Pencil Sharpener

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Mike Davis

Mike Davis

Mike
Corporate Member
I'm old school when it comes to drawing, that includes my shop drawings and marking rough cuts at the various saw stations. I like to keep several sharp #2 pencils around the shop.

Here lately I have gotten tired of sharpening with my pocket knife and would like to have a really nice manual crank pencil sharpener. Preferably made in USA or Europe.

I ordered an old Ranger 55 from e-prey and it turned out to be junk, worn out and chews up the pencils instead of sharpening them.

Does anyone here use a manual sharpener and would you recommend a nice one?
 
JackLeg

JackLeg

New User
Reggie
Mike, the best pencil sharpener I have found I bought a Lowe's along with a tube of pencils. It's yellow plastic, fits in your drill if you want it to, (I just use my by hand) and it'll put a point on a pencil in just a few turns. And, it's right in your spending level: FREE with the pencils! :wsmile:
 
Mike Davis

Mike Davis

Mike
Corporate Member
I haven't seen the model L before, that may be a last resort.

All the others I've been looking at and reading reviews. All have some good reviews and some that say these are not what they used to be. Since moving production to China they are flimsy, cheapened and don't work as well as the old ones did.

That's why I bought an older one off e-bay, but it was worn out. So I'm trying to find a great new one or a really good older one.
 
Mike Davis

Mike Davis

Mike
Corporate Member
Well, Mark you found me out. What I really want to do is start a pencil sharpening business. I think I can offer superior service, undercut his price by 15% and still make a meager profit.
 
Glennbear

Glennbear

Moderator
Glenn
Just a thought here from another pencil and paper advocate. I have a Panasonic electric sharpener I inherited from my Dad many years ago. The electric does a good job but a few years ago I started using fine lead mechanical pencils and have not regretted the decision. I still have some mechanical drafting pencils and a sandpaper paddle floating around from my mechanical drawing college days when I get nostalgic. :wsmile:
 
R

Robb Parker

New User
Robb
Mike,
Try a Pentel P209 0.9mm lead and you will never sharpen a pencil again. They are yellow and don't break when marking lumber or writing like .7 and .5's. You can get them at Staples, a little pricey but worth it. Introduced some and Greg Poalini to them at Rick Dinardo's classes, all loved them.
Robb
 
farmerbw

farmerbw

Brian
Corporate Member
Mike, we've had that X-Acto KS model for over a year. We got it cause it was the only one at Staples or Office Depot that would accept the fat kindergarten and tri-conderago pencils since it had the selectable ring. The cheapo electrics they had wouldn't accept either of those so we didn't have much choice. To tell the truth I've not been too pleased with it lately since I seem to be the one using it the most to sharpen regular and colored pencils for the kids. I find that it does well sharpening some pencils but others it chews up far too much to get a usable point. The other night I couldn't get about 4 or 5 colored pencils to sharpen without chewing them way down, like 75% down!!! :elvis: Not sure if it's user error or not, but it also seems to sharpen too fine of a point and it breaks as soon as you write. I remember the one on our laundry room wall as a kid and it would sharpen anything you put in it without taking that much off or getting the point so thin as to not be usable. We've got a couple of the older US made electric models at work that we saved from the scrap bin when we moved buildings and those things are great. I wish I could bring one home with me or locate more of them in the trash bins that I could salvage for home use. I can assure you that I'm constantly looking for them. :thumbs_up

Brian.
 
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S

stave

New User
stave
Mike,
I have the xacto brand and it was fantastic for awhile but now one side of the cutting wheel has dulled and my pencils are not sharpened evenly. Did not last but a couple years. I have a old berol brand (25+ yrs) that works better. I am afraid that in this "new" world finding a lifetime purchase (no matter how short that is) will be difficult. I suggest looking through places that sell fine art supplies like DickBlick or others.

If you are really serious about the quality then look for something European made...German, Austrian, or Swiss. Good luck in the quest.

Syave
 
Tarhead

Tarhead

Mark
Corporate Member
Lee Valley has a nice standard mostly metal one:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=32281&cat=1,42936,42452

99k8801s1.jpg

And then they have this one I haven't quite figured out yet:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=68746&cat=1,42936,42452

15p1601s2.jpg
15p1601s1.jpg
 
FredP

FredP

Fred
Corporate Member
Mike Davis said:
I haven't seen the model L before, that may be a last resort.

All the others I've been looking at and reading reviews. All have some good reviews and some that say these are not what they used to be. Since moving production to China they are flimsy, cheapened and don't work as well as the old ones did.

That's why I bought an older one off e-bay, but it was worn out. So I'm trying to find a great new one or a really good older one.
Click to expand...

in searching around in one of the links posted above I found that you can buy just the cutters for around 8 bucks. not sure if they will fit your older model or not but it may be worth a shot. it was an amazon page and i had to do the left arrow a few times to find it. half way down the page is a row of sharpeners with arrows on each end.
 
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