Vernal Express | 1980-09-25 | Page 8 | Our Crayons

OUR CRAYONS Unless you're over 100 years old, crayons were probably one of your first creative toys, and although the kind of crayons used in most schools today are still made the same way they have been for a century, most people don't know much about that process. In crayon-making selected waxes and pigments are carefully formulated in the proper proportions. The waxes are melted in large, heated kettles and the pigments pig-ments finely ground, then added to the waxes. The mixture is stirred constantly to make sure the ingredients mix completely. The molten mixture is then poured into special molds that give the crayons their familiar shape. A jacket of cold water flowing around the molds speeds solidification of the wax. When the wax is solid, rods are pushed through the mold cavities, and the finished fin-ished crayons are released.