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Replacement Pencil Sharpener Blades
Pencil sharpeners are an essential pencil accessory. They keep the pencil pointed and usable. Yet they are frequently a frustration to use, splintering, chopping, and breaking pencils. Sometimes this is the fault of a cheap pencil. And sometimes it is the fault of the sharpener. The weak aspect of most portable sharpeners is the blade. The blade may be made very cheaply and be just barely usable a few times, or even if better quality, have become dulled over time. Rust and oxidation may also have had a role. Yet, in years of frequenting art and office supply stores, I have never seen a replacement blade for sale. Art supply store staff tend to agree that this would be a good idea, but they have no place to order them. What this means is that portable sharpeners are being sold as de facto disposable items – even fairly expensive ones with glass and metal housings. I suspect that even a single sharpening dulls many blades, and that the working lifespan of a typical handheld sharpener blade in tip-top condition may be less than that of a single pencil. So there are a lot of blunt sharpeners out there in the world. Laurentien, a colouring pencil brand that will be known to Canadians (now part of Sanford), states here:
In the photo are some replacement blades (the KUM Standard 530S) that I ordered from the highly efficient Cult Pens in the U.K. Yikes – replacement blades from overseas. It is a shame that I couldn’t buy them locally. But I ordered them as part of a larger shipment, and now wish I had ordered more. It was the only realistic way I could see to keep some favorite sharpeners, like a DUX inkwell, usable over time. Now some sharpeners truly are disposable – with no ability to replace the blade – but many are attached with a tiny screw, and will take this replacement blade. Why aren’t replacement blades commonly available? 19 comments to Replacement Pencil Sharpener Blades |
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It’s a disposable world.
Just an FYI…I bought a bunch of KUM pencil sharpeners at Pearl Paint in NYC and picked up bags of replacement blades there also. I can’t remember the cost of the replacements but they were inexpensive and the bag comes as a 12 pack with three different sizes.
Pencilthings.com carries replacement blades for Alvin and KUM sharpeners. They ship to Canada.
Indeed. I’ve got a saved cart at Pencilthings.com with a bunch of replacement blades in it. One of these days, I’m going to keep a tally of how many sharpenings I can get out of a blade before it degenerates to uselessness.
The bag o’ blades Patrick mentions sounds great as long as the blades fit whatever sharpeners you have lying around. As long as they’re the same manufacturer they should all fit, I suppose.
I’m actually pretty impressed with the performance of most sharpeners over time. A poor quality pencil won’t sharpen well in any case, but I have a couple of inexpensive sharpeners that still give a nice point after years of regular use.
That said, can anyone can recommend an good, portable non-blade sharpener?
I’d also like to add that for a two-blade sharpener like the KUM Automatic Long Point, rotating the blades between 1st and 2nd stages can increase their lifespan considerably, on the order of 50% in my experience.
I’m just going to mention that Bob Slate in Boston has replacement blades in stock. I heart Bob Slate.
I actually have picked up a flyer from one of the drawing pencil companies that recommends replacing the blade on your pencil sharpener when it begins to tear, instead of shave, the wood. I have been looking for replacement blades for a while now — with absolutely no luck. If they don’t want us to replace them, why make them replaceable? It’s easy to find X-Acto knive blades, this should be just as easy…. Grrrrrrrrr.
I use exclusivly Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, and therefore bought a rather expensive electric sharpener which performed well to begin with, but it has declined over the year plus I’ve had it. I have tried sharpening the circular blade piece, but it is rather difficult, so I have been looking for somewhere to buy a replacement blade piece, but have been unsucessful. If anyone has any ideas where I might be able to find a replacement I would be greatful.
Nothing quite as nice as putting a point on a pencil with a sharp penknife!
Where can I buy replacement Dux blades in the UK?
Yes, I agree with Saumiq !
Great pleasure can be gained from using a penknife to sharpen a pencil. It requires of course a sharp knife, a decent quality of wooden pencil, and skill.
The skill lies in avoiding crude ‘whittling’. You need to cut three long deep ‘shaves’, equally spaced round the pencil end being sharpened. Then three shallower shaves between these, each taking off one of the three ridges between the deep shaves. The hexagonal faces of the pencil make the spacing easy to achieve.
