Pencil Sharpener

[kevin nee]

Hello, I am in search of a pencil sharpener. I have on old, cheap electric pencil sharpener that has been just chewing up the pencils lately. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance, Kevin

[Jim Becker]

Honestly...find a traditional "classroom" type pencil sharpen that you turn a crank. They work well and work every time. I have one in my shop that was left in the building by the previous owners, both who were school teachers.

Example scarfed from Amazon:

[Bill Dufour]

I agree hand cranked is the best. Electric Panansonic hands down the best. Only problem is they only hold 6-8 pencils worth of shavings.
Bil lD

[Peter Mich]

The Carl Angel-5 really puts a fine point on my pencils. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00777UA9A..._UjuRFbTN1DT9D

[Matt Day]

+1 on classic school sharpeners. If they can hold up to elementary students for years, they’ll last a lifetime for any adult.

[Dan Hulbert]

I have a couple of old hand crank sharpeners that I found at junk sales. I've had them for about 10 years and they're still going strong. I have no idea how old they actually are.

[Tom M King]

I'm very particular about pencils, and sharpeners. I have a bunch of the crank ones. Some on machines, and some kept to use up on scaffolding. I have some of the newer ones, like X-Actos, but my favorite ones are the old Berol/APSCo models-any of them. You can find plenty on ebay. I even have some replacement cutters for the Berols. You will probably find that the old ones go for more than the new ones cost. The new ones work okay, but if you use no. 3's, and 4's like I do, the old ones produce a finer point.

[Jim Matthews]

My Dahle sharpener still cuts fine after 10 years.
I can even see when it's time to empty the shavings.

https://www.amazon.com/Dahle-Profess...5CM9QN56MBF60Q

[Zachary Hoyt]

I use the disc sander on my Shopsmith, with 80 or 120 grit you can get a very nicely sharp pencil.

[roger wiegand]

I love using classic pencils (Dixon Ticonderoga #2) and bought a new sharpener as pictured a couple of years ago, very disappointed as all the points were off center to the point where wood extended all the way to the end. Antique is probably a better choice.

I have bought and sent to the rummage sale about 10 different electric sharpeners over the last 15 years. That said, I now have two electrics that are fantastic. The reasonable one I have is this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 which works wonderfully for standard pencils, the second is way overkill, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1, but is just amazing, and handles pencils of more sizes.

Not long ago I had an event where I needed to sharpen several hundred pencils and I was astonished at how quickly the bigger guy buzzed through them, with a perfect point every time. Getting this sharpener (used on ebay) was kind of like moving from my original 1950's contractor saw to a Unisaw or PM66.

[Lisa Starr]

Classic old crank style for the few pencils I sharpen. I do most of my pencil work with the disposable mechanical pencils. You have to watch, but can find .3 mm lead.

[Bruce King]

Panasonic electric, tossed out the mechanical one.
Have to be careful though, very sharp tip.

[John Stankus]

Two manual sharpeners that work very well are the Kum Long point AS2KM it is a two stage sharpener.
and the T'GAAL multisharpener (my current fave) you can dial the point you want on this. I currently am sharpening to a larger angle to improve durability (and still makes a very fine point)

Now getting into Pencils
I was really liking the Blackwing 602s until I found the Mitsubishi 9850 pencils which write very very nice

On crank sharpeners I like the old helical cutter sharpeners which are a lot harder to find nowadays. (hence looking for them at flea markets and garage sales)

John

Addendum: I forgot my favorite pencil. I only have a couple and they aren't made any more. They are from Blackfeet Indian Tribe. They provided the logo'd pencils for Stanford when I was there for graduate school, and they write very very well.

[mike stenson]

There's a ton of Berol, APSCO, and Boston sharpeners on the auction site now. Someone even has a stash of the US Govt ones NiB... Most are under the cost of a modern one from amazon... but well, the NiB APSCO US Govt ones aren't. (I got curious thanks to this thread)

I have a couple vintage Bostons in the shop, but I still mostly use lead holders and pointers. Otherwise, I really like my Kutsuwa Stad T'Gaal for sharpening drawing pencils, but that's a hand sharpener, it will sharpen to the same angles as golf pencils though. Which can be very handy once you're down to the nub.


The Blackfeet pencils, those are quite nice.

[David Sochar]

I use hand cranks. The best one has a spring loaded clamp arrangement that can be pulled, pencil inserted, released , and the spring pressure keeps the pencil in the cut as you crank with one hand. That came from my grandfather's garage.

A trick he taught me with the handcrank pencil sharpeners is to counter rotate the pencil a few full turns as you are sharpening. This puts the point right in the center of the lead.