# Pencil sharpeners?



## Extollager (Jul 9, 2020)

Are these on their way to vanishing? 

By pencil sharpener, I mean any device dedicated to that function, whether it be a wall-mounted device with a rotary handle or a simple tool about the size of a matchbox.  A pocketknife may be used to sharpen a pencil, but it’s not a pencil sharpener.


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## Victoria Silverwolf (Jul 9, 2020)

Well, I still own one.  It's electric, and is invaluable when solving crossword puzzles.  

We also have, mounted on the wall, a pencil which was professionally sharpened by a fellow who does that sort of thing, along with a certificate of authenticity and the shavings that came from the pencil.

Just to show you that I am not making this up:

Artisanal Pencil Sharpening


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 9, 2020)

Mark Twain observed, in reference to circumstantial evidence:  (At a time when pencils were sharpened with a "penknife.")
"Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth.
- _Pudd'nhead Wilson"_

(I  googled this to verify.  A shame. I remembered the woman's pencil as  having been sharpened with an axe. which I think is funnier)


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## tegeus-Cromis (Jul 9, 2020)

I remember my grandfather, an electrical engineer, always sharpening his pencils with his pocket knife. 

I really like (in a nostalgic way, I guess) the feel, and the idea, of the wall-mounted, hand-cranked classroom pencil sharpener, but personally I only use mechanical pencils. They're always sharp!


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## Robert Zwilling (Jul 9, 2020)

Seems like there are still a lot of pencils rattling around in stores. They aren't all for artists. I use them for a variety of things, but mostly as markers, for wood working and art work. Panasonic electric sharpener and the small simple rectangular hand held model to sharpen both sizes of pencils. A couple of years ago I ran across Ticonderoga #2 pencils. They are huge, says "My First Pencil" on the side. I use those a lot. My real first pencil, though it was thick, must have been an original knock off because it was green and  don't remember it saying Ticonderoga. The erasers are also huge. The color art pencils I had as a kid, Venus pencils, I have not been able to find, maybe because I am not going to $5 for a single pencil. The color art pencils I have are thin, and seem to scrape the color on to the paper, the old Venus pencils smeared the color onto the paper. Those are hand sharpened as the electric sharpener is a little too enthusiastic about removing material to put a really fine point on the pencil. My collection of mechanical pencils are just rattling around in drawers, I guess the thrill wore off.


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 9, 2020)

Standard equipment in a carpenter's tool belt is a big, fat, rectangular "Carpenter's pencil" for marking measurements and cutting lines on boards, a "boxcutter" type "Utility Knife,"  and, _maybe_, a regular pencil. SOP is to sharpen the pencils with the utility knife.

I have a certain memory of some pencil-pusher, visiting a job site, asking me for a pencil.  Echoing the Mark Twain quote, I posted above, the guy complained about the way carpenters sharpen their pencils.  Maybe he's the guy who said it looked like it had been sharpened with an axe.

I still have a cheapo replica of the old wall mounted, hand crank, school room pencil sharpener next to my desk.  I have to twirl the pencil to keep it from only sharpening one side.  It was always been crap, but it's still here 30 years later.

Meanwhile, I bought a hundred-year-old farm house as a remodeling project and rental, about 15 years ago.  I rescued a hundred year old wall mounted hand cranked pencil sharpener from that house, and it is a massive, precision machined work of heavy metal art.  It's been kicking around my office for ten years waiting for me to clean it up, lubricate it and restore it to glory.

And why haven't I bothered?  Because the only thing I use pencils for, anymore, are crossword puzzles.  And the mechanical pencils are so much handier. And portable.  One need not also pack a pocket sharpener or an utility knife.  And that little clip thingy holds the pencil in place on the clipboard.

I don't trust electric pencil sharpeners.  Could grind away half a pencil in a moment of inattention.


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## Danny McG (Jul 9, 2020)

What strikes me about the comments in this thread is how many use pencils for crossword puzzles.

I've disdained doing them with pencil for over thirty years now, think hard first and then do them with a pen!


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## Kerrybuchanan (Jul 9, 2020)

The reason pencil sharpeners are a dying breed (at least the ones in my house) seems to be the Pencil Sharpener Gnome, a sneaky little critter who tiptoes around, swiping pencil sharpeners wherever he finds them. 
I’ve lost count of the number of my sharpeners that have fallen foul of his thieving little fingers, including my favourite (a combined sharpener with box for shavings, and eraser). He’s even snagged my mechanical sharpener, the one I had clamped to the side of my desk. 
I use pencils all the time for navigation, and they need to be sharp or else the tiny crosses and circles I make on the charts could leave my boat metres off course, maybe enough to put us on a rock. 
If catch the little pest*, I’m going to hold him upside down by the ankles and shake him until all my lost sharpeners drop out. 

*Sideways glare at my trainee-lifeboatman son, who’s revising for his exams and also uses charts. Sadly, he’s 6’2”, so I’ve little chance of turning him upside down and shaking him!


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## The Judge (Jul 9, 2020)

dannymcg said:


> What strikes me about the comments in this thread is how many use pencils for crossword puzzles.
> 
> I've disdained doing them with pencil for over thirty years now, think hard first and then do them with a pen!


