ... Wikipedia

Space Pen Space Pen (Russian Space Pen Space Pen) is also known as Zero Gravity Pen (Weightlessness Pen), a ballpoint pen created and sold by Fisher Spacepen Co., in which the ink is in a special ... ... Wikipedia

HANDLE, and, wives. 1. A part of an object, by which it is held or taken by hand. Door River R. kettle, suitcase, saw. 2. Part of the furniture that serves as a support for the hands, armrest. R. armchairs. Sofa handles. 3. Writing utensils elongated holder for ... ... Dictionary Ozhegov

Exist., f., use. often Morphology: (no) what? pens for what? pen, (see) what? pen what? pen, what? about the pen; pl. what? pens, (no) what? pens, why? pens, (see) what? pens what? hands, what? about handles human hand 1. Handle… … Dictionary of Dmitriev

AND; pl. genus. check, date chkam; well. 1. Reduce. caress to Hand (1 character). Little r. child. Make to someone pen (colloquial; about a hand gesture as a sign of goodbye). Walk under the arm (= under the arm). Attach to the pen (iron .; kiss someone's hand; usually ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

pen- and; pl. genus. check, date chkam; well. see also up to handle 1) reduce. caress to hand 1) Small hand / chka child. Make to someone with a pen (colloquial; about a gesture with a hand as a sign of goodbye) Walk under the handle (= by / a hand) ... Dictionary of many expressions

There is no information about the history of the creation of ballpoint pens, it will not be difficult to find it. Information about the rods is also highlighted in a separate .

But sorting it out and classifying the types of pens, as well as helping with advice with its choice will be useful.

Anatomy of a regular and automatic ballpoint pen

1. Hollow body - a rod is located inside it, if we are talking about a simple pen, and an additional rod return mechanism and a spring are located, if we are talking about a pen with a return mechanism (fountain pen).

2. Cap - serves to protect the ink from drying out, as well as to ensure that when worn, the writing mechanism does not stain clothes. You probably noticed that the majority of the caps have holes in the base - they serve to ensure that a person, in particular a child, when swallowed, can breathe through them until medical care. The same applies to the caps of felt-tip pens.

3. Tip - unscrewed, serves to fix the return spring of the fountain pen and to change the rod. In cheap pens it is made of plastic, in more expensive ones it is made of metal, which significantly increases the life of the handle. The plastic tip is one of the diseases of fountain pens, it often cracks and breaks, long before the rod runs out.

5. Grip (Grip), aka grip section - stop (often rubber) for the fingers at the base of the handle. Thanks to this small rubber ring, the usability of the pen has increased tenfold.

6. Mechanical device for feeding and returning the core of a fountain pen. Serves to hide the writing unit inside the body of the pen. Mechanisms are mainly spring and rotary. Sometimes - sliding.

7. The core of the pen is a hollow tube filled with ink. As a rule, the rods are made of plastic or metal. But we will return to the types of ink below.

8. The actual writing unit of the pen. We will also talk about its types and device below.

Handle body

They are distinguished by the materials from which the body is made. Consider the main ones:

Plastic. The most common due to its simplicity and low cost. The handle made from this material is the lightest. Ideal for people who write a lot, for example, schoolchildren and students.

Metal. Traditionally from different types metals (steel, silver, gold, nickel, brass) produced premium pens. However, now you can easily find a metal handle on reasonable price(Chinese - well done =^_^=). Differs not only in the greatest durability, but also in weight.

Wood. As a rule, it is found in the form of a decorative element of premium-class pens, but on the Internet you can find an incredible number of homemade pens, the body of which is made of wood.

Handles are also distinguished by types of section, we will consider only the main ones:

A circle is the most common section of a pen body. It is unremarkable, it is saved only by the flu installed at the base.

Hexagon - a pencil is taken as the basis of the body, the edges are applied to the body for easy grip, and so that the pen does not roll off the table, by analogy with a hexagonal pencil.

Triangle - by far the most ergonomic section of the handle, grip under the fingers. It is worth noting that some manufacturers took care of left-handers and made handles not only with a triangular section, but also with special recesses on the grip of the handle, for convenience, with a reverse grip.

