I can't quite explain why, but I was really into this until I saw it required glue.
I don't like glue. It's messy, it takes time to dry, and it's not reusable. This pencil sharpener is still a neat party trick, but the glue downgrades it from something I'd actually want to buy.
I think wood glue is most harmless type [1], and you do not need as much as it shown in video for the presentation purposes.
On the other hand, maybe friendly (non-glue) version would be with the contra-screw or clicking mechanism at the end. But it would be very hard to maintain lock while you cut the pencil/s pass the joint.
Japanese maker have a weird love for wood glue. For instance flat pack furnitures come with glue for extra strength, where Ikea just sizes the bits tight enough to not need any.
To play the devil's advocate, their wood glue doesn't smell and is pretty easy to use. It's less messy to me than regular scotch paper glue for instance.
I think they improved a ton in the last decade or so.
Most parts using wood bits nowadays are either enclosed and there is no tension that would make the bits get out, or the bits are seconded by metal pieces that actually maintain it all together.
Yes, I think I don't even remember seeing a piece with wood bits not seconded by the metal thingies (I love the mechanism btw, it's weirdly satisfying)
The other issue you have is designing a pencil sharpener that could cut a wedge.
The beauty of the current design is that its simple to make, simple to repair and guaranteed to work even when you're shaving past the joint. It's one of those situations where a "worse" solution actually covers all the edge cases better.
pencils are made with glue. Thats how they get the "lead" inside them. I appreciate if you dont want to handle it (but you wouldnt need anywhere near as much as is demonstrated, a couple of drops inside would do fine), but from a "reusable" perspective, its still better than throwing away a pencil stub (if you keep the glue well sealed!)
Ah, by "not reusable," I wasn't referring to environmental concerns. Rather, it's a "consumable" substance that will eventually get used up, and I'll have to remember to buy more! So are the pencils of course, but the glue adds another thing.
I thought the same thing. If only there was a novel way the two could connect. I was expecting it to say something like ‘then twist the two pencils together until they click’ but nope. Glue. :(
That may be why it took me so long to remember what it was. It also sounds like it might have been played on some Japanese stringed instrument other than a guitar.
Yes. The pencil sharpener removes the last 2.5cm of the pencil lead anyway, so why not just use a pencil extender? This seems like an overengineered solution looking for a problem.
You're using a really classy extender, but one of those $0.10 plastic pencil caps would work as well.
Software Engineer here who loves to draw/sketch. The biggest difference is stroke consistency and handling weight. So an ideal handling weight will let you exert more control over your strokes; your straights are cleaner, your curves are more fluid. Think of how some gaming mouses are weighted.
If you find the right mechanical pencil (i.e., not a cheap plastic one), it wins in both aspects. Plus a mechanical pencil never becomes too short that it does not rest stably on your grip.
But still, there is a certain charm to a drawing produced with the variable stroke widths of a wooden pencil. So I guess it depends what you're going for.
I am not very artistic so never got into drawing or sketching, I do understand the stroke width point though, my school required us to use fountain pens (as a left-handed person, it's probably the the single biggest reason I've avoided hand-writing ever since, what a nightmare!).
I use a Uni Kuro Toga Roulette I got from Japan for measurements and technical drawings I do at home, but I don't do any of that professionally to say how good it is. The key point for me is that it's always sharp every time I reach for it.
I have wooden pencils but when I grab those (infrequently, usually for marking wood or walls etc for DIY), I find they need sharpening, and some times the end isn't pointed enough to mark a wall through a screw-hole. I use them infrequently enough that I rarely bother sharpening them after I'm done, and they get thrown in a drawer or tool box as-is.
When I draw, I like the lead to be extremely sharp. It's always bothered me that in reality I'm only using a hair thin cylinder of the center of the lead, and the rest gets turned to powder.
Even a mechanical pencil isn't sharp enough. But more importantly, without the support of the wood/lead around it, it breaks too easily. So they're virtually impossible to sharpen. I have given it a try using a fine emery board, and when the lead doesn't break, it takes a while, and the board gets clogged and won't sharpen.
Maybe that is because you start with pencils that are too long to start with?
This machine allows you to start off with shorter pencils that you can extend on demand. This way you are likely to loose less pencil whenever you loose one.
This is an idea so simple that just stumps me in awe. For entire life I was looking pencils being thrown as they are short to write with. Simple amazing.
I like ideas as such, where someone rediscovers long standing problem everyone forgot or they are not noticing anymore as a problem, and then they make potentially very successful product.
And:
The PVA adhesive was invented in the early 1950s (Elmer's glue). Since then it has been improved and now we have the yellow glues (Carpenter's Glue, Titebond, etc.) and even now the cross-linking PVAs (Titebond II).
so 7 decades...
While the modern pencil was invented in 1795 by Nicholas-Jacques Conte.
A pack of 48 pencils is $1.88 at Walmart. While I certainly congratulate the engineers on their creativity, as a product this seems like a solution in search of a problem.
I get that, but is it even accomplishing that job, once you factor in petroleum for the plastics, the glue, the packaging, etc.? Is all that money, effort, and environmental impact worth it to salvage the last inch of a used pencil? I doubt it.
Another way to phrase it is it's in the spirit of finishing all the fries that come with the burger. We're not always calculative creatures. Sometimes the act of completion matters more.
This is just the sort of product to invoke the ire of "big pencil." Mark my words, and watch as the insidious cabal of global pencil subsidiaries (Ticonderoga, Staedtler, Mitsubishi, and others) slowly smothers this product in its crib.
So the point is to solve wasting pencil ends (mostly made out of wood), by introducing... a device made out of plastic, and glue (which also comes in a plastic bottle)?
I don't like glue. It's messy, it takes time to dry, and it's not reusable. This pencil sharpener is still a neat party trick, but the glue downgrades it from something I'd actually want to buy.