I was just thinking the same thing! I've never used a pencil for a crossword nor for Sudoku or similar puzzles, but nowadays I don't use just any old boring black or blue biro, either. You want red or purple gel ink pens to really make a statement of conquest.


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## Parson (Jul 9, 2020)

Using ink for a crossword?  Using ink for a Sudoku? --- I am much too impulsive and not nearly organized for that!!  --- But I do love a good sharp pencil. We have an electric and some hand held box ones, all of which do a vastly inferior job to the way I remember the "school" wall mounted ones doing.

My mother got her first job as a secretary* to a lawyer. And part of her job was to sharpen the pencils in the office because, her boss said, "A person with good handwriting always does a good job sharpening pencils." ---- I doubt that, but I have no evidence to prove it wrong.

*She was just out of high school and was in no sense a "legal secretary." But if she'd have graduated in 2016 instead of 1946 she would have aspired too much more than she accomplished job wise.


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## .matthew. (Jul 9, 2020)

As a bit of an aside, you can use pencil sharpeners to make tinder from small sticks 

You know, if you're into that stuff.

Or you could just burn the crossword.


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## tegeus-Cromis (Jul 9, 2020)

dannymcg said:


> What strikes me about the comments in this thread is how many use pencils for crossword puzzles.
> 
> I've disdained doing them with pencil for over thirty years now, think hard first and then do them with a pen!


Whenever I hear people say that, I look at their puzzles and they're an unholy mess of letters written on top of letters, smudges, etc. Enough with the crossword-in-pen machismo!


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## The Judge (Jul 9, 2020)

I shall keep a crossword record for the next month and report back how many times I've had to overwrite!  It does happen occasionally when I manage to mangle the spelling, but more often it's because I've failed to check the number of the clue, and I've put the right answer in the wrong column.   This is a cryptic crossword, though, so I'm often working the clues out on an adjacent bit of the newspaper which helps avoid getting things wrong. Though on a couple of occasions I have done the complete crossword in my head before ever picking up the pen.


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## CTRandall (Jul 10, 2020)

School kids use them all the time. I think a lot of kids now don't like using plastic mechanical pencils that get thrown away when the lead is gone. They prefer wooden pencils and carry little sharpeners with them. So do I.

As for the larger sharpeners, time was when no respectable aristocratic household could go without a servant whose sole purpose was to sharpen pencils. What's the world coming to when it's no longer socially acceptable nor economically feasible to maintain a proper Pencil Sharpener.


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## Extollager (Jul 10, 2020)

CTRandall said:


> School kids use them all the time. I think a lot of kids now don't like using plastic mechanical pencils that get thrown away when the lead is gone.



Waste like that is displeasing to think about.  A plain pencil is, I suppose, a pretty good deal ecologically.


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 10, 2020)

Whut? Y'all never saw a refillable mechanical pencil?

I, personally, get quite proprietary about the perfect mechanical pencil that functions well and feels comfortable.  It makes me sad when a favorite breaks down, or gets lost.


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## Extollager (Jul 10, 2020)

Sure.  But not all are refilled.  I’m not sure all are refillable.  Are they?


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 10, 2020)

Most of them.  Pull the replaceable eraser off and stick in a half a dozen sticks of "lead." 

If the magazine is loaded, they reload themselves when the spent "lead" stub drops out.

The user presses a button to advance the graphite stick.  A good one can last years, until the ratchet mechanism fails.


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## Victoria Silverwolf (Jul 10, 2020)

My better half prefers a mechanical pencil, and owns some kind of fancy one from the Graf von Faber-Castell company.  You have to refill it by hand each time the lead runs out, but it seems like it will last a long time.  I'll use it, but I prefer the feel of an old-fashioned pencil.  We also own a box with old-fashioned pencils of all different degrees of hardness, marked with that weird HB system; F, H, 2H, 3H, etc., HB, B, 2B, 3B, etc.


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 10, 2020)

My Current Fave, and what it looks like when reloading:  Nothin' fancy or expensive.  One just has to have an eye to what looks comfortable.


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## -K2- (Jul 10, 2020)

Mechanical 'drafting' pencils came about to speed up the process. With the advent of various papers and mylar (mat finished plastic), you could swap out the lead type and hardness (to control smudging and reflectivity for print/copy machines) as needed. The original versions used leads as long as the pencil and they were thick...perhaps 3/32" or 2+mm in diameter, and you'd sharpen them on a pad of sandpaper.

That shifted to pencils like above in .3, .5, .7, and .9 mm dia. sizes. .3 was used for witness lines (lightly applied, barely visible lines to guide your hard lines) though rarely used because they were so fragile, .5 was used for dimension lines (and witness lines lightly applied if not using a .3) and hidden lines/dashes, .7 was used for object lines (bold lines that make up the shape), and .9 for printing/writing.

That said, a good draftsman could do everything with a .7 and/or a .9 simply by adjusting the pressure, sharpening the tip (usually by rubbing on a piece of paper), and turning the tip to adjust width. In any case, mechanical pencils are comparatively expensive to refill the leads. But, in either case, be it a mechanical pencil or a plain old wood encased one, you're still sharpening the tip and adjusting pressure to control the result.

Now...you know everything 

K2


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## Ray Zdybrow (Jul 10, 2020)

There used to be a pub rock band named after a pencil sharpener - Dux Deluxe


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