Let's combine the types of writing knots and ink in one section, because they are closely related.

Ball point pen

As a rule, the nib and nib are a single unit (in cheap disposable pens, the pen nib is also the body) and are discarded after use.

Device and principle of operation: the writing unit is a combination of a metal tube and a rolling bearing. The capillary effect is used to supply ink to the assembly.

The ink falls through the tube onto the ball, and when we pass it over the paper, it rotates and transfers the ink from the tube to the paper. Due to the special properties of the ink and the small gap between the ball and the walls of the tube, a uniform supply of ink is ensured. Here it is necessary to make a small digression - there are two types of balls:

• metal
• ceramic

Ceramic is preferred as it is covered with natural mini-craters, which transfers the ink to the paper more evenly. In addition, the ceramic ball is not subject to corrosion, although this, by and large, does not really matter.

To date, ballpoint pens are divided into three types according to the type of writing unit and ink.

Ballpoint pen / Ballpoint - classic ballpoint pen

Used ink:

1. Thickened ink/paste. The most common type.
2. Oil based ink. In this case, on the refill or pen, Semi-gel is indicated, today it is one of the most progressive inventions in the line of writing instruments.

Ballpoint pens with low viscosity oil-based ink provide soft and easy writing with economical ink consumption. The disadvantage of ballpoint pens, no matter how expensive they are, is the so-called. "tight" writing, spoiling the handwriting and straining the writer.

Gel pen / Gel / Gel rollerbal - this pen uses ink with a gel consistency.

Thanks to a new type of ink, it was possible to reduce the size of the ball, the pen began to write softer, this is subjective, in my opinion, the majority of gel pens seem to “scratch” the paper.

Ink used - inked gel.

The purpose of the invention of the gel pen was the desire to write richly, boldly and brightly. However, when using a conventional pen for these purposes, a large amount of ink was consumed. If you use ordinary ink and a larger gap between the ball and the walls of the tube, then the pen will leak. Therefore, instead of conventional ink, a gel tinted with them is used. Gel pens have gained wide popularity due to the incredible number of colors available.

Everyone has seen the 24-color sets, and plus there are sets with glitter, neon and pastel colors. A lot of artists and designers use gel pens. The advantage of these pens is that they can write on almost any surface, unlike ballpoint pens and rollerball pens.

The disadvantage of gel pens is the uncontrolled supply of ink, so there will certainly be streaks and stains, both on paper and on hands and clothes. For the same reason, we note the rapid consumption of ink. Such a pen is not very suitable for writing, although there are amateurs, but it is perfect for artists and designers.

Rollerball pen / Rollerball is the most advanced model of a ballpoint pen.

This pen uses a refill filled with liquid ink and a spring-loaded ball in the nib at the end to write.

Used ink

Unlike ballpoint pens, which use paste as the writing material, rollerball pens use a gel or other water-based coloring liquid. Due to the lower viscosity, the ink absorbs better, which allows the rollerballs to leave a more beautiful mark similar to the trace of a fountain pen. The writing ball is usually 0.5 and 0.7 mm in diameter, with "F" and "M" marked on the refills, respectively.

It is also worth noting that the ink used in rollerballs is water-based, which means that they are not waterproof and if moisture gets on the text, there is a high probability of blurring (for example, raindrops). To avoid this, water-based pigment inks are used. That is, the ink contains an insoluble pigment, which, drying on paper, forms a solid substance resistant to moisture. Such inks also have a minus - they dry out if not used for a long time. A significant disadvantage of such pens is their considerable cost in relation to other types of stationery pens, however, lightness and softness of writing more than make up for this deficiency.

Created unique pens with special inks that provide maximum smoothness of writing at a low price of a pen (Uniball Jetstream 217), I recommend trying it out on occasion.

Few people know and pay even less attention to such a seemingly small object as a stationery pen. However, a properly selected handle eliminates slipping and unnecessary tension on the fingers, unloads the arms, shoulders, and even reduces neck tension!

