Eraser Cleaner/Refresher

My teenage kids draw a lot. And they erase a lot. When my son told me he sometimes has to clean the eraser before erasing, I got him some sandpaper. But the whole thing was rather messy as he was drawing on a bed. Not ideal. So I got to thinking…

Scrap wood

Wood glue

100 grit sandpaper

Varnish

Dirty erasers

The board I used is ¼” thick. The dimensions are not critical. Mine is 4 ½” long and the sandpaper is 1 ½” wide. This configuration works well. You could make yours longer if you want.

I did this before gluing on the end caps because I wanted the sandpaper to reach slightly below the top of the end caps. I made a caul a little bit smaller than the sandpaper: 1½" x 4½" This is so that when gluing I could see the edges of the sandpaper and make sure it don’t move relative to the wood box. Then I clamped it.

The wood for end caps is about ⅛” thick. I made them slightly oversized, and when the glue had set sanded it flush and rounded all the sharp corners.

I used this gel polyurethane that you just wipe on with a paper towel. It was supposed to take 6 hours to dry, but with a fan on it, it was dry in less than 2 hours.

I tried it first on a really grungy eraser and it took a fair bit of sanding to get it all clean. Then I did some newer erasers, and it was much quicker. Most of the crumbs got caught in the box. To empty, just shake over the waste basket. I think it will be a nice addition to the drawing routine...