SHARE if you love a pastel pencil artist! :) I dont know if my posts about sharpeners are helping anyone, but I really hope they are. Pastel pencils are terrible to sharpen, and they wear out sharpeners fast, as the leads are rather gummy, and thats if you can find one that will even sharpen to a nice point to begin with, without breakage of the point before you ever get there. The Multipoint Professional sharpener that I posted about a while back does a fine job through about 55 sharpenings, but then your sharpening bliss is over! Replacement cutters arent available for it, so at the cost of over $20, youd spend a fortune keeping one of those around! For pastel pencils, the BEST sharpener I have found, (and Ive got a heavily populated sharpener graveyard here), is this Bostitch Antimicrobial manual sharpener, model #MPS1-BLK. (Dont confuse it with other manual models they make, which look very similar but are not the same.) Replacement cutters ARE available for it! Read on for helpful details :) I mounted it at the very edge of a hardwood table (see photos), which is a must for effective use. If it can move at all, youll be disappointed. It comes with a table clamp. Toss that in your junk drawer for some unforeseen purpose down the road, and use the screw-mount method (3 screws included). The way you hold the pastel pencil is important. As seen in my photo, rest your wrist firmly on the edge of the table, hold the pencil very firmly as shown, (overhand, NOT underhand), in the correct size hole, with your index finger braced firmly on the pencil, near the hole (to keep it steady, and to prevent it from being drawn too far into the hole). Turn the crank 3 or 4 times....youll get a feel for how much youve shaved off, then pull the pencil out and turn it about 90 degrees, re-insert, then give it another 3 cranks or so. Youll feel when it is sharp, due to the tip-saver design, as you wont feel any more grinding. Perfect, very sharp point! Dont overcrank! Reduce cranks for a less-sharp point, as desired. (If youre in a big hurry, dont sharpen pastel pencils! ;) After sharpening an entire new set of difficult Cretacolor pastel pencils, as well as at least 100 other pastel pencils (Pitt, Derwent, Caran dAche, Carbothello), the original cutter is still going like new. But cleaning the cutter frequently is also important! Read on: Remove the cover, and use q-tips to swipe between the cutter blades of each cutter, turning the crank as you go. Clean out the gummy leads, as well as the wood shavings. Also use q-tips to clean the gears. When little chunks of wood casing get stuck in the gears, youll feel it when you are trying to sharpen a pencil, and it will not sharpen well, and/or breakage will occur. I also use a Zopid (HP-ZV180B) handheld, two-AA-battery-operated vacuum (see photo). One of the cleaning attachments that comes with it is perfect for cleaning between cutter blades and is also great for cleaning around the sharpener work area. Also, empty the sharpeners shavings receptacle frequently. I clean and empty about every 15 or so sharpenings. If you dont want to stop your work to do that, have a replacement cutter handy to quickly switch out, until you have the time for cleaning. I purchased my Bostitch sharpener from School Specialty Inc., (they have an eBay store - super-fast shipping!, as well as an Amazon store), in addition to 6 replacement cutters, which they also sell, for $7 each. Ill post the link in comments.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:03:03 +0000
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