0. Don't go cheap. I am not advocating buying expensive pens. In addition to premium-class pens, there are pens of the middle price category, I won’t point out the boundaries, each has its own. I just want to say that when buying a cheap pen, there is a high probability of damaging documents, spoiling objects around (for example, getting dirty with leaking ink), and even health, the pen can simply be toxic. Due to poor-quality materials from which it is made, it can last a day, or even a couple of hours, which will eventually lead to new expenses.

1. The pen should fit your weight, it should not be very light, otherwise you will put a lot of pressure on the paper and your fingers will quickly get tired. The same will happen with the fingers, and the hand as a whole, after the handle has too much weight.

2. A well-chosen body shape is the key to a long letter. Of course, all this is an amateur, but I recommend a triangular section with a grip under the fingers.

3. It will be great if the pen is equipped with a rubber or rubber grip for the fingers, this will soften the pressure of the body on the fingers and make the grip comfortable and soft, which again will allow you to write longer.

4. Beware of smelly pens! There is a high probability that this is a self-made Chinese production, such pens can be toxic.

5. Many times I read recommendations to buy only domestic or European-made pens. In defense of the “made in china” inscription, I will say that many European manufacturers have marked their factories in China, where not only pens are produced, but many other things are produced under quality control. If you have a pen of a famous brand in your hands, but with the inscription "made in china", 99% that this pen is made in China, but under quality control and there is no point in fearing for the material of execution and health. Many manufacturers care about their reputation and do not allow fakes under their brands to appear on the shelves.

Afterword

These are far from all types of stationery pens, of course, no one has canceled fountain pens, rapidographs, capillary pens, or as they are also called liners / liners.

