HOME



picture info

Ballpoint
A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro (British English), ball pen (Hong Kong, Indian, Indonesian, Pakistani, and Philippine English), or dot pen ( Nepali English and South Asian English), is a pen that dispenses ink (usually in paste form) over a metal ball at its point, i.e., over a "ball point". The metals commonly used are steel, brass, or tungsten carbide. The design was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to dip pens and fountain pens, and it is now the world's most-used writing instrument; millions are manufactured and sold daily. It has influenced art and graphic design and spawned an artwork genre. History Origins The concept of using a "ball point" within a writing instrument to apply ink to paper has existed since the late 19th century. In these inventions, the ink was placed in a thin tube whose end was blocked by a tiny ball, held so that it could not slip into the tube or fall out of the pen. The first patent for a ballpoint p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ballpoint Pen Artwork
Since their invention and subsequent proliferation in the mid-20th century, ballpoint pens have proven to be a versatile art medium for professional artists as well as amateur doodlers. Ballpoint pen artwork created over the years have been favorably compared to art created using traditional art mediums. Low cost, availability, and portability are cited by practitioners as qualities which make this common writing tool a convenient, alternative art supply. Ballpoint pen enthusiasts find the pens particularly handy for quick sketch work. Some artists use them within mixed-media works, while others use them solely as their medium-of-choice. The medium is not without limitations; color availability and sensitivity of ink to light are among concerns of ballpoint pen artists. The internet now provides a broad forum for artists to promote their own ballpoint creations, and since its inception ballpoint pen art websites have flourished, showcasing the artwork and offering information of th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bic (company)
Société Bic S.A., commonly called Bic and stylized as BiC, is a French manufacturing S.A. (corporation), corporation based in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine. It was founded in 1945 by French aristocrat Marcel Bich and produces specifically disposable items; namely Bic Cristal, pens, stationery, lighters, and razor, shaving razors. History In 1942, Marcel Bich and his partner, Édouard Buffard, set up a business creating writing instrument parts in a factory in the Paris suburb of Clichy, where they began production of pen holders and pencil cases. Marcel Bich bought the patent for the ballpoint pen from Hungary, Hungarian – Argentina, Argentine inventor László Bíró, and using Swiss watchmaking tools, he devised a manufacturing process that produced stainless-steel balls for the tip of the pen. Bich soon perfected the design of the ballpoint pen, and the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen became the company's first product in 1950. The Bic Cristal has sold over one hundred billion unit ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fountain Pen
A fountain pen is a writing instrument that uses a metal nib (pen), nib to apply Fountain pen ink, water-based ink, or special pigment ink—suitable for fountain pens—to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal reservoir to hold ink, eliminating the need to repeatedly dip the pen in an inkwell during use. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits the ink on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action. Filling the reservoir with ink may be achieved manually, via the use of an eyedropper or syringe, or via an internal filling mechanism that creates suction (for example, through a piston mechanism) or a vacuum to transfer ink directly through the nib into the reservoir. Some pens employ removable reservoirs in the form of pre-filled ink cartridges. History Early prototypes of reservoir pens According to Qadi al-Nu'man al-Tamimi () in his ''Kitab al-Majalis wa 'l-musayarat'', the Fatimid caliph Al-Mu'izz ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




