As many of you know, I have issues with pencil sharpeners. Most pencil sharpeners annoy me. Because we can't afford a good electric one right now, we have small collection of various quality handheld ones. And we have "the beast".
Yeah. The beast is a blast from my past. I have sharpened many a pencil in my day with one of these classroom dinosaurs. And they WERE beasts because you couldn't here above their roars and they ate about half your pencil in each sharpening!
So I've been on a lookout for a good pencil sharpener.
One that I can sharpen ALL my pencils with. Nothing annoys me faster--or guarantees a sharpener a one-way trip to the trash--than when I sharpen and sharpen and sharpen and sharpen...and my pencil just breaks and breaks and breaks.
Do you even KNOW how many pencils I've had to throw away because of leads falling out?
ARGH!
One of my friends who feels my pain, sent me information about a company that was seeking blog reviewers for THEIR sharpener. They call it:
Hmmm. A crank sharpener that is quiet? The repeated claim of "best sharpener I've ever used"? I admit I was intrigued. I am pleased to say that
Classroom Friendly Supplies graciously supplied me with one of my own to review.
My first pro about this sharpener...it comes in several different colors: Groovy Green, Midnight Black, Precious Pink, Firehouse Red and Cool Blue.
Though my boys would have wanted green, this was going to be MY baby, so I went with
Precious Pink!
My sharpener came within the week and I was eager to give it a go. It is definitely compact. I would say it measures about 5" tall. It comes with a clamp that allows you to make it grip a surface for stability. It is large enough that I think you could grip nearly any desk or table. Mine easily gripped my small 1" thick table.
The nice thing about the clamp is that you can put it on either side of the sharpener. This would be handy for those with lefties or if you have a certain spot it has to fit in. The little black foot fits under the surface and there is a nut--I think that's what it's called..LOL--that you use to tighten it up. Even my 7 year old can fix it if it comes loose.
See that little clear area? That is a tray to catch the shavings and it is so easy to change. You just push it out, grab it, dump it and slide it back in place. So much easier than the beasts shavings holder that end up getting shavings EVERYWHERE.
The metal faceplate is really the key to this sharpener.
It acts like a third hand as it is designed to pull out, grip your pencil and then as the cranking motion begins, it starts pulling the pencil into the sharpening chamber. This allows you to hold onto the sharpener itself and just crank.
BRILLIANT!
I decided the best way to share this sharpener, was for me to make a short video of me actually using it! So here you go!
As I said on the video--I gave this little puppy a complete workout. I think I have sharpened every type of pencil we own! We easily have over 60 sharp pencils now! Here is just a sampling in our new pencil jar!
As you can see the pencils are SHHHHHHAAAAARRRRPPP! And even with that sharp of a point they do not break just right away like some other pencils do after being sharpened.
Even the colored pencils (my personal pet peeve in the sharpening world) sharpened like a dream!
I tried a variety of pencil types, from the super cheap (like on the video), to novelty ones with designs, to even my glitter covered pencils.
Sharp!
Here is a "before" photo:
and after:
Notice that on not one of these pencils do you see the wood portion up around the lead. This is another pet peeve that wood pencil users have too. No worries with this sharpener!
Now--I can say that not every pencil sharpened without breaking...nope. I had TWO. Count them TWO out of my 60+ pencils that I've sharpened that broke inside the sharpener. They were both red teachers correction pencils and both were from the same package. However, I have another package of the same type of pencils that did NOT break--the only difference is that the metal end holding the eraser is silver instead of gold.
So I am guessing it is the pencil itself rather than the sharpener in this circumstance.
But when you calculate that was only 2 pencils out of the 60+...well that is a very small fraction compared to what I was dealing with prior to this sharpener where I was doing good to get even 1 in 10 to sharpen on the first go!
As I said on the video, the only pencils I own that won't work at all, are my Husky Pencils. They are just too thick to enter the sharpening chamber. But they are super easy to do in my handheld one and they are just for my pre-schooler so they don't get used very much anyways.
Now in regards to this being "
The Quietest Classroom Pencil Sharpener"--it is definitely NOT a beast like the old metal one. You can still talk and sharpen at the same time. It really ISN'T that loud which you can see for yourself on the video. I couldn't even take a video of me using
the beast because you wouldn't have heard anything but the roar it makes as it eats my pencil.
Okay. In all fairness, I do need to mention a few cons that I DO have.
I have found that it wiggles a lot during the sharpening process so we have had it slip from the clamp many times. ESPECIALLY when my 7 year old sharpens. I don't have a problem so much since I know to push down evenly when I sharpen. I could see that if you had a lot of children using it, you might wind up fixing it several times.....OR since it IS so easy to clamp, you might just teach them how to fix it themselves! I did! LOL!
And secondly, if you pull the metal faceplate out so that it stands open...it will snap back against the sharpener as soon as you start cranking when there isn't a pencil in it.
This really is only going to occur if kids maybe play around with it or something. But I tested it for pinching since that would be the greatest accident here...and though it snaps back, it never pinched or hurt at all.
Now some of you might wonder if it's possible for a child to get their finger in the sharpening chamber. Well with the metal faceplate attached to the front it makes it difficult to get to it. There would be a larger likelihood of a finger getting into the grip hole in the faceplate itself. But that still isn't going to do more than maybe give a slight pinch until the grip is released. I really don't have anything else that is a con to add.
So what is our overall opinion on this pencil sharpener?
We love it!
Yes, we HAVE finally found one that meets all our needs and keeps our pencils sharp!
I give this sharpener
5 out of 5 stars...
[Even though it has a few cons, they are more minor concerns.]
If you are interested in getting one of these beautiful sharpeners for your classroom or home, please visit the
Classroom Friendly Supplies store! At just $24.99 with
FREE SHIPPING it's a great deal! I also love that they sell replacement parts for their sharpeners...another definite pro!
[Feel free to
check out their new video about their product]
I also wanted to add that if you go now and buy a PRECIOUS PINK one like mine, the company is donating $1 on your behalf for breast cancer research and awareness!
