Derwent Pastel & Charcoal Pencil Sharpener, Manual Handheld Sharpener, Professional Quality, 0700234

Not sure why but this sharpener works so much better than any other I've tried.

This does a great job of sharpening pastel pencils without breaking them. Dont think it's just the same as a normal pencil sharpener, it isn't. Normal sharpeners will repeatedly break the soft and fragile core of a pastel pencil because the core gets jammed in the narrow end of the tapered hole and breaks. This has a cut-out in the bottom of the narrow end so the core isn't under so much torsional pressure. This means you can get a very sharp point without having to use a Stanley knife or scalpel, it's a lot quicker too.Just remember that some pastel shavings come out of the bottom cut-out of this sharpener so don't sharpen over your work unless you want random bursts of colour everywhere!It might seem a little bit pricy compared to normal plastic bodied pencil sharpeners but it's well worth the money as it does the job it's made for and does it well. I'm going to get a spare one the next time I order something from Amazon.

Good quality, will be even better if I can change blades

Perfect size for my pencil pastels.

I thought these were big enough for oil pastel sticks as advertised but only suitable for pencil size graphite or colour crayons!

It seems to work where other sharpeners break the pencils. Great for pastels.

It's sturdy, sharpens well, decent size and worth having in the class

The description is incorrect. This is a cheap plastic sharpener with a metal blade. I ordered this sharpener because it specifically says in the description that the material is "Metal". Only the blade is metal.