sharpening

Sharpening pencils…

Just two quick points to mention:

I found this by coincidence.
There’s a TV show from Germany, where the winner gets at least half a million Euros. The first task (out of thirteen) in a recent episode was to sharpen a pencil. There’s a video on their website, but as far as I know you can’t watch it outside the German speaking countries …so unfortunately I wasn’t able to see it looks like when you sharpen a pencil for so much money.

As mentioned previously Sean posted some exciting reports about his recent trip to Japan (Tokyo and Osaka). I have now seen photos of a very cool pencil sharpening knife he bought there. Dare I say it? Depending on your taste you might think this is potentially even more exciting than the Faber-Castell knife. It’s called the Scutter, made by Yoshiharu, and it’s a pencil sharpening knife with a guard, similar to a Lancashire peeler – but it’s for sharpening pencils, not for peeling vegetables.  As far as I can tell the price in Japan is quite cheap, between ¥300 and ¥400 (~$2.90; £1.90; €2.60). You can find a photo on the manufacturer’s web site. I hope there will be a blog post about this knife on Sean’s blog.


Price and exchange rates: September 2015

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Happy Independence Day!

As a pencileer, molyvophile and molyvologue [1]See explanation in this blog post. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Independence Day than to sharpen an American pencil with an American blade.

…but which pencil to choose? In the end I narrowed it down to the Mongol and the Ticonderoga. As these pencils where also made in other countries I obviously only put the American made versions on the short list.

Independence Day Mongols

In the end I did go with the Ticonderoga, just because I thought Faber-Castell takes some of the emphasis on the USA away. So, the chosen pencil is the Dixon’s American Ticonderoga. I did have a few of them in stock, but haven’t actually used them yet. My Ticonderoga experience so far was limited to the ‘Korean’ Ticonderogas, the awful Ticonderoga Renew and the Microban Ticonderogas.

Independence Day Ticonderoga

The knife was easy to choose, my Leatherman Style CS …just because it is the only knife I own that is, as far as I know, made in the United States of America.

Independence Day Leatherman

OK, let’s start sharpening. Because I only have a few of these American made Ticonderogas I want a less acute angle than usual – I just don’t want to waste too much of the nice pencil.

Independence Day Sharpening

I don’t want to go for a proper obtuse angle either, as that would probably be a very strange writing experience.

Independence Day Point

Here way are. By the way, the American blade was sharpened with something American, too: The Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpmaker, which could also be used to sharpen blades of pencil sharpeners.

Independence Day Point Close

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Idependence DayAs usual, please click on the pictures to see them in a higher resolution.

References

References
1 See explanation in this blog post.

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