Prismacolor Premier Pencil Sharpener

I believe this is a good pencil sharpener for the price, and it sharpens my Prismacolors very well. As a general rule, I prefer manual pencil sharpeners that have a small compartment to hold the shavings. The blades were sharp, and I could tell by the long and even shavings I got when I sharpened my colored pencils. I just recently purchased this sharpener, so I cannot testify to how long the blades will maintain their sharpness. It is a small compartment to hold the pencil shavings so don’t expect to sharpen more than 6 or 7 pencils before having to empty it. Also, it is plastic but I have not had any issues with breakage up to this point. I notice a couple of reviewers mentioning breakage of the leads in their pencils. To my knowledge, and experience, Prismacolors (only colored pencils I have used) are wax based and extremely fragile. You can drop one and literally break the lead inside. When I have a lead break, I place the pencil in the sun for a few minutes (it’s wax and will melt) so the lead can adhere back together again. If you keep having lead breaks the pencil just may be defective, but again they are fragile. I also sharpen my pencils by twisting the sharpener, and not the pencil. Not that anyone needed my thoughts or advice on color-pencil lead breakage; but, I just thought I would throw that out there for anyone who wanted to know.Read more

The only reason I didn’t give this product five stars is because I found the tips to use it properly in my Prismacolor pencils. But if you use the tips provided in the colored pencils, you will get perfect sharpening every time. Using this sharpener otherwise will result in split and cracking pencils and leads. From the Tips and Techniques sheet in the Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils: “Hold the pencil steady in your left hand and use your right hand to turn the sharpener clockwise around the pencil. Minimizing torque will help achieve a sharp point with minimal breakage.” I tried sharpening the “traditional” way by holding the pencil in my right hand and turning the pencil. I do not recommend doing this with this sharpener. The tip above worked like a charm though, and I wish it was on the packaging instead of the useless information.Read more

Like many others, I suspect, I’ve tried a number of sharpeners with my Prismacolor pencils. After all, a sharpener is a sharpener, right? Well no, not when it comes to Prismacolors. The core is too soft for the battery/mains operated sharpener I use with my polychromos and Caran D’Ache pencils, so I’ve built up quite a collection of manual sharpeners in search of ‘The Best” for the Prismas. Most of them can give a good point but there’s a fair bit of effort involved as the wood casing catches easily on the blades. I really didn’t expect this sharpener to be any different, even though it’s marketed as being the one to use with Prismacolors, so I held out against buying it until a few days ago. All I can say is, using it with these pencils has been a revelation. The blades cut through the casings cleanly, with little catching, and nowhere near as many turns (of pencil or sharpener, depending on how you sharpen your pencils) are needed as with the other manual sharpeners I’ve tried. I won’t be using this with my polychromos or Caran D’Ache pencils because I’ve got other sharpeners – especially the battery/mains operated one – which do an excellent job on them. This sharpener will be used exclusively with the pencils for which it was designed – Prismacolors – because in the long run I can see it saving money since it sharpens the Prismas so smoothly and cleanly.Read more

I held off buying this pencil sharpener, despite buying the 150 tin of Prismacolor pencils, because I already had numerous pencil sharpeners. Plus, forking out another £7 or so for something I didn’t entirely need couldn’t be justified at that time. I soon discovered that Prismacolor pencils, as well as being absolutely awesome for colouring, are an absolute pain in the butt for sharpening. Shortly afterwards I moved and they were stuffed in the back of a cupboard and forgotten about for 4 years. I recently rediscovered my pencils – and how difficult they are to sharpen without breakage. I figured that surely the same brand of sharpener would sharpen them properly and, you know what? It does! Those of you who own Prismacolor pencils have probably already discovered for yourselves that some pigments are more delicate than others (We’re looking at you, reds and oranges) so tend to break every time they’re sharpened. This pencil sharpener remedied that for me – since buying it, all of my Prismacolor pencils have sharpened without breakages. This pencil sharpener has two holes for sharpening. One of these gives you a traditional, long, sharp point & the other: a short, blunter point like the type the pencils come with. Using the second of the two holes should resolve all your Prismacolor sharpening breakages – it has for me. In short, if you’re going to be investing in a set of Prismacolor Premier pencils buying this sharpener is a no brainier. Not if you’re wanting to enjoy using them rather than sharpening a large proportion of them into the bin! I wish I’d realised this years ago – I would have saved myself a lot of frustration!Read more

