X-ACTO Spira Electric Pencil Sharpener

After buying the Royal & Langnickel Small Tin Charcoal Drawing Art Set to use to do the exercises in Drawing from Observation: An Introduction to Perceptual Drawing, I bought a manual sharpener for the charcoal pencils in the set. My results with the manual sharpener were half eaten pencils with very little in the way of a point. The manual sharpener wasn't working for me and I needed sharpened charcoal pencils. So after reading many of the reviews of electric sharpeners here at Amazon, I decided on the red X-ACTO Spira Electric Pencil Sharpener. It seemed to be very popular, had very good reviews and the price was right. None of the reviews, however, mentioned charcoal pencils, but it seemed worth trying this sharpener and I bought one. It turns out that so far it has worked very well on all of the pencils I've sharpened with it. These have included no name No. 2 pencils, Royal & Langnickel charcoal pencils and Derwent Inktense Watersoluble Ink Pencils The key to getting a good point is paying attention to the so-called "Pencil Saver" technology. To get a good point and not eat up your pencil, you insert the pencil until you feel the helical cutter start grinding the head of the pencil. At that point DO NOT keep pushing on the pencil. Just hold it there. When you can feel that the sharpener is no longer grinding on the pencil, that is to say you only feel the motor running, it's done. You should then be able to pull out a well pointed pencil. Update: In reading the instructions more carefully, it says that you should not sharpen colored pencils because they can clog the sharpener's cutters. I suppose by extension that would rule out charcoal pencils as well. Until that happens I plan to continue sharpening charcoal and colored pencils. Perhaps I'll have to learn how to clean the cutters.