Toothbrushes
Brushing our teeth twice on daily basis is extremely important to keep our teeth and gums healthy and away from cavities.
Let us learn about toothbrushes, how they are made.
Chinese first invented the toothbrush around 1600. Bristles that are used in toothbrushes are made from neck and shoulders of pigs. Just imagine, what we use to clean our teeths. To begin with manufacturing of toothbrushes, thin and little pieces of plastics are used and are passed onto machine which has shapes of tooth brushes. This machine melts this plastic pieces into plastic dough. This plastic dough is then injected into stainless steel mould where handles of toothbrushes are made. Around 10 toothbrushes are made at a time by this machine. This machine generally takes 35 seconds to make 10 handles of toothbrushes. So, if apply little mathematics, this machine has potential to produce 27000 handles in 24 hours. Plain toothbrush handles will make toothbrush look simple and will not fetch more cost. So, to make toothbrush look attractive, various color pieces are used. These are oftenly termed as palates. These are rubber in form.
Machine which was used earlier to make plastic dough which later on produced toothbrush handles, same machine is used to melt these colored rubber palates and then are placed over white plain handles as per design made for the final product. The quantity of rubber palates are pre-measured and are applied on handles accordingly. Then both (i.e melted rubber palates and white handles) are pressed against each other by the same machine and they form a grip. Nylon fibres are used to prepare bristles for toothbrushes. As these fibres can be of various sizes and may kept in different forms, a automatic arm is used to tap on top of these fibres which helps them to settle properly. Filler machine is then used to fill fibres into the holes, which were created at the time of creating toothbrush handles. This filler fills fibres into holes very fast.
Typically, this machine fills about 900 holes in one minute. As the job of this machine is to fill fibres into holes, machine needs to be 100% accurate and precise. Befire filling, selection of bristles is done. Around 24 bristles for each hole are used and 56 holes are present in toothbrush. Yes! 56 holes in a single toothbrush. This means around 1300 bristles per toothbrush. While preparing toothbrush, hygiene of all parts of toothbrush and surroundings is maintained. But now, one question would definitely arise in your mind. and that will be, without using any glue or similar product, how toothbrush holes are holding these many bristles intact? Answer to this question is "Wire". Machine bends fibres in half, places them in brush with wire at the middle. Bristles differ in length sizes. Bristles are now required to be trimmed to same length so that they dont look improper.
Machine with blades is used on which toothbrush are passed over blades and bristles are trimmed to appropriate length. There are several parts on the machine which gives different effects to the bristles and thus producing toothbrushes with different shapes of bristles. Bristles are aesthetic and at least two different colored bristles are placed into holes (i.e few holes with color blue and remaining with white). Machine is programmed in such a way that it knows which colored bristle is going in which hole. Smart, isn't it? Robotic system uses the toothbrushes for final quality check, and all passed toothbrushes are then picked for packaging and shipment. this way toothbrushes are manufactured and are made available in market for use.
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