Why does a sharpener have to cost so much ? Makes me mad also I now hate it because it broke the lid snapped off then I put the top on 180 the wrong way… nothing to show you which way round it goes unless you’ve got 20 20 vision and x ray eyesight then the whole thing smashed as I tried to get the top off waste of £17Read more

After reading the reviews here I almost didn’t purchase this sharpener. I went on to look at other sharpeners instead but found more of the same in regard to negative reviews. So I came back to this one, and it arrived this morning. It’s great! Let’s address those 1 star reviews: In regard to build/construction quality – I’m sorry, but it’s not the manufacturer’s fault that you’re a ham-fisted oaf. I’m a big guy with very large hands and sometimes have troubles with small &/or delicate objects. No problems with this though. Opened easily, closes well and stays shut. Easy to empty too. I’ve sharpened about 15 pencils with it today – & NO BROKEN CORES! Which brings us to the “it breaks the leads” complainers. Yes, if you jam a pencil into the hole and start cranking away at it you’re definitely going to get broken pigment cores with torn up wood. Learn how to sharpen a pencil (see previous ham-fisted oaf comment). Remove the pencil from your dominant hand, place it in your non-dominant hand and grip it firmly with the pointy end toward your dominant hand. Use your dominant hand to hold the sharpener with its open end (the end with the holes in it!) and gently )yet firmly) place the pencil in the sharpener. While holding the pencil steady gently rotate the sharpener instead of twisting the pencil. Don’t forget to apply a bit of pressure on the sharpener (toward the pencil!). Watch as pretty long curls of wood appear in the chamber. Remove pencil to find it is now even more pointy than before! …….. Man, what a condescending jerk, eh? Seriously, it seems it’s much easier to just point fingers and lay blame than it is to have a little patience &/or accept accountability for your own failings. Would I recommend this item? Absolutely. (I’d also recommend buying some better quality pencils too). Would I buy it again? The only reason I can think of that I would need to is that it will probably be more of a pain in the neck (and possibly ridiculously expensive) to track down replacement blades when these eventually get dull than it would be to simply buy a new sharpener – so yes, I would. Only real complaint? Pencils come out almost too sharp – but really that’s on me. 100% user error.Read more

I’ve been coloring for stress relief since long before adult coloring came into vogue so I have been slowly adding to my colored pencil collection over the years and just recently invested in the Prismacolor Scholar colored pencils – not the best or the priciest, but more than I’d invested before. Now, I don’t know if I was doing something wrong (I mean, how many techniques are there?) but the sharpener kept eating my carefully used colored pencils – So every time the lead would break I would wince in sorrow! lol …Since then I’ve found an electric sharpener (Etekcity Electric Pencil Sharpener, Automatic Feed and Dispense) here in Amazon that has worked amazingly well with all of my colored pencils – I very rarely have a lead break and the sharpener produces sharp pencils in a couple of seconds! I would never use anything else!Read more

I bought this sharpener after reading loads of reviews on Amazon and elsewhere, to ensure that I did not damage my more expensive colouring pencils (i.e. Prismacolor, Faber Castell Polychromos etc.) Being new to the world of colouring and using good quality pencils, I wanted to make sure I had a good quality product. This is a good product. I do find myself being a little cautious when sharpening and checking every now and again to ensure I don’t over sharpen the pencils. I also find some of the pencils (Prismacolour brand only) seem to “catch” as you turn them while sharpening, so you have to do it gently. I like the ergonomic shape and how it fits comfortably in your hand. It’s also handy that it collects the shavings, which you can empty out. A word of caution – be careful when removing the lid (try to ease it off as opposed to pulling it out quickly) as you could end up with shavings everywhere! I find it an expensive sharpener, and I’m still undecided whether it’s actually worth the high price tag. I’ve heard that the Mobius & Ruppert brass grenade pencil sharpener is excellent, and it certainly comes with a cheaper price tag. So that may be a better option for anyone starting out with colouring and not sure if they want to spend a lot of money on it.Read more

This an absolutely dreadful sharpener for prismacolour pencils just completely chews them up do not understand why it is branded for these pencils. It’s just about average for my other pencils. The best sharpener I have found for prismacolour pencils is the Derwent Pastel sharpener, I will be sticking to this in the futureRead more