The ADVANTAGE of using a knife in place of a pocket ‘twist’ sharpener is that each of the three shallow shaves leaves a thin wooden ‘buttress’ that serves to reinforce the graphite point; and the resulting graphite point itself can give ‘character’ to one’s writing, rather in the same way as an oblique ink-pen nib.
Thanks for the comment, Jake. So what type of knife do you recommend for the six side technique?
I have used many different pocket knives, but now have what I think is the ideal knife. Burgon & Ball Classic Pocket knife; you can see it on their website, under gardenning tools. It is a regular folding penknife; described as ‘classic’ in an English sense; I guess an American pocket knife would be more rugged and heavy.
Particular features are its handle and its blade. The handle must give control and leverage. Consider the movements of the blade like those of a boat on the sea. The handle is 10 cm long, fitting the average hand size; it has wooden scales making it easy to grip; and it is medium broad. Thus it is easy for the user to control the blade and make it pitch, roll and yaw.
The blade is 8 cm long, giving the user a good choice of which section of the blade to use; it is made of hardened steel that takes a very good edge and retains it. It measures 0.25 cm thick at the ‘back’, and 1.5 cm deep from back to edge. These dimensions mean the angle at which the faces (sides) of the blade meet as they converge to the edge is not too ‘thin’; the blade is top quality Sheffield steel anyway, but this angle makes it even less likely the blade will flex or bend. Sharpening the blade makes this angle slightly larger still; although we are talking micro-degrees of angle, it does result in an inflexible blade that will not only take a lethally sharp edge, but will retain it too.
Sharpening a pencil takes practice, and here are some tips. The broad deep strokes are to cut both wood and graphite; they should be made with the middle section of the blade; their purpose is to sharpen the pencil ! Rather than setting the length of the blade at right angles to the length of the pencil, turn the back of the blade backwards slightly towards your body, giving an angle of about 70 degrees with the pencil axis. The shallow cuts are to cut mostly wood only, and should be made with the section of the blade nearest the handle; their purpose is to ‘fine tune’ the pencil point, and to reduce the ridges slightly so that the wood doesn’t hide part of the point when the pencil is in use.
I discovered your website by chance; you have a new and dedicated reader !
Jake, thanks for the detailed instructions! I am so glad you didn’t claim just any knife would do. I will have to look for a Burgon & Ball. Glad you like the website.
I have had the idea to sharpen the blades myself using a knife sharpener. Has anyone tried this? I am a school teacher and the sound of an electric sharpener is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Not to mention that the blades in electric sharpeners generally won’t last an entire school year so there is still a lot of waste. But as you can imagine, kids burn through even the finest handheld sharpener. I too have been on the search for replacement blades, but thought it would be even better to actually sharpen the blades it comes with. It seems like it would be pretty easy to remove the blade, sharpen it and then put it back. I haven’t tried it yet though.
One piece of advice for making a blade go a little longer is to try a little rubbing alcohol. Especially if you are trying to use colored pencils which leave a waxy residue. Sometimes it’s not that the blade is dull but there is residue.
Eileen,
The steel they’re made from is pretty hard and difficult to sharpen in a domestic knife sharpener. They’re also fantastically difficult to keep hold of.
I’ve tried an oilstone (the kind you use to sharpen chisels), holding the sharpener blade in a clamp.
Perhaps I lack the skill but the results were not worth the effort.
I use a knife on my drawing pencils to get the variety of lead shapes,
Eileen & Michael have hit on the principal problem with the hand-twist pencil sharpener, ever since its prototype invention in 1847: the blade gets blunt ! Pencil sharpeners have gone through some evolution to deal with this, but in vain. In early sharpeners the blades were intended to be removed and sharpened, with the holding screw able to be undone by hand or using a coin; some were intended to be reversible and had double edges; and some were intended to have their blades replaced, and had one or two spare blades attached on the side; it used also to be possible to buy spare blades. The solution to this problem of over 163 years may now be simply to treat the small pencil sharpener as disposable; maybe that is why there are so many cheap and aesthetically unappealing sharpeners available nowadays !
regarding pencilthings.com They do have blade, but they are 1.00 and up plus then you are looking at shipping I suppose.
guess I should just accept the disposable .99 cent ones at staples.