I’m not sure whether you’ve seen the cover of Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. On the cover is what looks like a Mongol with an incredibly acute point.
The angle of the pencil point seems to be 14°. I assume the image has not been stretched. Ok, the pencil looks as if it has been bitten specifically for the purpose of this photo. The eraser also looks as if it has been used up for the sake of using it up, uniform use with no trace of lead – but that point….
The pencil on the book cover next to a Venezuelan-made Mongol
14°… and it doesn’t look knife sharpened! Currently my list of sharpeners sorted by angle doesn’t have any sharpener that comes close to this. Unfortunately the book’s colophon doesn’t mention the photo on the cover. The UK edition states that the cover is designed by Yes, but there’s a good chance they just ‘rearranged’ the American cover and don’t have much to do with the pencil on the cover.
Any hint on what sharpener has been used to sharpen that pencil would be greatly appreciated.
I’d like to thank Sean because I got most of my Mongol pencils, like the one pictured, either through him or because he made me aware of where to get them. Thanks!
Recently I purchased the Dahle 133 rotary sharpener from Amazon UK. I wasn’t expecting a great sharpener given it’s bland looks in dull grey and black. There were however some features that drew my attention to this sharpener.
The protected grippers that do not mark the pencil, unlike the usual metal “jaws of death” seen on most rotary sharpeners.
The sharpener is advertised as having 2 point settings – sharp or blunt, however the screw type mechanism seems to allow for an infinitely variable sharpness between these two extremes.
Low cost, from 7-10 pounds sterling depending on colour. I didn’t realise Amazon were also offering a green and white and black and white model for a couple of pounds less than my model.
Sharpens pencils from the usual standard around 7mm up to 11.5mm for some chunky art pencils.
PERFORMANCE
As my main interest is graphite pencils, I sharpened a selection to see if it produced a point comparable to my gold standard sharpener – a modified (with padded grippers from the premium model) Carl Angel 5 (chinese mechanism). Here’s the results.
Standard diameter hex pencils such as the Faber Castell 9000 and Tombow Mono 100 produced a short exposed core and a dull point. Not impressed.
The round barrel Papermate Black Warrior (Mexico) produced a nice long cone and good point sharpness.
The oversize triangular Dixon TRI-CONDEROGA sharpened nicely with a long cone and medium/long exposed core.
While not as good as a Carl Angel-5 it does have the advantage of padded grippers and the ability to sharpen oversize pencils. I would give it a 6 1/2 out of ten for graphite pencils. BUT, and here’s the big BUT, this sharpener is absolutely brilliant with all the coloured pencils I tested. It seems the thicker cores of coloured pencils – 3mm and up are better suited to the geometry of the mechanism than thinner cored graphite pencils.
– the overall cone (wood and core is long and nicely tapered) and the exposed core is almost razor sharp and with just the right length.
For comparison I sharpened a graphite pencil and more coloured pencils in one of Matthias’ favourite sharpeners – the Deli 0635. The result for the graphite Berol Turquoise was quite good but the point and cone shape/length not up to the standard of the Carl Angel 5. But, yet again the coloured pencils were sharpened to an almost absurdly l.o.o.o.ng cone length and the exposed core is also massively long and deadly sharp, even sharper if that’s possible, than the Dahle 133.
Of the two sharpeners I would plump for the Dahle 133 for the more reasonable length of the cone and the exposed core. The Deli 0635 cone is simply freakishly long and sharp and thus the point strength is compromised.
OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST
Both these sharpeners would fit easily in most outdoor art sketching kits. The Deli 0635 is super compact and the Dahle is compact – about half way between the Carl and the Deli in size.
Both these little sharpeners are basically plastic externally but have robust all metal cutting cylinders with all metal gear drive.
The padded grippers on both sharpeners was the main reason I purchased them and in this regard they do their job admirably. I only wish that manufacturers and sellers would promote these padded gripper models as a feature – which they certainly are.
Given the results with coloured pencils, I will certainly be using mine more often in future.
Thanks to Matthias for the airing of this guest review.
The image of Bob Clarke’s Spy vs. Spy comic is from Anthony Snyder, who allowed me to show it in my blog. The sharpener gag is taken from The Mad Student Survival Guide for Those Bored of Education. I believe that the use of these images in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
You might have already noticed that the Wopex is one of my favourite pencils. It is the pencil I use most often when writing on paper where ghosting/graphite transfer might be a problem. There is however one problem that makes using a Wopex an experience less exciting than it could be: sharpening this pencil.
Wopex, presharpened
Desktop sharpeners are not good at sharpening pencils with such a hard casing. They won’t stop automatically, too, which means that you might shorten the pencil too much when using a desktop sharpener and you’ll got a less than exciting finish where the blade cylinder stopped.
Wopex, prism sharpener sharpenedClick to enlarge
A normal prism sharpener does a better job when it comes to sharpening a Wopex, but the lead tends to look rather porous after sharpening and the fine point created will break much easier on a Wopex than on a pencil with a traditional lead.The special Wopex sharpeners don’t seem to do a better job than any other prism sharpeners. At least they don’t do for me, maybe I don’t use them the way they should be used. One example is shown here, but the point doesn’t always look that bad. A better looking point, made using a prism sharpener, has been shown in a previous blog post.
