Today: a short video with some high tech pencil sharpening, showing how to sharpen a pencil with a hard disk. It’s Handicraft with Bleistift VI.
..you could use a similar set up for grinding fountain pen nibs.
It might be worth making a backup of the contents of your hard disk before converting it into a pencil sharpener.
You might remember Lexikaliker’s blog post about Möbius+Ruppert’s new sharpeners Castor and Pollux. Well, thanks to Lexikalier’s generosity I got my hand on half of these geminis, I even got the more interesting half: the Pollux, a brass sharpener that’s producing a concave tip.
Lexikaliker has already covered all important points in his blog post about the Pollux, so I’ll keep it short and will just add a few of my impressions.
Out of the box the sharpener did sharpen well, but it was tearing/ripping the wood more than it should. Strangely enough the graphite point was cut very well, so I am not sure what exactly caused this behaviour that only affects the wood, not the graphite part.
You can see what exactly happened in this video:
I tried fixing it by sharpening the blade, first on a Belgian whetstone. You might have seen this stone in my videos about the Little Shaver. Unfortunately it wasn’t abrasive enough or I didn’t try long enough. I then tried my luck with Spyderco’s Sharpmaker and I got great results. After soe work on the blade the Pollux sharpened like a dream. Before working on the blade it produced shavings with holes in it, because the wood was torn. The shavings themselves had a thickness of around 0.25mm. After my blade treatment the shavings were thinner, 0.15mm thin – very thin.
Here’s a video I made after I worked on the blade:
Like Lexikaliker I measured an angle of around 18.5° for the pencil points produced by the Pollux.
I have added the Pollux to my list of sharpeners.
Please open the images in a new tab to see them in high resolution.
Please open the videos in Youtube to watch them in 4K.
Is this the coolest sharpener ever?
Scherzinger’s idea
I have recently been contacted by A. F. Scherzinger, an engineer from Massachusetts, who is about to launch a Kickstarter campaign in a few days. Even though his expertise is in the aerospace industry, at weekends he likes to tinker with all sorts of things in his shed and one day he had the brilliant idea that there’s no need for a hole in a pencil sharpener.
How is works
He explained to me that all the hole is doing is guiding the pencil, and that three points would be sufficient to do that. One of these points can be the blade itself, so all that is needed is two more points. After some trial and error he figured out that the best way of spacing these anchor points is to group them as if they form a circle, but to keep them 120° apart.
The material
After some initial experiments with titanium, which turned out to be too springy to be of any use, he came up with the special alloy he is now using. I was lucky enough to have received an early sample and I have to say: this is great – take my money!!
Real life experience
The little struts are a but pointy, so I guess you better be careful when you carry this sharpener, but early Kickstarter backers will get a free neoprene carry case with their sharpener.
As his stretch goal he is planning to make a long point version – how cool is that‽
The Scherzinger sharpener Read More »
I recently bought Lee Valley’s Little Shaver. According to their website the sharpner this replica is based on
was patented by Edward L. McDivitt of Belvidere, Illinois, in 1904. Sold until 1910 under various names including “The Handy Sharpener” and “Little Shaver”, it was offered for a price of $1.00 U.S. ($1.25 for a nickel-plated version); replacement blades were available for 25 cents. (Lee Valley web site)
If you have come across this sharpener before it was most likely in How to Sharpen Pencils by David Rees (p. 103), but it also mentioned very briefly in episode six of the Erasable podcast. My interest in this sharpener got reignited when Sola mentioned it recently. My wife was kind enough to buy me this sharpener for my birthday.
The official price is just under 50 Canadian Dollars, but unfortunately we chose the UPS delivery and I have to tell you, UPS is not exactly modest when it comes to fees. UPS shipping was about half the price of the sharpener, which is fine, but they made a really nice profit when they charged for handling customs clearance, plus they only take cash and don’t provide a receipt(!). It all felt quite dodgy (with no receipt), but otherwise they would have kept the parcel with the sharpener, which got really expensive by now. In the end, including all other costs, I paid quite a bit more than £70 (~$100; €100).
The sharpener feels built like a tank. It is quite heavy and as far as I can judge it is very well made. Lee Valley described it as “cast steel with a black gloss powder-coated finish”. Lee Valley started offering the Little Shaver Pencil Sharpener in 2011
To sharpen a pencil you place your pencil in the support notch and move the hinged lever arm, similar to sharpening with a knife, to shave wood off. The lever arm is constructed in such a way that the blade cannot cut into the cast steel by mistake, as it will slide along what I can only describe as a sledge, the sledge will ensure you always keep the minimum distance from the cast steel. You then rotate the pencil, I think the official recommendation is you rotate it by 1/8 and repeat this step.
