X-ACTO® Mighty Pro™ Electric Pencil Sharpener, Black

This is an expensive heavy duty yet precision pencil sharpener. At a hundred bucks it’s not something intended for sharpening crayons in the kids room. It is obviously out of the budget range for most school districts for each classroom. But it would be an ideal choice for art, design, graphics and architectural drawing workgroups. Similarly in offices, while you may not find one in each cubicle here is certainly a need for one in departments that depend a lot on pencils. For me that erases any argument that flatly says it is too expensive or overpriced and I don’t accept any negative rating of it solely for that reason.

HISTORY

The first electric pencil sharpener I ever bought was a Berol Apsco that was made in the U.S. It cost more than average when I bought it back in the 1980’s, which by the makes it about forty years old. The maker was pretty much the defacto standard for hand crank sharpeners for most of the twentieth century. Not only do I still have it but I use it several times a week and the only maintenance I have ever done to it was to empty the shavings bin every couple of months. While it still sharpens a pencil perfectly it has gotten noisy over the years. I’m sure I could have it cleaned and lubricated but when I saw this one I got it because I needed a sharpener in another room in the house anyway. What made the decision easy for me is that it is sold by X-acto, which is a brand of professional artist tools I have used for many years.

THINGS YOU MUST KNOW

There are two basic ways an electric sharpener works- either by using a sharp blade that essentially bulldozes its way around the tip of a pencil and cuts off a diagonal point or this one that uses gear driven helical burrs to craft the tip to a precision point. The latter is far superior. This model differs from cheaper ones from the same and other companies in two important ways. One is that the electric motor is one of the biggest and most powerful you will find, one that’s designed to be used dozens if not hundreds of times a day. Secondly other than the outer casing the working parts are made mostly of metal.

WARNING

Some sharpeners, my old one included, have the feed hole pointing toward the front. Some newer designs opt to save a little desk space and point it straight up. This one compromises and has it at an angle midway in between, that makes it very convenient to use. The shavings tray is easy to remove, it just pulls straight out. But warning – because it is so large it’s difficult to carry the device around without being tempted to hold it by the clear part. Don’t. It will come apart and the heavy part that contains the motor will go crashing to the floor.

FEATURES

This unit is made to automatically adjust for a wide range of pencil diameters, hence it does not have one of those rotating guide disks with multiple sized holes in it. That means the pencil can wobble around a bit in the large feed hole. That’s not a problem but I suggest holding the pencil firmly about two inches from the feed until it automatically stops and the blue LED light comes on.

LIMITATIONS

Some people like to use a pencil for as long as possible for economy reasons while others prefer short pencils for other reasons. You may not like this device because you have to insert a pencil quite far before the motor starts. The shortest pencil you can sharpen therefore is about three inches long.

IT’S LOUD

Finally the question about how loud it is – libraries and open cubicle offices don’t want noisy mechanical equipment. With the huge motor you might think this model would be very loud but the good news is that it’s not too bad but it is louder than the cheap battery powered ones, plus it is exceptionally fast so whatever motor noise there is only happens for a few seconds.

THE BRAND IS IMPORTANT

The X-acto brand name gives me confidence that the manufacturer is serious about making a completely new series of electric sharpeners from basic to this powerhouse. While it is expensive that is in no way a negative because it is intended for serious commercial use, therefore I did not factor that in at all to my rating. The bottom line is that when the important points are tallied up – things like quality of materials and construction, user friendly design, brand name and of course how well it sharpens a pencil, what we have here qualifies as being called the best of the best and a product that needs few if any improvements, all of which earn it a solid five stars.

This is a review of: X-ACTO pencil sharpener.
EDITED 03/16/2022. This is tough and has withstood drops and knocks from being moved back and forth to different locations and still does it’s job well, much better than most home office sharpeners. The area that holds the pencil residue is larger than other sharpeners, too, which is a plus in my book. ORIGINAL REVIEW:This electric pencil sharpener is a very powerful item.  It’s a lot bigger than I expected for a home office.  This sharpener should probably be considered a commercial pencil sharpener. It is NOTHING like the sharpeners on the walls of school rooms. I’m telling you, this sharpener is HEAVY DUTY. I do not recommend putting it on a desk.   It can sharpen a pencil within seconds. It is very loud and it does have a very durable storage case for the pencil shavings.  You do have to plug it in as it doesn’t have a battery backup system. I do recommend it. It’s just more powerful and more commercial than I expected. However, that was just my misunderstanding. This review was written by LynKin.

For some reason, this sharpener is almost too good at sharpening colored pencils (it will sharpen it to the nub in seconds in you aren’t careful), but I cannot get a good point on my graphite pencils because it shuts off too soon. So bizarre. I’ve resorted to hand sharpening to get good points. It also does not have a good depth. You can’t use it to sharpen shorter pencils, like my old sharpener. Considering the price, I expected better. Still contemplating whether I should return this because perhaps mine is defective.

We use the sharpener for our grandson who is being homeschooled and needed something reliable and strong