The materials for making the pen tip are mainly animal hair and bird hair, that is, animal fiber, and a small amount of plant fiber is also useful. "The most expensive pen is fine", and fine application is very important for a pen. Different choices determine the characteristics of different pen lengths and thicknesses.
Sheep wool: It is made of wool. In ancient times, the wool produced in Jiaxing and Shixia, Zhejiang Province was the first, followed by Xiushui and other counties, and Qingyang wool was the most important. Wool is soft, and it is called wool when it is picked with light in the dark (this kind of wool can be stained with ink, but it is not easy to use). The one who takes milk is called milk wool (it is soft, but short hair can't be used as a big word). The man who holds the lamb is called the son of the lamb. The one that has been preserved for a long time is called Chen (Chen Hao is soft and powerful).
Zihao: It is made of purple rabbit hair. Also known as "purple brush" and "purple paste brush". Rabbit hair can be divided into purple hair and gray hair, and purple hair is taken from rabbit spine and tail. Pure purple, soft and round, if it is gray, it is strong. In the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi wrote a poem with purple brush.
Wolf hair: made of wolf hair. The strength of wolves is between wool and purple hair. Fragile, not wearable. Wolves are everywhere in the south, so it's best to use their tails. It is best to use it with water. Wolf is used in the north pen, hemp is used in the middle, and wool is avoided outside, which makes the whole pen well distributed and practical.
Double brush: it is made of more than two different kinds of hair. Generally made of wolf hair or purple hair combined with wool. Some people directly refer to the double brushes as double brushes, while others indicate the amount of ingredients, such as three-purple seven-sheep, seven-purple three-sheep and five-purple five-sheep. Purple, wolves are called purple wolf hair, wolves and sheep are called wolf hair, chickens and wolves are called chicken wolf hair, and deer and wolves are called deer wolf hair. It's purple and gray, and it's purple hair, so we can use rabbit hair together. The method of double-sided brush: take one kind of hair as the core column and cover it with other kinds of hair. Some people mix them, such as the bristle pen for Chinese characters, which is mixed with wool.
Rabbit hair: made of rabbit hair. Ancient out of Xuanzhou (now Xuancheng) Lishui Zhongshan, fifteen miles southeast of the county seat. Exquisite brushwork, see Yuanhe County Records in You Bi Jun Jing: "Zhongshan rabbit is fat, so it can be used." The Book of Beginners quotes Wang Xizhi's Bi Jing: "In the Han Dynasty, all counties offered rabbits, and when they left Hongdu, only Zhao used them. People have no advantages or disadvantages and skills. " Mrs. Wei's "Pen Map" said: "Take rabbit hair from Chongshan Mountain and harvest it in August and September. The pen is one inch long and the tube is five inches long. "
Deer brush: A pen made of deer's fine hair. Ma Su's Notes on China in the Five Dynasties said: "Meng Tian is the beginning of Qin Dynasty. Taking Zhemu as a pen, deer hair as a column and wool as a quilt, the so-called Cang Hao is not a bamboo tube of rabbits. " The "North Road Tiger" on the highway in the Tang Dynasty said: "The deer brush used by Zhang Hua in the Jin Dynasty is no less than rabbit hair." It is known that deer hair was often used to make pens in ancient times, and its effect is similar to that of rabbit hair, but it is not as common as rabbit hair.
Sable hair: that is, sable hair. It is also divided into sable and forest mink, which are yellow in shape, dark brown in body color and long in tail. They are suitable as raw materials for writing brushes, and the pens are round and plump.
Horse hair: Hair from various parts of a horse. With ponytail hair, it is long and strong, suitable for making extra-large pens; There are also horse bristles, which are thick and straight, and the hardness is weaker than that of bristles. It is more suitable to make a plaque with a large amount of hair.
Bristle: it is made of the long hair of pork tendon, mostly with brush strokes, oil-colored brush strokes or mixed with other brush strokes. It can also be used as a brush stroke.
Fetal hair: use the hair cut from the baby's first haircut as the raw material of the brush. Capillary and soft, sharp and sharp, can be gathered into a pen tip.
As for the nib made of plant fiber, Baisha Maolong Pen, also known as writing brush, is the first one. This pen is made of thatch and stems tied together. This was written by Chen Xianzhang in the Ming Dynasty. Chen Xianzhang (1428- 1500), a native of Xinhui, Guangdong. His village is called Baisha, and people call him Mr Baisha. There is a chapter in Huang Zuo's "People in Guangzhou", "When you taste Mao's pen, people argue for it, which is called Mao's pen". Baisha hairbrush is still made in Guangdong today, and it has several sizes. Other pen tips made of animal and plant fibers include rattan pen, bamboo pen, lithium pen, beard pen, beard pen, writing brush, chicken writing brush and so on. It is also recorded in the history of pen-making in past dynasties.
Second, the pen.
The pen container, also called the pen tube, is the part where the pen is held by hand. The pen tube is made of bamboo, which is easy to obtain, light and practical, and cheap.
Bamboo tubes include: white bamboo tube, square bamboo tube, purple bamboo tube, brown bamboo tube, spotted bamboo tube, ChristianRandPhillips bamboo tube and whip bamboo tube.
White bamboo tube: refers to the general white bamboo, which is abundant in the vast southern region of China. The white bamboo tube cuts off the thin, knotty, solid and straight part of the bamboo stem, and it is appropriate to use materials in winter, because bamboo grows in a dormant state in winter, and its bamboo is not easy to be eaten, deformed and cracked.
One-horned bamboo: One-horned bamboo is produced in Shaoxing, Zhejiang and Hangzhou. Bamboo stems are square, not thick, about 1-2.5 cm long, square white, which is rare. Except for the square, it is no different from ordinary white bamboo.
Purple bamboo tube: Purple bamboo is produced in Putuo Mountain, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, lakes and other places in Zhejiang. Bamboo is purplish red, from bamboo skin to bamboo core, and the bamboo pole is small, which is suitable for making pen tubes.
Brown bamboo tube: Brown bamboo is purple-black, with straight lines, flat, thin and tough. It is a perennial green shrubby bamboo, which is suitable for making fan bones and pen containers.
Spotted bamboo tube: Fine bamboo produced in Guangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and other places, also known as Phyllostachys praecox, has a straight stem with grayish brown and grayish purple circular stripes, which can add natural charm to the pen tube.
Rhinoceros tubes, that is, brush rods made of rhinoceros horns, are relatively rare, so they are more precious.
Pen-making in past dynasties not only emphasized practicality, but also paid attention to the material and decoration of the pen holder. Through different artistic techniques, such as inlay, carving, gold painting, glaze burning, etc., the carving is exquisite and colorful. The decorative patterns of the pen holder include Shuanglong, Shuangfeng, Dragon and Phoenix playing with pearls, Eight Immortals, Yunfeng, Cloud Bat, ancient money patterns, landscapes of figures, poems and so on. Most of them imply good luck and peace.