The Acme of Pencil Sharpening

After considerable debate, we have opted to acquire the iPoint Titanium, by Acme United (a Westcott Company). This product won a Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award in 2006:



The sharpener is a bit noisy, but it has numerous advantages. It has a small footprint and elegant styling cues. It is also very good at sharpening pencils (click this link for a video of pencil-sharpening action). I am a little concerned about its longevity - it is not self-sharpening, and I suspect that the highly-touted titanium blades may disappoint.

Our four year-old thinks it's great. He comes by every few minutes to sharpen a pencil. Most pencils, he sharpens both ends, in case one end runs out. A lot of times he'll draw a picture and discover that the pencil needs sharpening again, so he comes back and sharpens it.

As I type this I just noticed that several of the pencils in our home have not been sharpened, so I'll end here and go take care of that.