Pencil Sharpener Holder and Shavings Bin

Mounts a small metal wedge sharpener under the edge of your desk, hole facing out, with a drawer underneath that catches the shavings. Sharpen a pencil one-handed without leaning down, and slide the drawer off to empty it.

Two parts, four screws, no supports.

⚠ First — will your sharpener fit?

This holds one specific style of sharpener, so please check before printing.

The kind that works: the classic metal wedge sharpener — a single solid lump of cast magnesium or aluminium alloy, with one pencil hole in the end and a blade held on by a single screw on one of the flat faces. Usually a dimpled or lightly knurled finish, and a "bone" outline that is wider at the ends than in the middle. Möbius+Ruppert and KUM are the best-known makers, and there are countless unbranded copies. Most are stamped Made in Germany.

If you own a metal sharpener that fits in a coin pocket and has no moving parts, it is almost certainly this kind.

Measure three things and check them against this:

The one I designed around measures 25.42 × 15.55 × 10.58 mm, with a 12.46 mm waist in the middle.

Width is the one that really matters. The cradle has no floor — the sharpener rests in a V, so it self-centres and grips on width. Anything from 14–15.9 mm across the ends sits perfectly. Narrower still works, it just settles a little deeper:

Below 11.7 mm it drops straight through the V. If yours is waisted, the narrow middle has to clear 11.7 mm too.

Good news: it does not matter where the pencil hole sits in the end face. The front of the cradle is completely open, so the hole lines up wherever it is.

What will NOT fit:

• Two-hole sharpeners (too wide)

• Anything with a plastic shavings canister attached

• Long barrel, bullet or cone-shaped sharpeners

• Plastic novelty sharpeners

• Anything with a lid, cover or moving parts

If yours is close but not quite — the OpenSCAD source is included and fully parametric. Change four numbers at the top (sharp_L, sharp_W, sharp_W_waist, sharp_T) to your own measurements and re-export. The model will refuse to build a combination that cannot physically work.

Printing

No supports. Do not turn them on. Every downward-facing surface on both parts is cut at 50° or steeper, and there are no bridges anywhere — I checked this facet by facet on the exported meshes rather than eyeballing it in the slicer. Supports will only leave scars inside the cradle and the drawer rails.

Both STLs are already oriented. Drop them on the plate as they are.

Prints on any bed. No brim needed — both parts have a large flat footprint.

You will also need: 4 screws

Four 90° countersunk (flat-head) screws — not pan, dome or button head.

• Head diameter 8.2 mm max, shank 4.0 mm max

• Hole spacing is 56 × 42 mm

• #6 flat-head wood screws are ideal. #8 works. M4 flat head works.

Length: the heads sink 2 mm into the plate, so a screw bites into the desk by its length minus 5 mm. For a typical 19 mm (¾″) desk, 16 mm (⅝″) screws give you 11 mm of bite.

Measure your desk first. The screws must be shorter than 5 mm + your desk thickness or they will come through the top. Nothing in the design can stop that.

Drill pilot holes — 2.8 mm for hardwood, 2.4 mm for softwood or ply. Use the printed bracket itself as the drilling template: hold it up where you want it and mark through the four holes.

Can't drill your desk? The plate is a flat 70 × 62 mm pad — about 43 cm² — which is plenty for VHB double-sided mounting tape. Clean both surfaces with isopropyl first and leave it 24 hours before loading it.

Fitting and using it

1. Push the sharpener in — blade face DOWN. Slide it in through the open front until it stops against the back wall. On most of these the maker's engraving is on the same face as the blade, so the lettering ends up facing the floor. It presses past four grip ribs on the way, so give it a firm shove.

This is the one thing to get right. Blade face upward and the shavings stay inside the sharpener instead of dropping into the drawer.

2. Screw the bracket up, far enough forward that your hand clears the desk edge when you sharpen.

3. Slide the drawer on from the front. It clicks past two detents and stops. That click is what keeps it from sliding off on its own.

To sharpen: push the pencil in horizontally and turn the pencil, not the sharpener.

To empty: hook a finger under the ledge on the drawer front and pull. It holds about 46 cm³ — roughly three tablespoons of shavings.

To swap a dull sharpener out: take the drawer off, reach up into the open underside of the cradle and push the sharpener out the front.

Details, for the curious

• Hangs 55 mm below the desk — check your knees and any drawers first.

• The cradle has no floor at all. The sharpener sits in a V-seat and the whole underside is open, so shavings drop straight out with nothing to clog.

• The drawer rim tucks 1.5 mm up under the cradle, and the cradle is only 22 mm wide inside a 31.5 mm drawer mouth — a shaving would have to travel sideways and then back out through a 1.5 mm slot to escape.

• The drawer runs on wedge-section rails, so it cannot drop off downward; it only comes off forward, past the detents.

• The mount plate sizes itself around whatever screw you specify in the source — change the head diameter and the countersink, screw spacing, plate width and plate thickness all follow automatically.

Designed in OpenSCAD. Source file included. Everything is parametric.

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This free file is for personal, non-commercial use. I sell print-ready coaster sets, casting mold masters for silicone moulds, and a set of ten statement earrings on Etsy. Those files come with a licence that lets you sell the physical items you print or cast from them. https://www.etsy.com/shop/CjapiDesigns