Wopex, knife sharpened
The presharpened Wopexes[1]Wopeges, Wopeces? or whatever the plural may be are looking and performing best. They are sharpened on an abrasive surface, something that is not necessarily practical for home use because of the time and dust involved. Searching for an alternative, better than a normal prism sharpener, I thought of using a knife to achieve a point similar to the one of presharpened Wopexes.
“Unlike most other sharpening techniques, in which blades engage the pencil’s wood (and later, graphite) at an angle more or less parallel to the shaft, the pocketknife’s blade is applied perpendicular to the pencil’s shaft.” (Rees 2012, p.46) [2]Rees, D., 2012. How to sharpen pencils. Brooklyn, New York: Melville House.
There is a special pencil knife for sharpening and erasing, but I used a normal knife. In this case one with a high carbon steel blade, but stainless steel blades work just as well. The results are good, better than what I get from a prism sharpener, including the Wopex sharpener, but are slightly worse when compared to a presharpened Wopex.
In a previous blog post I compared three Staedtler tradition 110 pencils, made in three different factories – the one in Wales, the one in Australia and the one in Germany. Today I want to look at three different Staedtler Noris 120 pencils – made in Malaysia, Wales and Germany. I bought a dozen of the Malaysian Noris in March 2010 for £2.24 (~ $3.40; €2.78) from a Malaysian seller on eBay.
Noris presharpened, top to bottom: Malaysia, Great Britain, Germany
The only pencil from this comparison that is still in production is the Nuremberg-made Noris. The factory in Malaysia closed down two years ago and the factory in Wales closed down four years ago. You can still find Welsh-made pencils in the UK, but there are very few shops left that still have stock. I am not sure about the situation in Malaysia, but I assume most of the Malaysian Noris are also sold by now. In a previous blog post I mentioned that 2B is the most common pencil grade in Malaysia. It is so popular in Malaysia that the Malaysian Noris is only available in 2B, therefore I’ll compare it with the Welsh and German Noris in 2B.
Different caps – Top to bottom: Malaysian 2B, Welsh 2B, Welsh B, German 2B
The colour of the Noris cap normally indicates the pencil grade. The HB Noris has a red cap. Strangely enough the cap colour is not consistent. The older Welsh and Malaysian 2B Noris have black caps, while the newer German Noris, bought in April 2012 at Müller in Volkach, Germany for €0.59 (~ $0.73; £0.47), has an orange cap, similar, but a slightly lighter in colour than the orange cap of a Welsh Noris B.
Noris sharpener (511 004) and two wedge sharpeners (510 10 and 510 50)
Which eraser could be most suitable to sharpen a Noris? None other than the Staedtler Noris sharpener, of course. Bought at Currys / PC World in Preston, when they tried to get rid of their stationery in December 2011 this sharpener was part of a ‘study set’ that came with 2 Noris HB, one Staedtler Mars plastic eraser and the Staedtler Noris sharpener for £1.17 (~ $1.79; €1.45). The blister pack says “Made in Germany”, but the wedge sharpener in the Noris sharpener is made in China, or at least the the metal body of the sharpener inside is. I wonder why Staedtler put a metal sharpener in there. Most people probably wouldn’t notice and Staedtler sells plastic sharpeners with the same form factor that could have been used in the Noris sharpener to keep the price down…
The W wedge sharpener in the Noris sharpener
The bottom of the metal sharpener 510 10 in the Noris sharpener features a ‘W’, which indicates that this sharpener is one of Staedtler’s newer sharpeners, optimised for use with the Wopex. It has a sharpening angle of 23°. The thickness of the shavings produced by the Wopex-optimised sharpener is the same as the one by the older model, usually just under 0.3 mm. I assume the difference is in the way the blade has been sharpened.
The older 510 10 wedge sharpener
I used a notepad from Brunnen [1]bought in August 2011 at McPaper in Schweinfurt, Germany for €1.19 (~ $1.46; £0.96) to compare the different leads in terms of smoothness, reflectiveness, darkness, erasability, graphite transfer to another page and how long they keep the point. As far as I can tell the three different Noris perform very similar. The graphite from the Malaysian Noris might transfer a bit easier to another page, e.g. in a diary, but it’s only every so slightly worse than the other two Noris pencils.
No bar code on the Malaysian Noris
In terms of exterior appearance the Welsh and German Noris are nearly on par, with the paint on the Noris from Nuremberg being slightly more even. The paint of the Malaysian Noris is however much worse, but still better than the no name or own brand pencils you usually get in super markets. The Welsh Noris has a diameter of 7mm, which is slightly more than the 6.9mm the Malaysian and German pencils have.
For me the Noris is THE typical pencil. Previous blog posts showed the Noris being featured on TV. Today I want to add two more screen shots. One from Episodes, where Sean Lincoln (played by Stephen Mangan [2]…who recently, as Dirk Gently, used a Faber-Castell Grip 2001 ) is using a Stadtler Noris in the USA, even though it isn’t officially on sale in the USA. The character must have brought it from the UK, the desk is full of Noris pencils ..or, in the real world, this scene might have been filmed in the UK.
The other screen shot is from episode 705 “Liebeswirren” of German/Austrian/Swiss crime TV series Tatort. One of the actors in this episode from Munich was Christoph Waltz of Inglourious Basterds fame.
