A small business owner in Japan came up with a trick: to pack less dry ink so that the ink in the refill can only write more than 10,000 characters before it is used up, so that the oil leakage problem of the ballpoint pen refill is solved. Therefore, he applied for a patent to produce a short ballpoint pen core and ballpoint pen, which was welcomed by customers. This method of solving problems seems to be cutting corners, but in essence it is an innovation, an ideological and methodological innovation to solve problems that people could not solve at the time.
Ballpoint pens were more expensive than fountain pens in the 1950s, and they were reluctant to throw them away after they were used up. They can be refilled and used in special pen shops. It is said that Bilo, a Hungarian, is a proofreader in a printing factory. Since the printed proof sample contains a lot of moisture, it can be changed with a pen, and the characters are easily leaked and blurred. So he used a steel ball to cover a thin ink tube to write. , It is not easy to produce the previous problems. Later, Billow provided his invention to the Royal Air Force, and a British aircraft manufacturer produced the first batch of ballpoint pens. Until World War II, the Americans adopted Bilo’s invention. In 1916, a new ballpoint pen designed by German Lisboa was not promoted. Until the outbreak of World War II, the U.S. Military Industry Department proposed to create a pen that was suitable for high-altitude writing, did not leak water, was not affected by cold and heat, could store a large amount of ink, and did not need to fill it frequently, and gave it a reward. In 1944, Chicago businessman Reynolds saw this as an excellent opportunity to make a fortune. Because of his active mind, he heavily invited people to improve Lisboa’s pen and achieved success in about a year. At that time, the United States lost an atomic bomb in Japan. He made a big advertisement and named his pen with the atomic bomb as the ball pen, which quickly became popular all over the world.
In 1948, China’s first domestic ballpoint pen was born in Shanghai Fenghua Ballpoint Pen Factory. After the reform and opening up, driven by huge export demand, pen manufacturers have sprung up.
The first domestically made ballpoint pen-Fenghua-style Paris
The first domestically made ballpoint pen-Fenghua-style Paris
Relevant national authorities in China launched the “R&D and industrialization of key materials and preparation technologies for the pen industry” project in 2011. The state allocated nearly 60 million yuan to support relevant scientific research institutions and enterprises for neutral ink manufacturing, pen tip stainless steel wire, processing equipment, etc. Carry out scientific and technological research. After unremitting efforts, the project passed the “Twelfth Five-Year” National Science and Technology Support Plan acceptance in 2015, achieving a series of technological breakthroughs. For a long time, the dilemma of “import dependence” that has plagued China’s pen industry has begun to be gradually reversed. [1]
In order to install “Chinese pens” for tens of billions of ballpoint pens, the state started the research on this key project as early as 2011.
Wang Huimian, a senior engineer at the Technical Center of Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group, believes that in order to make pen nibs with steel, many special trace elements must be used to adjust the steel to the best performance. The slight change in the ratio of trace elements will affect the quality of the steel. This ratio cannot be found. , China’s pen-making industry will always need to import nib steel.
In order to refine the materials, Wang Huimian, a senior engineer at the Technical Center of Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group, said that because there is no reference material for the development of this product, it is refining from tens of kilograms for a single ingredient. Up.
The production process of pen-based products is the core secret of foreign companies. Wang Huimian and the others must independently develop an unprecedented steelmaking process. Without any reference, we can only continuously accumulate data, adjust parameters, and design process methods.
The inspiration for the breakthrough comes from the home-made “mixing noodles”. If you want noodles to live moderately soft and hard, new “materials” must be added, and industrial “additives” must be added to the corresponding molten steel. Ordinary additives are lumps. If the lumps can be made thinner and thinner, the molten steel and the additives will blend more uniformly, which can enhance the machinability.
After five years of countless failures, under the electron microscope, TISCO finally saw the nib steel with evenly distributed “additives”, and the experiment was successful in September 2016. After more than ten large-scale steelmaking, the first batch of steel with good machinability was finally released. This batch of stainless steel wires with a diameter of 2.3 mm can be proudly written with the “Made in China” logo. [2]
