Manual Pencil Sharpener Heavy Duty Pencil Sharpener with Desk Clamp, Quiet for Office, Home and School (Red)

​My father took an ice pick, put it in, and tapped it with his other hand. This popped out a metal shaving that was blocking the sharpeners. All four sharpeners are working perfectly now. A week ago I noticed a metal shaving in there and thought it had a purpose. As I think about it, there could be shavings in there from manufacturing. With use, the shaving could be pushed down to the end. That would explain why they all worked at first, two got plugged rather quickly, and a third got plugged after sharpening quite a few pencils. So there is no need to open it up. What is sad is that I believe many of your customers have thrown away these excellent sharpeners because they don't know the ice pick trick. I was about to email you for a refund when I thought I better show it to my dad first: he's 82 years old so it's not always easy to get him to focus on something.​ Also he has an excellent little flashlight to look all the way to the end. He compared the working sharpener with the not working ones to know that the metal shaving is not suppose to be down there.As advertised, a fine point every time, color pencils no problem. I teach Kindergarten--it's totally safe for them--no way to get to the blades. After showing them what to do, they quickly learned. Too concerns, it may be a little too sharp (if that's possible) and the children love sharpening a little too much, so the pencils are disappearing. It's a very enjoyable activity to use this sharpener. A parent can very easily keep a child from sharpening too much, but it takes some management to not have your pencils ground down in a classroom setting. I caught one child sharpening and breaking tips off for the fun of it--too fun!!

I purchased a few SharpTank hand cranked pencil sharpeners about 4 years ago. One went to my classroom where I was the only person to use it. Kids destroy everything! The other stayed home where my then 5/6 year old used and abused it with colored pencils *they are too soft and get stuck in the sharpener. Don't use them with this.* Both are still functioning quite well today and have been in use regularly all of this time. I've never replaced the blades, but have taken them apart a few times to remove a lead jam or for cleaning. I've bought multi-packs several times and gifted them to my colleagues and daughter's teachers. Recently I haven't been able to find the multi-packs and the Sharp Tank website seemingly no longer sells the actual sharpeners. Soooo...fast forward to this brand. I saw them here on Amazon for a MUCH chepaer price, but with similar reviews. I took a chance and ordered one. Other than the branding and what I guess is some sort of serial number, everything...materials, workmanship, weight,etc...appears to be identical to the Sharp Tank brand. Because it is a newer sharpener, it is more smooth than my 4 year old Sharp Tank, but I expect *hope* I'll get just as many smooth sharpening years out of this brand *Desert Song* as I have the Sharp Tank brand. Due to the great price, and seemingly identical make up as the more expensive Sharp Tank brand, I've decided to order one or two more. If they prove crap and don't hold up, it's just $10-11, so no real loss. I might even let my students use it. Ha.

This is not only a review of this handy pencil sharpener, but also of the customer service I received from this company "Desert Song." Though it always sucks to have to contact customer service in the first place, when service shines, it makes things a lot better in your day.Short review:Pencil sharpener broke after a couple months use. I contacted company and explained the situation to them, they sent out a replacement unit immediately. NO HASSLE. This is what I feel true customer care is all about, and my next sharpeners will be from this company hands down.Long review:I bought several different models of sharpeners from Amazon. One of them was a sharpener that was around 3 times the cost of this one (X-acto ranger 55). This unit is "solid metal" and has multiple different sized holes for pencils that fall out of the standard diameters. I discovered some unpleasant things about the X-ACTO, one of them being that you have to screw mount the sharpener into your desk. For those of you who dislike the permanence of burrowing little holes into your gorgeous wooden work desks, this Desert Song sharpener is EXACTLY the unit you are looking for. It comes with a hook-like attachment that basically clamps down on the side of your table - solid, and doesn't irreversably damage your desk. You can move it around later if you realize you didn't like the position of it, and you wouldn't be staring at any screw holes at your previous error...Also, pencils sharpened in the X-ACTO tended to come out off-centered! Pencils would come out sharpened, but the leads would look "longer" on one side than the other. I posted a review of this situation on the X-ACTO product page if you want the gory details. Basically, I was starting to suspect that ALL my previously centered pencils were un-centered! Until I got one of these Desert Song sharpeners into my possession. Boy, was I relieved that my pencils were centered after-all! On top of that, the X-ACTO is grindy where the Song is smooth. What would take 10-15 rotations on the wheel and still come out off-centered and unsharpened (grindy-ness in spinning the wheel never goes away), took only 4-6 spins on the Song (after 4-6 spins, what was grindy suddenly smoothes out - you can feel when the sharpening is done when the wheel no longer seems to catch on anything). Pencils came out sharp and centered. Ready for action. In the end, I figured I would be wasting around 30%-50% of my pencils (lead breakage from off-centered leads) if I used the X-ACTO over this sharpener. This comes out quite expensive in the long run.I was quite shocked (and actually a bit heart-broken) when my wife told me the handle broke from the Song during normal use. My beautiful sharpener!!! I looked at her accusingly for a while after that. I decided I had to contact the company about this. It is impossible that anyone designs their products to last mere months. This has to be a fault of some sort. Needless to say, Desert Song came through for me. They sent me a replacement without any hassle what-so-ever! I am thrilled to have my awesome pencil sharpener back on my desk.Although I would deduct a star from this item having broken so easily after a mere couple months of use, I must add a star for Desert Song's impeccable service. I attribute the small hiccup in durability to a possible fault in manufacturing (it can happen to any factory).Needless to say, I LOVE this sharpener.I HIGHLY recommend!I buy these items with my own pennies. If this review was in any way helpful for you, please share some love and click on that "thumbs up" icon. That way I know I should keep writing these reviews! Thank you!