The Classroom Friendly Sharpener (from here on out, CFS) is a sturdy metal bodied sharpener with a guide that grips your pencils and draws them into the sharpening mechanism. It is sold by ClassroomFriendlySupplies.com As you turn the handle the pencil is gently pushed further into the blades until it has a fresh perfect point. Then it stops via an ingenious auto stop mechanism. Check out the video that demonstrates how the guide works.
The sharpener arrives in a sturdy outer cardboard box, with some paper packaging and big air pockets. Inside that is a sturdy plastic box that perfectly holds the CFS. The sharpener and clamp are inside their own cellophane baggies. The box is unbranded and has no stickers, just a few well placed bits of tape to hold the box closed. The sharpener itself is also remarkably free of garish branding. Rather the shaving bin has a tiny print of the website and the top has a single small sticker with the website. Simple and clean branding.
My version is sky blue, with a shiny chrome faceplate and crank, with black plastic grips. The roomy shavings drawer is clear plastic. As a test to see how much the bin will hold, I sharpened 16 pencils- 8 from a factory point to CFS point and another 8 from unsharpened to CFS. I could have easily have sharpened another 4 pencils but felt the bin was pretty full. That is plenty of shaving capacity for a desk or a classroom. The clamp works well enough and securely holds the sharpener to my desk.
In use the crank rotates smoothly and the blades cut cleanly and fast. It took just a few rotations and few seconds to take an unsharpened pencil from flat to super pointy. Let’s talk about that point because it’s awesome the CFS point is the best bang for your pencil sharpener buck around. At less than the price of a M+R Pollux you get a similar point that lasts and lasts while you write. It’s slightly convex, and long. I love this point
The great thing about the CFS is that it works on expensive Blackwing Volumes, less expensive General’s Cedar Pointe #1, inexpensive Nataraj Trikone, to the el cheapo Wally World Casemates, and even the horrible pox upon the house of Dixon the unnamed #2 Dixon. It doesn’t care about the price of the pencil or what it is made of- it just grinds off the wood and shapes it to a perfect convex long point meant for ages of writing.
And, yeah, it’s pretty quiet.
The one complaint that I’ve read about this sharpener is that it leaves teeth marks on pencils, tiny little holes. If this bugs you, you can use the Welfle Method of wrapping a post it around the area where the teeth with grip the pencil, it’ll still get plenty of grip on the pencil, but not leave the holes. Or you can be like some of us and embrace the pencil as an ephemeral tool that you destroy to create art. Whatever floats your boat, maaaan
An additional positive of the CFS is that you can buy a fresh blade when yours dulls. This is awesome. The company makes these easy to find and easy to buy. Lose your clamp? Break your plastic shavings bin? They have that covered too.