References and Further info
The Bic Biro by Jane Beedle
howstuffworks
Everyday Icon #3 The BIC Biro
The Art of Ballpoint: Experimentation, Exploration, and Techniques in Ink - Matt Rota (Rockport, 2015, ISBN-13 : 978-1631590573)
How the ballpoint pen is made - World Manual YouTube Channel (This is a Brazilian-based science channel, so its in Portuguese)
The
Story of László Bíró, the Man Who Invented the Ballpoint Pen - Colin Schultz (Smithsonian Magazine, 2012)
From
luxury to throwaway: the story of the Biro -
The
Evolution of Modern Ballpoint Pen: A Patent History - Steve Brachmann (IPwatchdog, 2014)
The Anatomy of a Ballpoint Pen
For most people wanting to write something down on paper,
their most likely to use a ballpoint pen. This mass-produced piece of precision
engineering is one of many everyday objects people all over the world take for
granted with little or no thought. But these writing tools use precision
engineering and physics so that you can write down a name, a phone number, some
directions, or a shopping list on a piece of paper, effortlessly without
smudging – most of the time.
Bic Cristal
Until 1950, most pens were elaborate (and expensive)
objects. They were cheap pens costing a fraction of a dollar – but they tended
to leak and smudge easily. Then came the Bic Cristal. Designed by the
Décolletage Plastique design team at Société PPA (Porte-plume, Porte-mines et
Accessoires – and later renamed Bic, after its founder Marcel Bich, in 1953),
the Cristal was launched in France in December 1950. Bich had bought the rights
to László Bíró’s patent, developed an ink of ideal viscosity, and acquired Swiss
technology capable of shaping metal down to 0.01 millimetres – all to make the
best pen possible.
When the Bic was introduced to the US in 1959, Americans
were sceptical of it. They were burned too many times by previous cheap pens.
So, Bic ran a TV ad campaign showing their pens been abused and then shown to
write perfectly fine with the slogan “Writes First Time, Every Time!” And, with
a retail price of just 29 cents ($2.58 in 2020), the Bic became so successful
that, within a year, other manufacturers were forced to drop their prices. This
pen is the origin of every cheap disposable pen that exists today. Apart from a
few changes, the Bic Cristal has remained the same shape and form since 1950.
Logo
The “BIC boy” logo was introduced in 1962. It was first created by Raymond Savignac a year earlier for a print ad to introduce Bic’s “Nouvelle [tungsten carbide] bille.” He made the character a school boy in the hope of attracting the attention of children, who may want new pens for school.
A Bic Cristal is approx. 145mm long and 7mm in diameter
total (without the cap).
Barrel
The barrel of the Bic is made of transparent polystyrene,
moulded into a hexagon shape to resemble a pencil. This is to prevent it from
rolling easily on a flat surface.
Cap
Until 1991 the Bic’s cap had no hole. This was because of
the introduction of British Standard BS 7272:1990, which later became ISO
11540:1993, which specify “safety requirements for caps for writing and marking
instruments which are designed or clearly intended for use by children up to 14
years of age.” It’s to prevent kids from choking when having a pen cap in their
mouth. The cap is made of polypropylene, instead of polystyrene, because it
absorbs impacts better, reducing the risk of cracking or splitting when dropped
or mishandled.
Ball
The ball in the tip of the pen is a precision-made piece of
metal, grounded to the accuracy of a few millionths of an inch. Initially a
steel bearing, in 1957 Parker Pens created the T-ball – a textured tungsten
carbide ball designed to grip any surface. These balls begin life as a powder
that is moulded, then heated until melting, then cooled quickly while in a
glass-like state, resulting in a clump of some 50,000 balls melted together to
form something like a round sugar cube – which is then milled to an ideal size
and smoothness. This method creates a ball with lots of surface pits and
internal channels that can contain ink and give the ball’s surface friction.
Tungsten carbide is used because of its resistance to deforming. Bic originally used stainless steel balls.
They switched to tungsten carbide 1961.
The ball can vary in diameter, determining the width of the
line the pen will draw.
In a Bic “medium point” (the most popular) its 1mm, drawing
a line about 0.4mm wide.
In a Bic “wide point” its 1.6mm, drawing a line about 0.6mm
wide.
In a Bic “Fine Point” its 0.8mm, drawing a line about 0.3mm
wide.
Ink
Imagine a pipe with an open end and you can only block it
off with a ball that snugly fits the pipe’s diameter. Can it hold back water?
No, there is enough of a gap for the water to get through. But what about a
thick liquid like syrup. That’s less likely to come out that pipe than water.
This is why the ink use in ballpoint pens is thick and oily.
Traditional ink, used with nib pens, is watery, like watercolour paint. It’ll
just come out the tip of a ballpoint, like a pipe blocked off by a
snugly-fitting ball. Early ballpoints used similar oily inks used in printing.
Then chemist Fran Seech developed modern ballpoint pen ink in 1949 for Paper
Mate.
The exact formula of Bic’s (and other manufacturers) ink is a trade secret, but can contain –
· Pigments - In classic blue ink, it’s a possible cocktail of phthalocyanine blue, crystal violet, and Prussian blue.
· An oil base, like benzyl alcohol or phenoxyethanol, to carry the pigments.
· Fatty acids, like oleic acid, for lubricating the ball and resisting clogging.
· Surfactants, like alkyl alkanolamide, to reduce the ink’s surface tension to help paper absorb it before it dries.
Bic claim that a
Cristal contains enough ink to draw a line about 2km long – or one Kentucky
Derby.
Ink Tube
Made of polypropylene, the tube contains the pen’s ink. In
some pens, like the Bic, ink is fed to the tip by capillary action – the
movement of liquid in a tube by its particles been attracted to the tube’s particles
and those particles pulling the rest along via surface tension. Some pens make
use of some form of piston pressing down on the column of ink.
Hole
The reason this hole exist can be explained with a very
simple demonstration. Get an empty plastic drinks bottle. Fill half of it with
water. Put its lid on, tightly. Find a pin that can puncture the walls of that
bottle. Make a hole with it somewhere well below the water line. Does the water
come out the hole? No? This is because, before the puncture, the air pressure
inside the bottle and out were equal. But when the hole was pricked, making
water leave the bottle, the pressure inside the bottle decreased. With more
pressure outside than the air inside, the air outside prevents the water from
leaving the bottle – until you make a hole above the water line. This new hole
lets outside air in the bottle making the pressure inside and out equal again. Without
this hole (found in pens that can’t be dismantled easily, like the Bic) no ink
can leave the pen.
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