I believe this is a good pencil sharpener for the price, and it sharpens my Prismacolors very well. As a general rule, I prefer manual pencil sharpeners that have a small compartment to hold the shavings. The blades were sharp, and I could tell by the long and even shavings I got when I sharpened my colored pencils. I just recently purchased this sharpener, so I cannot testify to how long the blades will maintain their sharpness. It is a small compartment to hold the pencil shavings so don’t expect to sharpen more than 6 or 7 pencils before having to empty it. Also, it is plastic but I have not had any issues with breakage up to this point. I notice a couple of reviewers mentioning breakage of the leads in their pencils. To my knowledge, and experience, Prismacolors (only colored pencils I have used) are wax based and extremely fragile. You can drop one and literally break the lead inside. When I have a lead break, I place the pencil in the sun for a few minutes (it’s wax and will melt) so the lead can adhere back together again. If you keep having lead breaks the pencil just may be defective, but again they are fragile. I also sharpen my pencils by twisting the sharpener, and not the pencil. Not that anyone needed my thoughts or advice on color-pencil lead breakage; but, I just thought I would throw that out there for anyone who wanted to know.Read more

The only reason I didn’t give this product five stars is because I found the tips to use it properly in my Prismacolor pencils. But if you use the tips provided in the colored pencils, you will get perfect sharpening every time. Using this sharpener otherwise will result in split and cracking pencils and leads. From the Tips and Techniques sheet in the Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils: “Hold the pencil steady in your left hand and use your right hand to turn the sharpener clockwise around the pencil. Minimizing torque will help achieve a sharp point with minimal breakage.” I tried sharpening the “traditional” way by holding the pencil in my right hand and turning the pencil. I do not recommend doing this with this sharpener. The tip above worked like a charm though, and I wish it was on the packaging instead of the useless information.Read more

Like many others, I suspect, I’ve tried a number of sharpeners with my Prismacolor pencils. After all, a sharpener is a sharpener, right? Well no, not when it comes to Prismacolors. The core is too soft for the battery/mains operated sharpener I use with my polychromos and Caran D’Ache pencils, so I’ve built up quite a collection of manual sharpeners in search of ‘The Best” for the Prismas. Most of them can give a good point but there’s a fair bit of effort involved as the wood casing catches easily on the blades. I really didn’t expect this sharpener to be any different, even though it’s marketed as being the one to use with Prismacolors, so I held out against buying it until a few days ago. All I can say is, using it with these pencils has been a revelation. The blades cut through the casings cleanly, with little catching, and nowhere near as many turns (of pencil or sharpener, depending on how you sharpen your pencils) are needed as with the other manual sharpeners I’ve tried. I won’t be using this with my polychromos or Caran D’Ache pencils because I’ve got other sharpeners – especially the battery/mains operated one – which do an excellent job on them. This sharpener will be used exclusively with the pencils for which it was designed – Prismacolors – because in the long run I can see it saving money since it sharpens the Prismas so smoothly and cleanly.Read more

I held off buying this pencil sharpener, despite buying the 150 tin of Prismacolor pencils, because I already had numerous pencil sharpeners. Plus, forking out another £7 or so for something I didn’t entirely need couldn’t be justified at that time. I soon discovered that Prismacolor pencils, as well as being absolutely awesome for colouring, are an absolute pain in the butt for sharpening. Shortly afterwards I moved and they were stuffed in the back of a cupboard and forgotten about for 4 years. I recently rediscovered my pencils – and how difficult they are to sharpen without breakage. I figured that surely the same brand of sharpener would sharpen them properly and, you know what? It does! Those of you who own Prismacolor pencils have probably already discovered for yourselves that some pigments are more delicate than others (We’re looking at you, reds and oranges) so tend to break every time they’re sharpened. This pencil sharpener remedied that for me – since buying it, all of my Prismacolor pencils have sharpened without breakages. This pencil sharpener has two holes for sharpening. One of these gives you a traditional, long, sharp point & the other: a short, blunter point like the type the pencils come with. Using the second of the two holes should resolve all your Prismacolor sharpening breakages – it has for me. In short, if you’re going to be investing in a set of Prismacolor Premier pencils buying this sharpener is a no brainier. Not if you’re wanting to enjoy using them rather than sharpening a large proportion of them into the bin! I wish I’d realised this years ago – I would have saved myself a lot of frustration!Read more

Why does a sharpener have to cost so much ? Makes me mad also I now hate it because it broke the lid snapped off then I put the top on 180 the wrong way… nothing to show you which way round it goes unless you’ve got 20 20 vision and x ray eyesight then the whole thing smashed as I tried to get the top off waste of £17Read more