It’s a really cool piece of crafting, but more dangerous than it needs to be to get the job done. How about a 3D printed whale with a normal pencil sharpener in the blowhole?
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WHIMSY. Have some damn fun man. They’re cute.
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I’ll ask the ig’nernt ‘Murrican question here: is sharpening pencils with knives a common/preferred/expected/traditional thing for Japanese school children? Aside from an excuse to make nifty knives, why would someone have specifically asked for a kid-safe pencil sharpening knife to begin with? Usually, using a knife is an improvised method when better tools are unavailable (putting aside those flat carpenters’ pencils and some oddball artistic implements). For a plain ol’ #2, doesn’t seem like there’s any advantage to a hand-carved tip. What am I missing?
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That’s going to happen anyhow. It’s not like some fancy knife makes your children sociopathic.
WHIMSY. Have some damn fun man. They’re cute.
Yeah, just like Hello Kitty Assault Rifles.
Whimsy is fine and dandy up to a point. It can serve as a justification for anything, but it isn’t a particularly strong justification, and when faced with other serious faults, it is quite often deemed to be insufficient justification.
You want to make a whimsical, expensive luxury item? Fine. Just don’t make it a knife marketed at children as a pencil sharpener. If you fail to understand why doing so is problematic enough to overwhelm the justification of whimsy, then I honestly don’t know what to say to you.
Why this is the “perfect storm” of comment threads;
Artisanal knife making
Luxury pencil fetish
Weapons as toys
Free range kids
Zero tolerance
Affluenza
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Out of the box thinking isn’t inherently good.
Sure, being open to new ideas means you may discover a better way of doing things - but that does not in turn mean that a different way of doing something is automatically better just because it is different. It’s one thing to find value in things that are different, it’s another thing entirely to find value in things solely because they are different.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about here.
So finding fault with a wasteful design instantly means I verbally assault motorists for their vehicle choices? This is a bullshit argument, you’re insinuating that people caring about not being wasteful for whatever reason are inherently assholes and concern trollies. How are you not ashamed of yourself for making such absurd, petty generalizations?
[quote=“anon85905360, post:17, topic:17231”]
that has never stopped anything being drooled over on bb.[/quote]
True, but one can hope, no?
[quote=“anon85905360, post:17, topic:17231”]
what’s so terrible about knife skills[/quote]
Inherently, nothing. The problem is when you market knives as “pencil sharpeners”, that makes it necessary to compare them to other tools which perform the same function. From an engineering and user friendliess standpoint, this is an inferior product.
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Don’t forget “Japan and Whales”.
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No, it’s a couple of really cool knives, the very sort I would want to show children rudimentary knife skills with. I think teaching is a better tool than shaming or legislating
As for your hello kitty assault rifle, I think your hyperbole makes my point rather squarely.
If they’re just going to end up as sociopaths anyway, all other things being equal I’d rather keep knives out of the hands of sociopathic children, thanks. 
Who advocated shaming? Who said anything about legislation?
And as for my supposed hyperbole, what difference is there between teaching a child knife safety with a blade that resembles a toy and teaching gun safety with a rifle that resembles a toy?
The problem, as I’ve repeatedly stated, isn’t teaching children knife skills. The problem is with making a knife look like a toy. If you want to teach a child to use a knife, give them a proper knife to learn with and to respect as a dangerous tool. They need to take the object seriously, not see it as “Happy Fun Time With Whales!”. You do not combine cutesiness with anything that can easily draw blood. That is a Bad Idea™.
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People who label an item they don’t fully understand as wasteful and dangerous, well maybe I would not call them “concern trolls” (you said that), but I don’t quite get what makes them tick, either.
“An item they don’t fully understand”? It’s a knife shaped like a cutesy whale, being sold as a pencil sharpener. What’s to understand?
And what “labeling”? It is demonstrably wasteful for the purpose of sharpening pencils. You don’t need a giant hunk of metal with a full cutting edge and decorative shaping to sharpen a pencil. You don’t need to pay $55 for an impractical device whose superior counterparts at best cost 55¢. Paying 100 times the price for something that is less efficient and efficacious than the alternative is pretty much the definition of “wasteful”!
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The only thing I was ever intentionally stabbed with as a child was a pencil. I stall have the small grey mark in my skin where the graphite remains.
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If I designed a knife for kids to sharpen pencils, it would have a narrow sharp edge maybe 12mm set into a deep notch in the metal. That way it’s guarded on both sides, lacks the dangerous and unnecessary point and can only cut something about 1/2" wide like a pencil. Or a finger. Well, back to the drawing board.
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My kids are getting a starfish themed Shuriken for sharpening five pencils at once!
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I don’t see anything in the description about the most critical part of forging a proper artisanal pencil-sharpening knife. Was it quenched in the heart of a student who has dishonoured their senpai?
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Just for the record, I am not generally in favor of children getting injured, my opinions on mandatory bicycle helmet laws and knives notwithstanding.
You never took drawing class, did you? If you sharpen a pencil with a knife you have more control over the shape of the point. These knives are meant to look beautiful in addition to being functional. The child who owns such a blade may discover some aptitude for woodworking and learning that she can only use the blade at home and not at school will help her understand how to play the game of humoring people and playing along when uptight people are in charge.
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And those damn cyclists. Running red lights, wearing spandex, etc…
