"My wife is a middle school english teacher, and she burned out many a new sharpener.  I decided to end that, so I found an X-Acto model 41 High-Volume sharpener used on E-Bay. It is a juggernaut of a sharpener.  You could sharpen a sapling with it if it had a big enough hole.  I wanted to give it to her as a gift, but it was so.damn.ugly.  So I got creative.  Do a Google Image search for "Mystery Machine Pencil Sharpener".  It is the only one, as far as I can tell......"