A Made-in-China Triumph: China Develops Its Own Ballpoint Pen Tips

Despite producing some of the world’s most spectacular infrastructure and sending astronauts into space, China has finally overcome a technological obstacle that has vexed Premier Li Keqiang: the ability to produce a decent ballpoint pen using domestically-made materials and components.

Li has long said that the fact China could not make the high-grade steel and precision machinery required to make the key component of the pens – the metal ball and its casing – reflected badly on Chinese manufacturing in general, state media reported.

Now, after five years of trial and error, Taiyuan Iron and Steel, one of the country’s biggest stainless steelmakers, has worked out the appropriate mix of alloys for high-performance stainless steel and to extrude it into a wire feedstock just 2.3mm thick.

Stationery manufacturers in China produce 38 billion ballpoint pens every year, but make less than 0.1 yuan on each pen, despite spending millions of dollars importing steel used to make the pen tips, at 120,000 yuan (US$17,000) per ton.

"The stainless steel used to make pen tips was all imported from Japan," said Xu Jundao, manager of Beifa Group, one of China's largest pen makers.

Though making a ballpoint pen may seem straightforward, producing a tiny tip with fluent writing effects requires over 20 processes. With machine precision down to the nearest micrometer, requirements for the quality of steel are high as it should be easy to cut but not liable to crack.

Tungsten carbide, as the high hardness material with well corrosion resist property, is an ideal material for ballpoint pen tips. It may have prosperous application in this field in the future with the improvement of manufacture technology.

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