If you’ve followed my blog for a while you might have noticed that I’m fond of Deli’s crank sharpeners, particularly the Deli 0635.
It’s nice to see that the quality of the Deli seems to be good enough for the big and well-established brands, too. Faber-Castell offers a sharpener, the 952500, that seems to be a Deli 0635 in disguise.
Koh-I-Noor, too, picked a Deli as an addition to their line: the 0668, but they call it the 9095. The 0668 has been resold by a few other companies, too, including Kikkerland.
Here’s are the Delis used by Faber-Castell and Koh-I-Noor in their ‘Deli looks’. The photo is from a previous blog post. Left to right: 0668, 0620, 0635.
I would like to thank Gunther for telling me about the Faber-Castell 952500.
The images in this blog post have been taken from Bundoki and ZC77. I believe that the use of the images shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
Last month Tombow released a new eraser (Japanese announcement, Google translation). It’s quite similar to an old, familiar friend, the Staedtler Mars plastic, but with a Tombow Mono inside. The eraser stick has a diameter of 6.7 mm and a length of 100 mm.
Tombow’s new Mono Stick and Staedtler’s Mars plastic
Tombow isn’t the only company with new erasers. Look at this special eraser from Seed. Seed’s Radar is one of their famous erasers. This version has a sleeve made from 300 year old cedar wood.
Cedar Seed
Here it is again, next to some other Seed erasers.
..as well as a nice sharpener and organiser from Nakabayashi. There’s an automatic (~£28; $39, €31) and a manual version (~£9; $13; €10) of the Pacatto sharpener.
The Stationery King [1]Sean rightly wonders whether he shouldn’t be the emperor of stationery. did of course have several appearances, too).
…and now for something completely different. I dare to include it because it has hexagonal in the title: Hexagonal Phase.
The computer animations from the TV series were actually hand drawn.
I would like to thank Yumiko for the nice parcel and Gunther and Sola for the additional information.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy images in this blog post are from the BBC series of the same name. I believe that the use of the image shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
Today: A quick look at Kutsuwa’s 2MaiBa pencil sharpener. The packaging tempts customers with the promise “fastest pencil sharpener” and when it comes to manual prism sharpeners I haven’t seen a faster one yet.
This is down to the 2MaiBa’s two blades which will ‘shave’ the pencil from opposite sides.
Kutsuwa
Kutsuwa itself has been around for more than 100 years. They were established in 1910. As far as I can tell they seem to have become quite well known in 1970s Japan with their pencil boxes that feature a magnetic closing mechanism.
I haven’t come across their pencil boxes in the West, but you can find their erasers and their sharpeners outside Japan. Their T’Gaal is probably their most famous pencil sharpener. Other than that they also produce Miffy, Snoopy and Puma themed stationery.
The 2MaiBa
The 2MaiBa is really very fast, only needing around half the number of pencil turns than your average pencil sharpener. It produces a point with an angle of around 23°, but just have a look at this video for more information.
To watch this video in high resolution or full screen jump over to YouTube where you can watch it in 4K. I know that filming in 4K on a mobile doesn’t make much sense, at least not with my lighting. The video is slightly noisy, so wouldn’t have more information that if filmed in a lower resolution ..but I thought why not, and then I can claim that it is 4K.. I should do a comparison to see which noise is more pleasing to the eye.
Actually Maiba isn’t a proper noun but two characters stuck together to describe the product (“2枚刃”). Mai(枚) is the unit for counting sheets (of paper, metal, etc.) and Ba (originally Ha, 刃) is “blade”.
So 2枚刃鉛筆削り would be “two-blade pencil sharpener”.
Gunther reminded me that I forgot to point out that the 2Maiba’s blades are marked with NJK. NJK is the brand behind the Tsunago. If you have a look at the NJK web site you will notice that they specialise in sharpeners.
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.
A pencil point before the blade treatment
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:
A pencil point after the blade treatment
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:
Noris shavings from the Pollux
Like Lexikaliker I measured an angle of around 18.5° for the pencil points produced by the Pollux.
The case from my DUX DX4322 is a great fit for the Pollux
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.
Price
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).
Build Quality
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 LittleShaverPencil Sharpener in 2011
How to sharpen
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.
Not easy to use
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.
Problems
I think my problems stem from three different sources.
The blade either wasn’t anywhere near as sharp as a knife’s blade or this saver’s blade got dull very fast
Pencils don’t stay in place in the support notch. When you try to shave wood off with the blade the pencil will be pushed forward which means the newly created point will be shaved off next time you use the blade. Instead of sharpening the pencil from all sides towards one point every move of the blade will shorten the pencil and create a new point further down
You might very well think that the sledge is there to keep the blade at the correct distance, when you sharpen the pencil, but it is (probably) only there to prevent you from ramming the blade into the cast steel support notch. You have to keep the right distance for optimal sharpening yourself.
Solutions?
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.
Conclusion
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.
