More Craftsmanship Failures

Our next contestant in the game of America's Race to the Bottom is the X-acto 179x Powerhouse electric pencil sharpener. 

My spouse brought me this from a garage sale, thinking it would be useful since I still like classic writing instruments of all types, including these ancient things called pencils made from wood and lead.

Well, the thing doesn't work. When you put a pencil in the aperture, it does trigger a motor but the sharpening blades don't spin. You can still hear the motor spinning, but the machine won't sharpen. Not a problem for a simple electronic device, right? All I need is a screwdriver and I can fix this thing.

Not only that, but there are dozens of video on the Internet of people fixing electric pencil sharpeners. Many have a gear on a shaft that spins and turns another connecting gear that ultimately spins the sharpening blades. Other do-it-yourselfers have found that the gear on the shift slips toward the back of the sharpener and loses contact with the connecting gear. They fix it by simply adding a couple washers on the shaft between the gear and the back of the sharpener, and thus buy a few more years of life out of the device.

 The problem is that when I get my sharpener opened up, I find that issue with the 179x is not a gear that slips, but a gear that cracks. The mechanism on the 179x uses similar concepts as the one on the do-it-yourselfer's video, but the design is different. On the 179x, the motor shaft has a vertical gear directly affixed to it.

This vertical gear is made of plastic and has cracked so it loses its tight hold on the motor shaft and no longer spins. As a result the connecting gear doesn't spin either. 

Unlike the do-it-yourselfer's scenario in the video, I can't fix this with common items from my spare parts box. I will need to repair or replace the gear directly. I consider using epoxy to save the existing gear, but the gear is covered in lubricating grease and it's a messy job and I just don't feel like dealing with the hassle because there's no guarantee it'll hold. I search online, but don't find any way to buy the part. I also find out that this exact same model can be found second hand for $10, so it's not like I'm saving a bunch of value here.

What a disappointment. A part that someone knew would get regular use is cheaply made. And on the bottom of the unit are the famous words, "Made in China." Who's to blame for this poor showing in quality? X-acto? China? How about both?

Now I've got piece of plastic and metal shit that I can't do anything with and will probably end up in a landfill because of a tiny part. What a disappointment.