Written by: Pratik Karn - 30048, Grade VI
Posted on: 14 February, 2024
An eraser is a stationery item that is used to remove marks written with a pencil. In some Commonwealth countries, erasers are also called rubber. Erasers are made of synthetic rubber. Erasers come in different shapes, sizes, and colours on the market. Some erasers found on the market have a sweet fragrance. Some of the pencils have erasers at one end of them. There is a different eraser used to erase ink. The different eraser is called a special ink eraser. Some common eraser companies are DOMS, Pilot, Staedtler, Ain, etc. Do you know what the eraser waste is called that comes out when you erase some pencil marks? It is called eraser debris or eraser shaving. There are five types of erasers. The types are rubber erasers, gum erasers (art gum), pencil erasers, kneaded erasers, and vinyl erasers. The most common type of eraser is a rubber eraser. Before rubber erasers were used nowadays, tablets of wax were used to remove lead or charcoal from the paper. Before that, sandstone and pumice were also used to erase some small errors from papyrus documents written with ink. Between 1868 - 1912, crustless bread was used as an eraser. In 1770, a man named Edward Nairne from England made the first rubber eraser that many people could buy. He did it for a competition where people show off their inventions. In 1770, the word rubber was in general use for any object used for rubbing; the word became attached to the new material sometime between 1770 and 1778. However, raw rubber is perishable. In 1839, Charles Goodyear found out how to make rubber stronger through a process called vulcanization. This made the rubber tougher and longer-lasting. On March 30, 1858, Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia, United States, received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil. It was later invalidated because it was determined to be simply a composite of two devices rather than an entirely new product.
