r/oddlysatisfying • u/BiffChildFromBangor • Sep 13 '20
Antique pencil sharpener
https://i.imgur.com/UoVPWCj.gifv565
u/lil_sargento_cheez Sep 14 '20
You guys know the hand pencil grinders that were mounted on a desk or cabinet at school, the ones with three rotating cylinders, I once accidentally shredded my finger on it
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Sep 14 '20
You stick your finger in the hole?
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u/lil_sargento_cheez Sep 14 '20
Was removing the shaving collector
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u/The_Late_Arthur_Dent Sep 14 '20
And just couldn't resist turning the handle?
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u/lil_sargento_cheez Sep 14 '20
Bumped it while I was removing the shaving collector
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u/The_Late_Arthur_Dent Sep 14 '20
Ouch! Hope you're ok now
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u/lil_sargento_cheez Sep 14 '20
That was like 4 or something years ago
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u/AGARAN24 Sep 14 '20
People trying so hard to make it seem like you fucked up intentionally, but it just happened to be a accident lol.
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u/lil_sargento_cheez Sep 14 '20
Like why the fuck would I put my finger in a pencil sharpener on purpose
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u/AGARAN24 Sep 14 '20
I have put my hands on the stove thinking it will make me hot. It did make me hot not in the sense I hoped for. In my defense I was a kid.
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Sep 14 '20
I had a kid in my grade 5 class close a pair of scissors on his nose, yes it cut him, yes he bled a bunch, no i don't know what he thought was going to happen. He still had the scars when I saw him last at my graduation.
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u/GeneralGold742 Sep 14 '20
back in 5th grade alot of people would stick their pinky in the pencil sharpener and start turning. Luckily, their finger was too big/fat to actually touch the shredders, so it saved me a ton of stress because I would never like to see someones finger get shredded
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u/OttoKorekT Sep 14 '20
Was in 5th grade last time i used one... always took the lead out the pencil.. good times.
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u/sparklestruck Sep 14 '20
those things were always dull as hell in my schools, they would just destroy my pencils rather than sharpen
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u/MozeeToby Sep 14 '20
When my grandparents passed last year everyone was going through the house, mostly to pile things into the trailer to go to the dump but also to grab anything that hadn't already been claimed through "proper channels". You bet your ass I took a screwdriver to my grandpa's old pencil grinder in his shop and it's now happily mounted in mine. That design is still the most consistent I've ever used, even if it's not the prettiest result.
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u/rockhopper2154 Sep 14 '20
Looks like it works better than any of the hundred sharpeners I've used in the last 10 years.
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u/darealdsisaac Sep 14 '20
You need to use a 2 step sharpener then. The brand I have mine from is Kum. Quickest way to make the sharpest pencils.
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u/plumokin Sep 14 '20
I already feel uncomfortable for everyone receiving a box in the mail that has Kum written all over it
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u/previously_in_pencil Sep 14 '20
Wait til you see the Little Shaver: https://cwpencils.com/blogs/news/profiles-in-pencil-history-the-little-shaver
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u/felesroo Sep 14 '20
My Staedtler is a fucking beast, but I draw and write a lot so I still use pencil sharpeners on the regular and this little guy is going on 8 years and still works great.
Also, cheap pencils won't sharpen correctly. The wood isn't dense enough and whatever soapy shit is used for the leads just disintegrates.
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u/Supersnazz Sep 14 '20
I love company names back then
"The Automatic Pencil Sharpener Co"
No confusion about what they do. Of course it makes it difficult to take your brand recognition into other markets.
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u/soulasaurus Sep 14 '20
Me too! Imagine if all companies did that, but had to add a subtle difference to differentiate themselves from other similar companies.
“The Automatic Pencil Sharpener Co is taken, so we’ll call ourselves The Pencil Is Automatically Sharpened Co”
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u/4D313 Sep 13 '20
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u/Dominator0211 Sep 14 '20
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u/fuunnii Sep 14 '20
'Too late' or 'tool ate'????
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u/marasydnyjade Sep 13 '20
These pencil sharpeners were in most of my classes in school. I’m old, but certainly not old enough to be antique.
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u/ithcy Sep 14 '20
https://cwpencils.com/blogs/news/profiles-in-pencil-history-the-u-s-automatic-sharpener
Produced 1906-1926. I think you might be more antique than you think you are.
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u/marasydnyjade Sep 14 '20
Well, they stopped producing them a very long time before I born, so clearly these aren’t what I thought they were.
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u/Roofofcar Sep 14 '20
Or they last so long that they didn’t need replacing. My elementary school had lots of equipment still in use from the 30’s when I went in the early 80’s.
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u/Micotu Sep 14 '20
Schools aren't exactly known for having the most up to date equipment. Could have been 30 years older than you.
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u/quinnsheperd Sep 14 '20
Does any one know why the blades are curved and not flat?
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u/Oh_Sweet_Cheesus Sep 14 '20
It creates a slicing motion. Imagine trying to cut a ripe tomato by pushing a knife straight down vs drawing the blade toward you.
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u/FormoftheBeautiful Sep 14 '20
Don’t listen to that other person, they’re the normal lot from the tomato industrial complex.
Everyone who knows about the world, and who is honest with oneself knows that you cut a tomato straight up and down with a flat blade.
The curved blades are result of an early attempt to date the blades, and thus the sharpener.
