The making of Crayola's crayons (photos)

Crayola's visitors' center in Easton was created in conjunction with the town, and has helped revitalize it.

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Paraffin wax flows from a faucet into the "kettle." The wax comes out at 150 degrees Fahrenheit and will be poured onto the "hole table."

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The wax froths in the kettle before being poured onto the hole table.

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This is the "hole table," which has 1,200 slots for crayons.

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A close-up of the holes.

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A Crayola employee pours the heated wax onto the hole table.

Crayola does not allow the public--or the press, in most cases--to see its actual manufacturing facility. But at its visitors' center, the company offers its 300,000 annual visitors a demonstration of the process. And though the demonstration is done at a slower speed, it is representative of what happens in the real factory.

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As the scalding wax spreads across the hole table, it bubbles up over the holes.

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It takes about 10 minutes for the wax to cool, aided by cooling liquid underneath the hole table. Here, the just-poured wax sits dried, and still a bit warm to the touch.

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After one pour, the wax set like this, with a nice pattern of dimples over the holes.

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A roll automatically scrapes the dried wax off the surface of the hole table, pushing it into a bin at the end. The wax is not thrown away. Instead, it's melted again and used in a future pour. Crayola does a lot of recycling, including mixing all colors of defective crayons into its black crayons.

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New crayons emerge from the holes in the hole table.

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Twelve hundred new crayons have emerged, and now it's time to get them off the table.

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These are the newest red Crayola crayons.

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In each pour, there are going to be defects. Here, some of them are collected. The wax may not have filled a hole, or it may have settled improperly. The defects are recycled.

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This is the wrapping drum, which automatically applies a crayon's label.

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A close-up of the drum.

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Crayons in a hopper are fed one by one into the drum and rotated around until glue is applied and a label is rolled around twice; then the crayons are pushed out of the other side of the machine.

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One by one, the labels are affixed to the crayons.

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The now-labeled crayons emerge from the wrapping drum.

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Several colors of crayons in bins that feed onto a conveyor belt, at the end of which the crayons are boxed.

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Though the crayons that are boxed at the visitors' center don't go into a 64-color box, visitors can still see how they're packaged.

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