Wood Graphite Regular

How are regular lead pencils made? How do they get the lead into them? How do they make the long channel?

Where are they made? Who makes them? What kind of wood do they use. I saw a new kind the other day---made from plastic like stuff. Why not wood? Why plasticky stuff? Who invented pencils? Why? Where? When? How? How do they make some lead hard and some soft? Is it really lead or is it graphite? Where do they get graphite? What is graphite? I think it's really graphite because I've seen lead fishing sinkers and I've seen powdered graphite. It seems more like graphite to me. Besides, I have a pencil that says for its name GRAPHITE. That's what got me thinking about these questions.
When you look at a pencil and thiink about it, it must be pretty hard to get that stuff that writes down the middle track in the wood. Abe Lincoln did his Arithmetic on a wood shovel with charcoal. Is that really true? My guess: They drill a long hole through a tube of wood, pour in powdered graphite and powdered gluey stuff, then use heat and pressure, then let harden. BUT HOW?

Graphite is a natural mineral, a form of carbon. It's powdered, mixed with a substance like fine clay powder (the proportion makes harder or softer grades of pencils) and a binder, then extruded into a rod. The wood is made in two halves with a channel routed out and glued together with the extruded graphite rod inside. I don't know how they make plastic pencils, but they may extrude the plastic onto the graphite like insulation is put on wire. For the rest, you should spend an evening doing a search. "Lead" is a misnomer, although metallic lead is soft enough to leave a mark on paper.

How to do Pyrography : Transferring an Image to Wood with Graphite Paper for Pyrography