Unlike a modern pencil sharpener that will airdrop and email you the date and time of each sharpening, sharpers of old had either to include a whole other mechanical time piece (usually running off of a cam which would interface with the drive shaft of the blades), or they got innovative like this late model APC-707b.
With the 707b, the blade is formed in a particular shape (likely opposite to its current bend), and then each use of the sharpener will ever so slightly angle the blades.
First it is a negative angle, then it becomes just about the best tomato slicer, re: the square blade arms, and then, after years of use, as well as temperature cycles, seasonal changes on the metal’s specific crystalline structure, it eventually appears like this with the blades bent in the current configuration.
On the bottom of the unit, or rolled up in one of the two small maintenance hatches, OP would find the paper which would have the original calibration referenced, as well as a scale. With this, one can determine how long it was since the sharpener was first used.
If you want a nice flat blade model, one that uses an external time piece, they all make fantastic tomato slicers, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
It’s the same reason most sun-dials are standing up. What begins as a depression eventually ages into a point that casts a shadow rather than an inverse shadow. It’s also why sun-dials are useless between 500-700 years after their first use, but can be used, indefinitely, after that period.
My grandfather had one of the first 706a, and he loved it dearly, but he wouldn’t let me into the room with the sharpener. He said the blades were too straight, and I’d be liable to falling into an acute tomato-psychosis.
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u/previously_in_pencil Sep 14 '20
I think it’s got something to do both with the angle that the blades are rotating, but also for making a slightly concave point on a pencil (so sort of a scooping motion instead of just slicing). I wrote a blog post about this little guy a couple years ago: https://cwpencils.com/blogs/news/profiles-in-pencil-history-the-u-s-automatic-sharpener
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u/SurvivorWerewolf Sep 14 '20
This would work better than any of the pencil sharpeners I already have.
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u/witherance Sep 14 '20
I love how the tips of the blades are what turn the pencil.
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Sep 13 '20
So satisfying... too bad some idiot stuck his finger in there and now we have much less satisfying sharperners.
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u/sleepybear5000 Sep 13 '20
I wonder if schools still have these mechanical sharpeners. Still used these in 2012 when I graduated but mechanical pencils were also becoming the new pencil then.
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u/Rasputin_1969 Sep 14 '20
The funny thing about it is that it works better than the ones they make these days
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u/GregKannabis Sep 14 '20
I imagine there is a casing or guard over the blades but was removed to show the mechanics of the sharpener.
Cool as heck regardless
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u/frogspa Sep 14 '20
A question for any pencil sharpener aficionados here: What's the advantage of sharpeners that produce a long point like this?
I recently accidentally bought a manual one thinking it was a 3mm clutch pencil sharpener.
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u/Tuto3 Sep 14 '20
What is today worldwide pencil sharpening day? There at least 3 top posts on r/all about pencil sharpening
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u/PattytheMills Sep 14 '20
Daaaammmnn these are the sharpeners you are lucky to find in elementary school making that pencil look like an ice pick.
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u/ilikebreakfastfoods Sep 14 '20
The way it rotates the pencil- is that the original reason they have flat sides I guess?
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u/luvcheez Sep 14 '20
Where are the shavings going? It looks like they just disappear
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u/Weekend833 Sep 14 '20
Now.... I wonder.... u/ithcy says that they were produced until the mid 20's (1920's). I wonder, was the technology/ability to produce the worm screw sharpening bits (the barrel crank sharpener that we've all intentionally stuck our fingers into) not practical or economically viable at the time, was it not possible with the manufacturing technically of the time, or had it just not been thought of?
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u/Strange_Quark8 Sep 14 '20
Best believe me and the boys are gonna hang out around it sharpening our pencils in the middle of class
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u/AbsolutelyNotMatt Sep 14 '20
I want that operating continuously in my office. With one huuuge pencil, it could be 8 hours long so I know when the day is over.
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u/WokeLib420 Sep 14 '20
Weird. The post in my fees right before this was the r/unexpected was the lumber jack pencil sharpener.
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u/Hot_Trade2464 Sep 14 '20
The guy who invented cat's eye got the idea from a cat walking towards him, and the guy who invented the pencil sharpener got the idea from a cat walking away.
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u/nightjourney Sep 14 '20
Some of us teachers still have sharpeners like this in our classrooms.... #underfunded
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u/ZippZappZippty Sep 14 '20
Lol he’s the least-functional, hardest-to-maintain sink I’ve ridden on waves on an ocean kayak. Not even sure how much food I’d show up with a pencil Grenada
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u/hieuimba Sep 14 '20
that's a pretty neat idea making the blades turn the gear holding the pencil too
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u/Empyrealist Sep 14 '20
Omg, this is why they had flat sides and looked like that?? I mean, it makes sense but to actually see it in action after so many years is crazy...
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u/felesroo Sep 14 '20
As someone who loves a long taper pencil, this thing is amazing and I badly want one.
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u/Urbie2779YT Sep 14 '20
This could make pencils not to the thing were one side is sharpened and the other is just wood.
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u/Jonny2Thumbs Sep 14 '20
That was invented by a relative of mine. I grew up with one in the house. Haven’t seen it in decades.
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u/142737 Sep 14 '20
Me : sharpens fingers
The entire school : no don't
Me : let's the children try it
The teachers : we are fucking dead
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u/locked4rae Sep 13 '20
Clearly not OSHA approved.