To be honest, I’m not the most skilful person on the planet, but I am not exactly dexterously challenged either. I have no problems sharpening a pencil with a knife in a few seconds, producing a fairly nice point, but I really struggled with the Little Shaver. By now, several butchered pencils later, I achieve better results, but I still find sharpening with a good knife easier.
I think my problems stem from three different sources.
The first problem can be fixed by sharpening the blade.
To prevent the pencil from moving forward, which was the second problem I listed, you can grip it very tight near the border of the sharpener. This will help to stop it moving forward. If you have a very sharp blade and don’t take too much wood off in one go it should be possible to hold the pencil in the right place and to prevent it from moving forward [1]as moving forward would result in the next cut of the blade shortening it again instead of shaping the existing point.
I guess dealing with the last problem requires some practice. Somehow I find it not that easy to keep the correct distance with the Little Shaver’s blade, even though I have no problems doing something similar with a knife. Based on other reviews of the Little Shaver I would say it can’t be too difficult, but then, if you think of buying the Little Shaver, keep in mind that these reviews are by people whose hobby is woodworking.
It’s one of the most interesting and unusual sharpeners that is still being produced today. As this is not a mass produced product the price can’t be very cheap, but there are much more expensive sharpeners out there, e.g. from Cara d’Ache, El Casco or Graf von Faber-Castell. I think I’d definitely buy one again if it wasn’T for all the fees associated with importing goods into Europe.
What Lee Valley say in their YouTube video is certainly true: this sharpener has nothing to do with efficiency and more to do with fun and nostalgia. It is fun to use and there’s also the challenge of trying to produce a better and better point using the Little Shaver.
If you liked or disliked this blog post, why not leave a comment? I’m always happy to read or reply to comments.
Price: October 2015
Exchange rates: November 2015
As usual, please open images in a new tab to see them in high resolution.
To watch the videos in full resolution please watch them on YouTube.
You can find reviews of this sharpener at Popular Woodworking and Full Chisel.
Since this blog post comes with videos: At Lexikaliker you can enjoy what I think must be the world’s first ever pencil blog post with a video.
References
| ↑1 | as moving forward would result in the next cut of the blade shortening it again instead of shaping the existing point |
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Lee Valley’s Little Shaver Read More »
I recently got the M+R 0981″crank-style sharpener” from Lexikaliker.
The 0981 is one of the Möbius und Ruppert sharpeners that is not manufactured by M+R – according to their website it is produced by premium partners in Asia. I’m not sure whether this means that M+R designed this sharpener or whether they just put their name on an existing sharpener. In any case, it does look very similar to the Dahle 133, as discussed by Lexikaliker.
Overall this is a really nice sharpener.
It doesn’t leave bite marks on the pencil, that’s a big advantage – or in my case even a necessary requirement. I don’t think I’d use a pencil sharpener regularly if it leaves bite marks – however good the sharpening mechanism might be.
The point it creates is quite nice and concave. Concave points look good, but I find measuring the angle more difficult. When I try to measure the 0981’s angle using my traditional method I get an angle of 20°. When I measure the angle on a computer I get an angle of slightly more than 21°. In any case the point produced suitable for most purposes, you can compare this angle to other angles on my sharpener page.
The crank features a dial, not uncommon for this kind of sharpener. If you dial all the way to the left you get a ‘full’ point, but you can also create a ‘flat’ point, more suitable for coloured pencils if you set the dial to the right. Any setting in-between both extremes is also possible (the difference between both settings is about 3.5 full turn of the dial (1260°)).
The drawer is of course removable, for emptying the waste created during sharpening. The cutting mechanism is removable as well.
I tried to sharpen a Wopex in the 0981, but the auto stop doesn’t work with the harder material encasing the Wopex lead – this is common for crank sharpeners.
When you search for this sharpener on the internet most pages you can find seem to be from Japan. I assume this means that this sharpener is more commonly available in Japan. You can however find some sellers in the West. In Germany you can get this sharpener for €10 – €15 (~$11 – $22: £7.50 – £15), which seems good value for money.
Price and exchange rates: October 2015
Please open the pictures in a new tab for a high-res view.
You can read more about the red Viking pencil in this blog post.
M+R 0981 sharpener Read More »