This “Dandy” pencil sharpener was made by the Automatic Pencil Sharpener Co. (“ASPCO”) in Rockford, Illinois, USA. The Dandy was produced starting as far back as the early 1900’s and remained a staple of the company’s lineup for more than 60 years. In the 1940’s the company rebranded and shortened the name to just APSCO and started to include it on their sharpeners. The “Dandy” brand was considered top of the line and featured an automatic feeder clamp allowing it to be operated onehanded. The Dandy was just one of many pencil sharpeners produced by APSCO. Others included the “Dexter”, “Chicago”, “Junior”, “Giant”, and “Wizard”. While all the sharpeners were manual crankstyle, they were marketed as “automatic” because the blades would stop cutting automatically when the pencil reached a perfect point.

Special thanks to the Made in Chicago Museum for their detailed history page and several excellent pieces in their APSCO pencil sharpener collection: https://www.madeinchicagomuseum.com/s...

Astronaut audio clip taken from NASA free online public audio clips library.

Check out my APSCO "Chicago" pencil sharpener restoration:    • 100yearold "Chicago" Automatic Penc...  

Timestamps:

0:001:09 Overview
1:106:05 Disassembly
6:066:19 Checking for lead
6:2010:05 Paint removal on body parts
10:0612:00 Rust removal and wire wheeling body parts
12:0113:10 Handle disassembly and cleanup
13:1114:18 Wire wheel and rust removal on misc parts
14:1914:56 Nickel plating
14:5715:21 Making replacement screws
15:2216:40 Body reassembly
16:4117:08 Body painting
17:0918:56 Tag cleanup
18:5719:43 Tag painting attempts
19:4419:59 Nickel plating tag
20:0023:50 Reassembly
23:5125:03 Before/After
25:0425:45 Testing
25:4625:54 Thanks for watching and please subscribe!


Restoration tips for restoring your own ASPCO Dandy pencil sharpener:

Please leave a comment with any tips for how to properly color the shallow lettering on the tag. I will credit you in any followup videos showing how to finish the lettering!

The udrive screws and rivets were purchased through Grainger’s online supply catalog. Unfortunately, you must buy in quantities of 100300 and you’ll have a hard time finding them anywhere else unless you can machine your own on a lathe.


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