How to Sharpen Pencils

by David Rees

  But there are other professionals whose needs could be met by such a point, as its length offers maximum visibility of the line regardless of the pencil’s position relative to the page and the user’s position relative to the pencil. There is little doubt industrial engineers would favor this point for drafting schematic diagrams—and they would certainly appreciate the marvelous device which produced it.8 Similarly, artists who sketch insect wings, apple seeds, and other small objects will appreciate the fine line and focus of the El Casco’s output.

  A NOTE ABOUT SHAVINGS

  Of all the sharpeners in my tool kit, the El Casco produces the most finely ground shavings. Many single- and double-burr sharpeners’ swarf presents as pleasing curlicues; not so the El Casco’s—its burrs so pulverize the cedar and graphite that they look like ash. During live events I always warn clients that, should they choose the El Casco, they will be rewarded with an extraordinary point, but their bag of shavings will look biohazardous.

  Clients sometimes ask for suggestions as to what to do with their pencil shavings. I believe no use approaches the simplicity and beauty of displaying the shavings alongside the pencil; the traditional uses listed below are included only in the interest of comprehensiveness.

  10.1: USES FOR SINGLE-BLADE POCKET SHARPENER RIBBON-STYLE SHAVINGS (COARSE)

  Kindling

  Mulch

  Props for still-life paintings of pencil shavings

  Fingertip cedar-scenters (rub shavings between thumb and fingers to release fragrance)

  Closet moth repellant (this will require multiple pencils’ shavings, unless the closet is very small)

  False moustache/soul patch (“jazz disguise”)

  Disposable drink coaster (assemble the shavings in a tight grouping before placing a glass on them)

  Sugar-free gum substitute

  Nicotine-free chewing tobacco substitute

  Food-free snack substitute

  Facial-oil blotters

  Imitation scabs (ideal for blindfolded haunted-house games)

  10.2: USES FOR SINGLE-BURR HAND-CRANK SHARPENER CURLICUE-STYLE SHAVINGS (MEDIUM)

  Compost

  Stuffing for doll pillows

  Cupcake-icing texturizer (not recommended)

  Cat litter (will require multiple pencils’ worth of shavings, unless the cat’s bowel movements are extremely small)

  Novelty gift: “Pinocchio’s sneeze collection”

  Easter basket filling

  Mouse-coffin filling

  Pile

  10.3: USES FOR DOUBLE-BURR HAND-CRANK SHARPENER DUST-STYLE SHAVINGS (FINE)

  Low-cost eye shadow replacement (not recommended)

  Ashtray fill

  Prop drugs (ideal for high-school plays about drugs)

  Coal substitute for extraction-mining dioramas

  Fingertip de-cleansers (rub shavings between thumb and fingers)

  Ninja-style blinding dust (blow directly into the eyes of attacker)

  Squirrel tracker (dip squirrel’s feet in bowl of shavings; track squirrel’s movements by following trail of graphite/cedar residue)

  Baby tracker (see above)

  “Emo dust”

  ANTIQUE PENCIL SHARPENERS: A REVERIE

  Perhaps the most elegant example of using a file to finish a pencil point, the 19th century Perfect Pencil Pointer required the user to expose a pencil’s lead with a knife before placing it in the circular handle and rotating it along a metal file. These devices now command up to $2,500 (depending on condition) and are not necessary items in the novice’s tool kit.

  1 In English, “The Helmet.”

  2 Please keep in mind that in this case, “sharpener” refers to the machine, not its user.

  3 Be mindful of the risk of breaking the pencil’s point when reinserting it into the sharpener (see Chapter 12).

  4 The use of metal files to finish pencil points has a long tradition. (See this page)

  5 The unusual shape of the collar is due to the bifurcated shaping sleeve inside the sharpening mechanism, which is slightly convex. As the shaft of the pencil moves into the sleeve, it is molded like clay on a potter’s wheel.

  6 Of course, we must make note of the slight imperfection in the graphite approximately 1/5 of the way down the point. This is the result of uneven finishing, and serves to illustrate the importance of rotating the point slowly and evenly while running it against an abrasive finishing surface.

  7 The El Casco pictured in this chapter is also available in 23-carat gold.

  8 Some will object that engineers rarely use #2 pencils, preferring instead the finer line and harder tip of the #4 or 9H. The objection is not without merit—I mean only to suggest that, should an engineer find him- or herself stranded on an island with nothing but a box of #2 pencils, an array of sharpeners, and an incorrigible desire to design a life raft, his or her needs would best be served by a double-burr device like the El Casco. If the island’s inventory does not include an El Casco, our castaway should forage for a CARL Angel-5 or other single-burr sharpener that produces a notably long point.

  CHAPTER 11:

  A FEW WORDS ABOUT

  MECHANICAL PENCILS

  Mechanical pencils are bullshit.

  CHAPTER 12:

  PSYCHOLOGICAL RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH

  PENCIL SHARPENING: ASSESSMENT AND COPING STRATEGIES

  EVERY ASPECT OF PENCIL SHARPENING includes its own suite of pleasures and anxieties. The pleasures should be familiar to you; we turn now to the anxieties.

