Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

This topic has 17 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 7 months ago by thepinkballerina.

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October 5, 2011 at 3:17 am
thepinkballerina
Participant
Can anyone recommend a pencil sharpener that actually sharpens without breaking the pencil lead (or color pencils)?! I have only tried the battery operated ones from walmart and then the small ones for kids. They all break my pencils!
Thanks!
Tara
October 5, 2011 at 3:21 am
missceegee
Participant
Art supply stores sell good ones like these – Maped and others.
October 5, 2011 at 3:50 am
AngieG
Participant
Great question!! We’ve had so many lame pencil sharpeners here too! I followed missceegee’s link above (looks like a great site, thanks!) and noticed this one:
http://www.dickblick.com/products/prismacolor-pencil-sharpener/#description
Haven’t tried it but that is a good brand name. I watched a Prismacolor video and they said to hold the pencil and turn the sharpener instead of the other way around. Otherwise, the pencil wobbles too much and breaks.
October 5, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Gem
Participant
A couple of years ago I got fed up and bought a wall mounted pencil sharpener. This is the one I have:
http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Bostitch-Antimicrobial-Sharpener-MPS1-BLK/dp/B000GP0VIU
I didn’t know it had antimicrobial coating when I ordered it, and that kind of put me off because I generally avoid anti-bacterial stuff, but the sharpener works well.
Love having a wall-mounted sharpener – it never gets lost LOL.
October 5, 2011 at 12:33 pm
pianogirl363
Participant
Hi Tara,
I bought a vintage Berol Giant Apsco Pencil Sharpener like this one off of Ebay a few years ago – the kind that you mount on the wall. We’ve been very happy with it. It is still in awesome shape, never breaks the lead, and sharpens the pencils very quickly. I’ve found that generally an older, made in the USA product will work better than the cheap stuff made today – even if it’s listed as “vintage”!
Hope this helps!
~Anna
October 5, 2011 at 12:59 pm
ruth
Participant
Thanks for asking this question and all the great responses. I never would have thought to ask. Our first year of homeschooling and we have gone through 3 sharpners already. I had just accepted it was a fact of life to not have a decent sharpner. Now I will look for a good one that won’t drive me crazy and use up the whole pencil to sharpen it. L.O.L.
October 5, 2011 at 1:22 pm
thepinkballerina
Participant
Thanks, ladies! I’ll check out the sites you’ve shared and order one asap!
October 5, 2011 at 4:05 pm
AngieG
Participant
I noticed that some of these wall mount kinds have replaceable blades. Anyone had to replace blades? Sounds like a good option rather than having to replace the whole sharpener!
October 5, 2011 at 6:24 pm
thepinkballerina
Participant
I have a question about the mountable sharpeners also: do the fronts come off like the reviews say on Amazon? My cheap one from walmart did that!
Has anyone bought a sharpener from Office Max or Home Depot that works? It’d be nice to be locally if we can.

Tara
October 5, 2011 at 7:10 pm
AngieG
Participant
I bought an electric one from Office Depot that is horrible. It’s a Bostitch.
October 8, 2011 at 6:43 pm
thepinkballerina
Participant
I ended up buying an X-ACTO school pro at Office Max for $50 and so far I LOVE IT. I haven’t seen pencils so sharp and it doesn’t break my color pencils. It has a 10 year warranty.
October 8, 2011 at 8:20 pm
RobinP
Participant
I have an old hand cranked sharpener that I’ve had for decades. My dad had it mounted onto a VERY HEAVY thing they used at the factory he worked at. That’s been probably 35 years ago. I love it.
October 8, 2011 at 10:45 pm
LillyLou
Participant
This is so funny, because I thought I was surely the only one who had the pencil sharpener issue LOL Another problem we had was finding the sharpeners as they would “walk away” if I didn’t have it connected to something. I finally bought an iPoint Evolution electric sharpener from Target. I have artsy girls, so the thing’s used often, and so far, we’ve had no problems. It was about $20. Good luck!

October 9, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Rebekahy
Participant
We also have the i-point one, we had it for about 8 months and it just quit working, so I took it back to Costco, because they are THE best about returns and they gave me my money back and said something that inferred it was brought back by a number of people, despite that we bought another one… from Costco and will again return it if we have a problem – that’s just one reason we LOVE buying things from Costco (it was about $16 and at the time they had an instant rebate of 3 or 4 dollars.)
October 10, 2011 at 1:46 am
Christine Kaiser
Participant
I had to laugh when I read the headline.:) I was just thinking the other day what would I do without my Mom sending me pencil sharpeners from Germany *lol*.Seriously – I haven’t found one working sharpener here yet! Maybe a business oppertunity?;)