Links

• reviews of quality ballpoint and gel pens in

Scientists have found that One ballpoint pen can write, on average, 50,000 words. Now look carefully at your ballpoint pen: at its tip is small ball, which transfers the ink paste from the can to the paper. At first glance, everything seems to be very simple. But is it really so? In fact, it was not easy to develop a convenient ballpoint pen. In October 1888 John D. Loud from Massachusetts patented the "revolving nib fountain pen". He used a small ball with one side covered in ink. Over the next thirty years, the US Patent Office issued 350 patents for similar ballpoint pens, but none of them became a commodity. Referring to this historical fact, we can conclude that the ancestor of the idea of ​​a ballpoint pen was John D. Loud. However, not so long ago, Armenian archaeologists discovered a scroll dated 1166, which depicted a strange writing tool. They tried to recreate it with the help of the means that were indicated in the figure - a bamboo trunk, inside of which there is a hollow ball with a coloring liquid. When the experiment was completed, the researchers were surprised to find in their hands ... an ancient ballpoint pen. In the days of John D. Loud, the main obstacle was ink. Too liquid left blots on paper and stained the pocket. Too thick froze on the ball. Sometimes it was possible to create suitable controlled conditions, and then the ink acted as it should ... until the air temperature changed. The best that could be created was a ballpoint pen, which, as a rule, wrote at an air temperature of 70 0F (21 0C), but below 64 0F (18 0C) it clogged, and above 77 0F (25 0C) it leaked and left blots. Then this problem was taken Biro brothers(Biro). After World War I, 18 years old Ladislav Biro, demobilized from the Hungarian army, tried a number of activities. He studied medicine, art, was fond of hypnosis, but none of the professions interested him enough to become a specialty. He got into the newspaper business by chance. In 1935, Biro published a small local newspaper and often got angry with his fountain pen. The ink flowed from the pen onto the newspaper sheet, which soaked up the liquid like a sponge, and the end of the pen tore the paper in this place. In general, the result was not an inscription, but a purple swamp. Then Ladislav called his brother George, a chemist by profession, and the Biro brothers began to develop new fountain pens. After trying dozens of models, the brothers Ladislav and Georg, not knowing that 351 attempts had already been made before them, invented the ballpoint pen.
Ladislav Biro Once, while on vacation, while on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the brothers started talking about their invention with a certain elderly gentleman. They showed a beautiful writing pen, which he liked. It turned out that this gentleman was at that time the president of Argentina, Augusto Yusto. He invited the Biro brothers to build a ballpoint pen factory in his country. A few years later, World War II broke out and the brothers decided to leave Hungary. They remembered their old acquaintance and turned their eyes towards South America. Justo recognized them, and soon, with the help of the president, they were able to win the support of several investors. In 1943, the city opened new factory. It would seem that their life's work was doomed to success. But contrary to all expectations, there was a grand failure. The Biro brothers made the same mistake as all their predecessors - they relied on the force of gravity, under the influence of which the ink fell on the ball. This meant that the handle had to be held strictly vertically. But even then, the flow of ink was intermittent, and clots remained on the paper. Ladislav and Georg returned to the laboratory, and soon came up with a new design, capillary. Siphon pumping forced the ink to move towards the ball regardless of the position of the pen. A year later, the Biro brothers launched a new model for sale in Argentine stores. However, the handles sluggishly diverged. Eventually, the brothers ran out of money and production had to be halted. The brothers were helped by US Air Force pilots who were often in Argentina during the war, they discovered for themselves that Argentinean pens can write from the bottom up at any height and do not need to be recharged frequently. The US State Department invited American manufacturers to make the same pens. American company "Eberhard Faber" decided to try to monopolize the market and paid $500,000 for the rights to manufacture ballpoint pens; thus the brothers made a profit for their invention for the first time. But one problem still remained: despite the hype started around the novelty, the handles did not work well. They either leaked, ruining a lot of important documents and excellent shirts, or the ink dried up in them. The sales volume began to slowly creep down. The price also followed the volume of sales - also down. Ballpoint pens, once considered a luxury item, began to sell for as little as nineteen cents. But once having bought a pen even for these pennies and having tried to write, the buyers swore at what the world was worth, and swore not to buy ballpoint pens for the rest of their lives. At that time, a famous manufacturer lived in France. fountain pens and writing instruments, whose name was Marcel Bish(Bich). It was he who forced buyers to renounce such oaths. Marcel took a professional interest in ballpoint pens. At first, he acted as an ordinary observer as their popularity soared, and then fell like a stone to the ground and crumbled to dust, then he decided that he could conquer the market if he could create a reliable ballpoint pen and reduce its cost - he liked the novelty, but resented it high price for such low quality. The Biro brothers sold Bish the rights to the invention, and he set to work. For two years, Marcel Biche bought up all the models of ballpoint pens that appeared on the market and meticulously tested them, revealing the positive and negative sides. In 1952, Bish achieved a triumph: a cheap hexagonal pen made of transparent plastic wrote softly, without dripping or drying out. Billions of pens, the style of which has hardly changed, have been sold, used, lost, taken apart, gone to nowhere, just thrown away. Thus, the ballpoint pen achieved the expected and well-deserved success in the French market, and then throughout the world. Having studied the international market, Bish realized that with his name he could not break through in America. Then he changed the spelling of the name so that it could be correctly and easily pronounced wherever his new pen would be sold, - Bik. But what models are offered by manufacturers of pens now:


and even pens with a voice recorder, a clock and a camera:

For a long time, I've been doing a paper clip review of how. Then there was a small note, as you can. This time I want to tell you how the ballpoint is arranged.

Ballpoint pen device

Ballpoint pens are a military invention, originally used by pilots instead of pencils. As a rule, the writing unit and the ink container are one piece (and in cheap disposable pens, the container is one) and are thrown away after use. We'll talk about exceptions later. A ballpoint pen is a fairly simple object from a mechanical point of view that uses complex physical laws. Capillary effect is used to feed to the writing node. The writing unit itself is a combination of a tube and a rolling bearing. Ink is fed into a thin tube with an inner diameter of about 0.5 mm on one side, and a small hard ball is rolled on the other side, which scrolls quite freely in its socket.

Ballpoint pen writing unit

Ink falls on the ball, and when we pass the ball over the paper, it rotates and transfers the ink from the tube to the paper. Thanks to special ink and a very small gap between the ball and the walls of the tube, the ink is dosed and evenly distributed. Now ballpoint pens are divided into 3 classes according to the type of writing unit / ink:

• Ballpoint - classic ballpoint pen
• Gel (Gel rollerball) - gel
• Rollerball - roller

regular ballpoint pen but uses thickened ink, sometimes oil-based. This type of ink and the simplest writing unit is used in cheap disposable and reusable pens. The disadvantage is a rather “tight” letter, which eventually spoils the handwriting and strains the writer.