  Although sharpening a pencil is usually a psychologically rewarding experience, resulting in feelings of accomplishment and serenity, it also entails psychological risks. It is your professional and personal responsibility to be aware of these risks, and to actively discourage their flourishing in your practice.

  DISAPPOINTING THE CLIENT

  The greatest anxiety, at least for me, is disappointing my clients. Whether you’re sharpening a pencil in front of a crowd or alone in your workshop for a distant stranger, the weight of expectation can disturb an otherwise balanced mind.

  It is during these paid “gigs” that your relationship to your pencil sharpeners is most like that of a musician to his or her instrument. It is incumbent on the performer to ensure his or her instrument is operating at maximum capacity. This means, of course, tending for it; tuning it; maintaining and optimizing its functionality; and treating it with the respect it deserves—while ensuring others do as well.

  The more care you invest in your pencil sharpening tools, the more familiar you are with their strengths and their idiosyncrasies, the more confident you can be during their use. This will in turn reduce your anxiety—freeing up space in your consciousness for more profitable thoughts.

  Keep your blades sharp. Keep your burr cylinders clean. Keep your eyes on the task at hand. This will go a long away towards keeping your demons at bay.

  ANXIETY OF THE UNKNOWN: THE UNSHARPENED PENCIL

  Even if you are confident about your practice, familiar with your tools, and certain of your ability to make the best use of them, there is yet another element of the pencil-sharpening experience to consider. It is the one clients pay the most attention to, with good reason—for this element is the sharpener’s raison d’etre: the pencil.

  Ironically, the client’s pencil is simultaneously the most crucial element of the job and the element you will be least familiar with—for (unless you’re renewing a point you’ve previously sharpened) you will be approaching it for the first time. This is why it’s crucial to have confidence in your ability to size up any pencil the client offers, or confidence in any pencil you yourself provide.

  As we’ve discussed before, an easy way to reduce anxiety and improve the chance of sharpening success is to make sure the pencil’s shaft is straight, the graphite is centered within the wood, and the unsharpened top is free of paint (see Chapter 2). It’s also worth reminding the client that a poorly manufactured pencil can only play host to a point of medio
cre quality; we cannot expect a five-star meal from a one-star restaurant. Saying this in a loud voice will comfort the client—they will know they are in good hands. Your confidence will be bolstered in turn.

  PERFORMANCE ANXIETY: THE LIVE PENCIL-SHARPENING EXPERIENCE

  Any professional pencil sharpener worth his or her salt will have road stories about hecklers and unforgiving customers who seem incapable of accepting that every pencil is different, and some will carry scooped collars or other irregularities to their grave. We must not be discouraged by obnoxious reactions to our craft; instead, record any wounding taunts or sarcastic remarks in your log along with a physical description of their authors. Then commission a comedian or bartender to compose witty responses and mail them to the offending party.

  EMOTIONAL RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT PENCIL-POINTING TECHNIQUES

  As the reader now knows, each method of sharpening a pencil produces a different point—a result of its unique technology and operation. Is it any wonder, then, that each method is also attended by its unique forebodings and disquietudes?

  Below is a partial list of the emotional risks associated with particular sharpening techniques.1

  Single-Blade Pocket Sharpener:

  Any discussion of the psychological risks associated with single-blade pocket sharpeners must begin with the tyranny of the irregular pin tip. The agony of removing a pencil from the device, only to find an errant filigree of graphite branching away from the point’s end, will be a familiar sensation to the novice—and is hardly unknown to the professional.

  Fortunately, an irregular pin tip is less a verdict of one’s failures as a craftsman and human being as it is an argument for further diligence and research. One of the many psychological benefits of maintaining a pencil-sharpening log is the comfort of actionable data it provides. If you find yourself producing irregular pin tips with unseemly regularity, simply review your log for the average number of rotations and applications of force you apply with a single-blade pocket sharpener, and adjust accordingly.

  A second psychological risk associated with single-blade pocket sharpeners is the terror that they will be misplaced and lost due to their diminutive size. I myself used to suffer from this distraction until, recalling the age-old advice of finding “a place for everything, and everything in its place,” I constructed a pocket-sharpener compartment system for my tool kit, and pledged to return any pocket sharpener to its tiny cubicle as soon as its job was finished. An afternoon’s work served to eliminate a year’s worth of worry. Such is the nature of investing in one’s well-being—the dividends are exponential, if not infinite.

  Hand-Crank Sharpeners (Single- And Double-Burr):

  The reader may insist that hand-crank sharpeners, being the most consistent and predictable of our pencil-pointing devices, are incapable of causing psychological distress. As counterargument I offer two difficult situations the hand-crank user may encounter:

  1. Removing a pencil from a hand-crank sharpener for inspection, only to find that the graphite point has broken off inside the device, leaving you with a “hollow collar”—a finished collar with a hole where the graphite should be.2 (See Chapter 2.) The unhappy absence where one was expecting abundance may well trigger unwanted associations with financial, intellectual, and romantic aspects of your own life. Ignore them. Amputate the empty collar, clear the sharpener’s burrs of the forfeit point, and set course for the future abundances that are your due.

