Editing The Pen Addict 636/transcript (section)

== Comparison of pencil sharpeners, including the Uni KH20 ==

* All right. Continuing our pencil talk, Myke. Let's talk about pencil sharpeners. So, I was noticing when I was going through all my pencils and using different pencils every day this month and having to sharpen these pencils that I never reviewed my two most used pencil sharpeners, and that is the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener and the Uni KH20 Pencil Sharpener. So, I would actually, I assumed I had reviewed one or both, but, you know, this is how I roll sometimes. The most, my most favorite items, a lot of times I'm using them so much I forget to actually review them. So, I tried to correct that and did a little mini combination review comparing the pros and cons of each. Because I think, I mean, they're mostly the top two desktop sharpeners. I think there's a, these are Dahl model, D-A-H-L model, that's pretty popular. And there's a couple other popular ones out there as well. But these, I use, have used both of these for years. I love them. I wouldn't trade them for anything.
* And I wanted to get a few words down on each of them. There's some slight difference. I recommend the Uni KH20 just to like cut to the chase out of these two. It's my favorite pencil sharpener, my favorite desktop pencil sharpener. Because it's, it's super consistent. I like the plastic body. It's a plastic barrel, plastic bodied built pencil sharpener. The classroom friendly is metal, which is, is nice. And you can get some good colors on there, which is one of the features of the classroom friendly. You can get some purple ones or pink ones. The Uni comes in black, blue, and red. And that's it. Both of these are expensive. The classroom friendly is like 25 bucks. The Uni is like 32. But if you're a heavy pencil user, that's, that's picking one of these out to, to have as your desktop sharpener would be great. But again, I prefer the Uni because the classroom friendly, you need to add something to the teeth that clamp down. When you put in the pencil into the pencil sharpener, there's a clamp that holds the pencil in place. So the blade can rotate around the pencil. And with the classroom friendly, the teeth that clamp into that are not protected. Like on the UniKage 20, it's kind of like got a rubber seal that goes around the pencil. So it looks like teeth marks into your pencil, like someone was chewing on the pencil. But it sharpens the tip into like a more, I don't know, better looking tip. Like it's really not that much functionally better. The way that both of these pencils sharpen is, you know, perfect. There is a little bit of a concaveness in the KH20, which is hard to see visually. But you can pick it up in person. And I tried to show it in one of the pictures.
* It's a little bit hard to see. But yeah, these are both great choices. So I wanted to point those out that I finally now have a link on the blog where you can go look at some results of these. The one thing, the advantage of the KH20 besides not chewing up your pencils.
* Which you can, like on the classroom friendly, I'll wrap washi tape around it if I really want to use that sharpener. So the teeth don't bite into the pencil. That doesn't feel ideal though. It's a little fidgety. It's very fidgety. So yeah.
* But the KH20 does have a color pencil, like a blunt tip option, which I have used quite frequently because I like color pencils. And you don't need color pencils because they're clay-based cores. If you sharpen them to like the ultimate pointy tip, they just snap off, right? Which, as long as that's your expectation, like you're going to snap off most of these pencil tips anyway, like right away. But you don't need that on a color pencil. So the KH20 actually has just a button you press to where it blunts off the tip for that type of pencil. And that's really, really useful. I find myself using that quite a bit for when I'm using color pencils for different projects and things like that. So no wrong answer here. I prefer the KH20 just from ease of use and variability with the two different finishes on the tip. So I just wanted to throw those out there. And I haven't done another comparison of the handheld sharpeners, but I wanted to mention a couple that I do enjoy. If you've been playing along with pencil month and you need something to sharpen it and you don't want to commit 20... I think you'll find it safe. Yeah, Ticonder October. Yeah, you're really good at that. Yeah, I just can't get that to roll off the tongue like you can.
* But you may not want to spend $25 on a desktop pencil sharpener. A good handheld option is the Kuhm Automatic Brake Long Point Sharpener, which is just one of the best sharpeners all around, period. It's $6. It's handheld. It's got a little self-contained window for the pencil shaving. So if you're not sharpening over a trash can or somewhere where you can dispose of the shavings quickly, it contains them in there. It's only $6. And you get the long point that I prefer. It's two steps because it has two holes with two blades in it to where you sharpen the length of the barrel first. And then you can kind of fine-tune the graphite core in the second little hole that it has in there. This particular sharpener also has a lead pointer. If you're using like 2.0 or like we talked about the Caran d'Ache fix pencil, I could sharpen that with this pencil sharpener as well. And it's only $6. We've reviewed the Blackwing version of this one that doesn't have the little pointer thing for the 2.0 millimeter pencils. I would just skip the Blackwing one. Like I love Blackwing pencils. Blackwing's accessories are generally just like white label stuff that, you know, is doubled and tripled in price because it says Blackwing on it. It's still the Kume, you know, long point sharpener, but at like three times the cost. So I would just buy the Kume version. And then if you're a real pencil nerd, and there's a few handheld options that fall into this category that I didn't list, but the Kume Masterpiece takes this, the Kume Automatic Break Long Point Sharpener and turns it into just like an aluminum block that's just kind of really beautiful. It's also like 20 something dollars for this handheld sharpener that requires a lot of work. But if you're like a real pencil geek and want to really lean into like the handheld sharpener aspect of it, it's this one or the Pollux, which is another popular handheld sharpener. And these are all like $20 fancy, you know, hipster sharpeners that are, in my opinion, worth it. I keep the Masterpiece around in my pencil box with all my sharpeners because I enjoy it so much. It's portable. It has its own little case. It's just really cool to look at and it just works wonderfully. So a couple of reviews in there if you're interested in these handheld sharpeners. But really, all you need is the $6 two-step version of the Kume Automatic Break, which is probably one of the best pencil sharpeners on the market all around. So if you have other pencil sharpeners, send us an email. Y'all like sending us emails on the top 10 mechanical pencils list. So mechanical pencil sharpeners are a category I haven't gone deep in, right? I figured out, I got some recommendations for the best, and it turns out that these recommendations were really solid. So I've just kind of passed them on, you know? My brain got very confused there for a second. Why? Mechanical pencil sharpeners. Oh, sorry. Yeah.
* Pencil sharpeners that are mechanical, not sharpeners for mechanical pencils.
* True. Yes. That was why I got confused. I was like, wait, what is he saying? I'm surprised I haven't called them pen sharpeners as much as I like to transpose those two pencils. I mean, the phrasing mechanical pencil sharpener is correct, right? I mean, there's electronic pencil sharpeners too. That's a whole different category. So it's funny. I don't think I remember. I think I don't know if I mentioned this on the Tennessee Red when we talked about it. They actually recommend using an electronic sharpener on that Tennessee Red cedar because it's such an interesting wood and it doesn't always sharpen smoothly. So I've never seen a pencil company recommend that. No, it's pretty wild. Pretty wild. All right. Let's rewind it back to some pens, Myke. Specifically, these pens suck.