Gel- use gel ink. Thanks to the new ink, it was possible to reduce the size of the ball, the pen began to write softer. Sometimes gel ink is combined with a rollerball nib.

Roller- the most advanced model of ballpoint pens. The writing unit is spring-loaded, usually a ceramic ball is used (more wear-resistant). The ink used is ordinary liquid ink. In terms of cost, the pen is comparable to a regular fountain pen, and in terms of writing quality, it approaches it. Not without reason, even V.V. Putin signs the documents precisely.

All modern pens can be divided into two large classes:fountain pens and traditional pens.

According to the design of the writing knot handles are divided into:

• ball (include a ball made of metal);
• capillary (work on the principle of a felt-tip pen, supplying ink through the fibers);
• feather.

"Liners" are called pens, in which the writing unit is represented by a needle. "Liners" are similar to a rapidograph.

It is not so easy to say exactly which pens are called "rollerballs". Often the term "rollerball" refers to any ballpoint pens from European manufacturers. In fact, a "rollerball" is an ordinary ballpoint pen with various types ink supply.

Another division of pens is based on the type of ink composition and ink supply method. Absolutely all pens, except for capillary ones, have a writing element made of a hard and compact material. The ink of these pens also has an impenetrable composition. The ink of most pens cannot pass directly through the nib, but must flow slowly over the surface of the writing element.

If you select from all modern pens the one that is closest to traditional pens, then the choice should be stopped on a fountain pen. The main innovation of the fountain pen compared to its predecessors is the absence of the need for constant use of the inkwell. Fountain pens contain ink inside a special reservoir or inside a cartridge. Fountain pens require the simplest ink to work.

Ballpoint pens, the writing element of which is represented by a metal ball, differ from fountain pens in that they are not capable of scratching paper. As the ball rotates, it takes on the ink in the pen body and gently releases it onto the paper. The ink is either placed in a tube, which ends with a ball-shaped tip, this design is called a “rod”, or in a special cartridge. The presence of a cartridge is typical for modern scooters.

Ballpoint pen ink is significantly different in composition from "fountain" ink. Such inks necessarily include various resins that impart durability and low flow properties to the ink.

In recent years, ink called "oil" has become very popular. These inks are used for ballpoint pens, and they differ from traditional "ballpoint" ink by the need to use a writing element of a very small diameter. Reputable writing instrument manufacturers produce special "oil" pens for their oil ink.

Rollerballs have absorbed all the advantages of both fountain pens and ballpoint pens. Rollerballs have a ball for smooth writing. But rollerball ink is water-based, which makes it similar to ink for fountain pens. However, despite being water-based, rollerball ink does not dry as quickly as fountain pen ink.

Due to the special design of the ink accumulator in contact with the ball, rollerballs can write in almost any position. Some models work effectively not only on vertical surfaces, but also in the “end up” position.

Most experts attribute the future of writing supplies to gel pens. Gel ink has the consistency of a real gel, which allows you to significantly reduce the amount of friction of the ball on the tip and give the letter extra ease. Gel ink is in no way inferior to ballpoint pen ink in terms of gloss and color depth. At the same time, they are significantly more water and lightfast than rollerball inks. At the moment, the production of gel pens and inks for them is rapidly gaining momentum.

There are also pens equipped with ink supply systems on the market of writing instruments, bearing the names “ink-reservoir” and “free-ink”. At its core, these are rollers. The "ink-reservoir" system is characterized by the presence of an ink accumulator having a fibrous structure. This structure is used in felt-tip pens. The "ink-reservoir" system allows you to use ink very economically, but at the same time, the slow flow of ink makes writing much more difficult.

The free-ink system is a direct ink supply system that guarantees smooth and easy writing. The negative side of "free-ink" is the high ink consumption.

What handles do you use?