  2. Inspecting a hand-cranked point, determining it isn’t sharp enough, and then reinserting it into the sharpener, only to break the point upon its reinsertion—thereby destroying your investment of sweat equity by your own hand. This phenomenon, perhaps the most frustrating in the trade, is known as the “Malleus Maleficarum,” because, like the 15th century witch-hunting text for which it is named, it suggests the existence of satanic conspiracy.3 Again, consider this unholy accident an opportunity for recalibration of your technique: The next time you reinsert a semi-sharpened pencil into a hand-crank sharpener, do so with greater delicacy so as to minimize the chance of breaking the point against the static burrs. I have little doubt your odds of catastrophe will diminish.

  Knife:

  Of all pencil-pointing technologies, surely the knife promises the deepest wellspring of potential emotional hazards, as its threat is simultaneously literal, archetypal, and Freudian. (Those suffering from aichmophobia4 are reminded that there is no shame in omitting knives from their practice.)

  The pocketknife in your tool kit may host an additional profusion of anxieties, if, like mine, it belonged to your late grandfather—a successful research chemist, amateur astronomer, and woodworker who lived through the Great Depression, built his own telescope, voted Republican, and kept his hair in a neat buzz cut. You may find it difficult to use the tool for your pencil-sharpening business without feeling a clammy apprehension that somewhere, a ghost is rolling his eyes at you. No matter: Though ours may not be the “Greatest Generation,” we can still insist on fumbling towards greatness on our own terms.

  THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING A HEALTHY ATTITUDE TOWARDS ONE’S PRACTICE IN THE FACE OF BROKEN PENCIL POINTS, PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION, SOCIETAL DISAPPROVAL, SEXUAL IMPOTENCE, AND FINANCIAL RUIN

  In the end, even the most accomplished pencil sharpener must concede that absolute perfection, while an appropriate goal, is rarely attained. Pencil sharpening takes place in the unforgiving glare of the physical world, and is subject to the same contingencies and calamities that bedevil all things material.5 Happily, however, like any earthly specimen, our practice (whether “sweet, sour; adazzle, dim”) may thus lay claim to those glories of “pied beauty” celebrated by Gerard Manley Hopkins.6

  We must learn to live with—perhaps even savor—the uncertainties and imperfections that attend every pencil point, even as we continue to strive for their ideal form. This is not an admission of futility so much as a considered reflection on the vagaries of human experience and the importance of appreciating one’s circumstance even as one seeks to improve it.

  It is in this spirit that I invite the reader to heed the following words, not in my capacity as a pencil sharpener, but as a friend:

  The only perfection available to you without compromise is that of intention and effort. If you endeavor to be the best pencil sharpener you can be, and tailor your actions accordingly, you can be certain all else will be forgiven in the final accounting.

  With these words I have solved all psychological problems.

  1 Specific antique sharpeners may also provide succor. (See this page)

  2 Also known as a “headless horseman” or a “Louis XVI,” a hollow collar is most often caused by internal breakage of the pencil’s graphite core somewhere below the collar top. Unless you make a habit of throwing pencils against the wall before sharpening them, it is not your fault. Few things are.

  3 Although the Malleus Maleficarum pre-dates the modern pencil by almost 100 years, a sufficiently metaphorical reading of the following passage suggests the Devil’s hand is indeed to blame when pencil points are removed by hand-crank sharpeners:

  “Here is declared the truth about diabolic operations with regard to the male organ. And to make plain the facts in this matter, it is asked whether witches can with the help of devils really and actually remove the member, or whether they only do so apparently by some glamour or illusion. And that they can actually do so is argued a fortiori; for since devils can do greater things than this … therefore they can also truly and actually remove men’s members.”

  4 Per Wikipedia, aichmophobia is “the morbid fear of sharp things, such as pencils, needles, knives, a pointing finger, or even the sharp end of an umbrella …” (Emphasis added, to argue that the ranks of top-seeded pencil-sharpening aichmophobes may be thin indeed.)

  5 For instance, as I finish this chapter late at night, my sedan’s car alarm keeps going off—to the delight of my neighbors, no doubt. (One of whom is a bald, burly mechanic and one of whom is a t
attoo-covered prison guard [female], both of whom could probably break a bundle of pencils with their bare hands.) However, as automobiles are material objects, we must learn to live with their shortcomings, as I will remind my neighbors in the morning before being beaten to death.

  6 Glory be to God for dappled things —

  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

  For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

  Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

  Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

  And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

  All things counter, original, spare, strange;

  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

  With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

  He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

  Praise him.

  CHAPTER 13:

  HOW TO USE AN ELECTRIC PENCIL SHARPENER

  EQUIPMENT CHECKLIST:

  • Electric pencil sharpener

  • Safety goggles

  • Mallet

  YOU WOULDN’T TRUST AN ELECTRIC MACHINE to deliver your baby; why would you trust one to sharpen your pencil? And yet millions of desks are darkened by electric pencil sharpeners—a testament to the office-supply industry’s hordes of mind-manipulators.