A sharpener is a device for sharpening a pencil’s point by shaving one end. The pencil sharpeners are available in two types: the Hand powered sharpener and the Electric sharpener along with some specialized sharpeners.
The hand-powered sharpeners are nothing but mechanical sharpeners that are very common and portable. The mechanical sharpener has no moving parts. The pencil is inserted into the hole of the sharpener and moved holding the sharpener motionless. The sharp blade inside the sharpener shaves the wood of the pencil making the tip sharp and pointed. The base of the hand- powered sharpener is mostly found in hard plastic, aluminium or magnesium.
The electric sharpeners follow the same mechanism of hand-powered sharpeners with the only difference, the blades in the electric pencil sharpeners rotate rapidly with the help of electric motor and sharpens the pencil very efficiently. Sometimes instead of electric motors, the sharpeners are powered by batteries making it more portable.
Specialized pencil sharpeners are specially designed to operate on the non-standard sizes of pencil like the one used in primary schools, the large art pencil and the carpenters’ rectangular pencil. But some mechanical sharpeners come well equipped with several hole of different sizes to shave pencils with different sizes.
Sharpener is also available for wax crayons, which is included in the box of crayons itself. . This sharpener is similar to other sharpeners except for its blades made of plastic. Graphite pointers are the specialized version of pencil sharpeners specially made available for drafters or other mechanical pencil users that demand constantly sharp points.