Who invented japanese erasers

The original erasers were bread. Moist bread. Until the s, humanity's preferred way of erasing errant graphite marks relied on bread that had been de-crusted, moistened and balled up. While these erasers were cheap and plentiful, they had a distinct disadvantage: They were, you know, made of bread.

They were susceptible, like all bread, to mold and rot. Talk about a kneaded eraser. The same guy who discovered oxygen helped to invent erasers. In , the natural philosopher and theologian Joseph Priestley —discoverer of oxygen and, with it, the carbonated liquid we now know as soda water— described "a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the mark of black lead pencil.

Erasers were invented by accident. Though Joseph Priestly may have discovered rubber's erasing properties, it's the British engineer Edward Nairne who is generally credited with developing and marketing the first rubber eraser in Europe.

And Nairne claimed to have come upon his invention accidentally: He inadvertently picked up a piece of rubber instead of breadcrumbs, he said, thereby realizing rubber's erasing properties. It was Priestley who is generally credited for naming rubber. The erasing "substance" he described in —initially referred to as "India gum"—required, he remarked, rubbing action on the part of the user. Thus, yep, a "rubber. In Britain, erasers themselves are still often called "rubbers.

They continue to use it in school and later in the workplace and at home. If the child grows up to be an artist or a designer, the eraser quickly becomes their best friend. People wanted to erase their writings and drawings from the day they started to leave marks on walls and later papers. They used tablets of wax to erase lead or charcoal marks from paper and small bits of rough stone sandstone or pumice to remove small errors from parchment or papyrus documents written in ink.

In Japan, they figured out the best material to erase mistakes is soft bread. Yes, bread! Students have been known to like this solution since they could always tear a part of the bread and at least slightly satisfy their hunger. The English engineer Edward Nairne used breadcrumbs as well.

But one day in he unintentionally picked up a piece of rubber instead of bread. And the rubber erased everything anyway! Just as rubber eraser, inventions contests existed centuries ago. And Edward Nairne developed the later first widely marketed rubber eraser just for that contest. It was a great success and a renowned scientist Joseph Priestley wrote a footnote that same year, saying the substance used "excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the mark of black-lead-pencil.

By the word rubber came to be popularly used for an eraser since the word rubber itself was in general use for any object used for rubbing. Nairne sold these natural rubber erasers for the high price of three shillings per half-inch cube. Do you have an idea we can help you with? Submit it. But five years later a wholesaler saw potential in the series and convinced him to restart the project. Starting in , the firm cranked out , units daily for six years straight. Iwasawa says perseverance has seen the firm through its various dips and curves.

Currently between , and , erasers roll off the factory line each day. Erasers like this strawberry shortcake are put together by hand. A selection of realistic cakes and pastries set in a make-believe bakery showcase. It does this by keeping things local. Prototypes and metal molds are outsourced, but all other aspects of production, from design to assembly to packing, are done in and around the factory. Banana and dinosaur parts await assembly into finished erasers.

After tweaking the design, metal molds are then made.