László Bíró
László József Bíró (; ; 29 September 1899 – 24 October 1985), Hispanicized as Ladislao José Biro, was a Hungarian inventor who patented the first commercially successful modern ballpoint pen. The first ballpoint pen had been invented roughly 50 years earlier by John J. Loud, but it was not a commercial success. Early life Bíró was born to a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary, within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1899 to Mózes Mátyás Schweiger and Janka Ullmann. The Schweigers changed their name to Bíró in 1905. After leaving school, Bíró began work as a journalist in Hungary. Invention of the ballpoint pen While working as a journalist, Bíró noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge-free. He tried using the same ink in a fountain pen, but found that it would not flow into the tip, as it was too viscous. In 1930 he observed children playing with marbles in a puddle, noticing that the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Dip Pen
A dip pen is a writing instrument used to apply ink to paper. It usually consists of a metal nib (pen), nib with a central slit that acts as a capillary action, capillary channel like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted in a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and plastic; some pens are made entirely of glass. Generally dip pens have no ink reservoir, so the user must refill the ink from an ink bowl or bottle to continue drawing or writing. Sometimes a simple tubular reservoir can be clipped to the top of the pen, allowing for several minutes of uninterrupted use. Refilling can be done by dipping into an inkwell, but it is also possible to charge the pen with an eyedropper, a syringe, or a brush, which gives more control over the amount of ink applied. Thus, "dip pens" are not necessarily dipped; many illustrators call them nib pens. Dip pens with replaceable metal nibs emerged in the early 19th century, when they ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tungsten Carbide
Tungsten carbide (chemical formula: ) is a carbide containing equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms. In its most basic form, tungsten carbide is a fine gray powder, but it can be pressed and formed into shapes through sintering for use in industrial machinery, engineering facilities, molding blocks, cutting tools, chisels, abrasives, armor-piercing bullets and jewelry. Tungsten carbide is approximately three times as stiff as steel, with a Young's modulus of approximately 530–700 GPa, and is twice as dense as steel. It is comparable with corundum (α- ) in hardness, approaching that of a diamond, and can be polished and finished only with abrasives of superior hardness such as cubic boron nitride and diamond. Tungsten carbide tools can be operated at cutting speeds much higher than high-speed steel (a special steel blend for cutting tools). Tungsten carbide powder was first synthesized by H. Moissan in 1893, and the industrial production of the cemented form starte ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Frederick George Miles
Frederick George Miles (22 March 1903 – 15 August 1976) was a British aircraft designer and manufacturer who designed numerous light civil and military aircraft and a range of prototypes. The name "Miles" is associated with two distinct companies that Miles was involved in and is also attached to many non-aviation products such as the Biro pen, photocopiers and book binding machinery. Throughout his life, he was known as "Miles" and never by his first name, even to his own family. Early life Miles was born on 22 March 1903 in Worthing Sussex, the oldest of four sons of Frederick Gaston Miles, a laundry proprietor (Star Model Laundry, Portslade), and his wife Esther. Miles's father is noted in the 1901 census as being a 25-year-old laundry warehouseman but by the time of the next census in 1911, he is described as being the proprietor of the laundry, a business which continued into the 1970s. Miles's father was an astute businessman who was able to support Miles's early intere ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Bic (28332699)
BIC or Bic may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Bic (company), French manufacturer of stationery, lighters, and shaving razors ** Bic Cristal, disposable ballpoint pen ** BIC lighter, disposable lighter * Bic Camera, Japanese electronics retailer * Baháʼí International Community, an international non-governmental organization * Barrier Industrial Council, the trades and labour council in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia People * Bic Hayes (Christian Hayes, born 1964), English musician * Bic Runga (Briolette Kah Bic Runga, born 1976), New Zealand musician * Blue Ivy Carter (born 2012), stage name B.I.C., an American singer, daughter of Beyoncé and Jay-Z Places * Bîc, Bubuieci, Moldova * Bic, Șimleu Silvaniei, Romania * Bîc, a river in Moldova * Bić, a mountain in Serbia * Le Bic, Quebec, Canada ** Bic National Park, near Le Bic Science and technology * Bayesian information criterion, a statistical measure for choosing between models * Material nonimplicatio ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Writing Implement
A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Writing consists of different figures, lines, and or forms. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, but writing instruments generally have the ordinary requirement to create a smooth, controllable line. Another writing implement employed by a smaller population is the stylus used in conjunction with the slate for punching out the dots in Braille. Autonomous An autonomous writing implement is one that cannot "run out"—the only way to render it useless is to destroy it. Without pigment The oldest known examples were created by incising a flat surface with a rigid tool rather than applying pigment with a secondary object, e.g., Chinese jiaguwen carved into turtle shells. However, this may simply represent the relative durability of such artifacts rather than truly representing the evolution of techniques, as the meaningful applicati ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Miles Aircraft
Miles was the name used for aircraft and associated businesses of British engineer Frederick George Miles, who, with his wife – aviator and draughtswoman Maxine Blossom Miles, Maxine "Blossom" Miles (née Forbes-Robertson) – and his brother George Herbert Miles, designed numerous light civil and military aircraft and a range of curious prototypes, primarily between 1943 and 1947. History Phillips and Powis A company was founded in 1928 by Charles Powis and Jack Phillips as Phillips & Powis Aircraft (Reading) Ltd. In 1929 they opened Woodley Aerodrome, near the town of Reading, Berkshire, Reading, Berkshire. In 1936, Rolls-Royce Limited, Rolls-Royce bought into the company. Although aircraft were produced under the Miles name, it was not until 1943 that the firm became Miles Aircraft Limited when Rolls-Royce's interests were bought out. The company needed to increase production of the Miles Messenger and to do so it took over a former linen mill in Banbridge, County Dow ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports, art, and science. They often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, Obituary, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns. Most newspapers are businesses, and they pay their expenses with a mixture of Subscription business model, subscription revenue, Newsagent's shop, newsstand sales, and advertising revenue. The journalism organizations that publish newspapers are themselves often Metonymy, metonymically called newspapers. Newspapers have traditionally been published Printing, in print (usually on cheap, low-grade paper called newsprint). However, today most newspapers are also Electronic publishing, published on webs ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Capillary Action
Capillary action (sometimes called capillarity, capillary motion, capillary rise, capillary effect, or wicking) is the process of a liquid flowing in a narrow space without the assistance of external forces like Gravitation, gravity. The effect can be seen in the drawing up of liquids between the hairs of a paint-brush, in a thin tube such as a Drinking straw, straw, in porous materials such as paper and plaster, in some non-porous materials such as clay and liquefied carbon fiber, or in a biological cell. It occurs because of intermolecular forces between the liquid and surrounding solid surfaces. If the diameter of the tube is sufficiently small, then the combination of surface tension (which is caused by Cohesion (chemistry), cohesion within the liquid) and Adhesion, adhesive forces between the liquid and container wall act to propel the liquid. Etymology Capillary comes from the Latin word capillaris, meaning "of or resembling hair". The meaning stems from the tiny, hairl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]