INDIAN WOODS FOR PENCIL MAKING

Abstract

FROM the Wood Seasoning Section of the Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun, comes an Indian Forest Leaflet (No. 66-1945 Utilization. For. Res. Inst., Dehra Dun, 1945) entitled “Indian Woods for Pencil Making”. It was during the First World War that India became for the first time closed to many of the imports which she had enjoyed with her progress during the nineteenth century. Pencils were one of those imports. Since that period, and as a result, a search for pencil woods was undertaken and has been continued throughout the country. About eighty different species of Indian timbers have been tried by the various pencil factories, but the results cannot so far be regarded as encouraging. First-quality pencil woods, with one exception, have not yet been discovered. As is well known, both England and Germany have had to depend on foreign supplies of woods for the manufacture of the highest grade of pencil, the two chief timbers being American cedar, Juniperus virginiana, perhaps the best because of its physical characteristics and whittling property, and the East African cedar, J. procera, which is a slightly harder timber. Owing to this latter characteristic, the Forest Products Research Laboratory, Princes Risborough, undertook experiments to improve the whittling properties of J. procera by a treatment for softening the pencil slats. Indian factories had had to import these junipers for their first-quality pencils.