This review started out short, but after numerous updates is now incredibly lengthy. For those of you who don't want to read that much about a pencil sharpener, here is an abridged version: This pencil sharpener is very good when it works, but I have experienced inconsistency in the multiple instances I have purchased. Some work great, while others don't work at all. For more details, see below. My most recently purchased one DOES work, so I would recommend buying one, but if you experience problems right out of the box, don't spend too much time messing with it and just return it. I am less dependent on the sharpener now as I have moved to 2mm mechanical pencils (which work pretty well), but it's still nice to have a good sharpener on hand for shading pencils, and when this one works, it's by far the best I have ever used.
UPDATE: 1-27-2014
My recent update below detailed how this pencil sharpener used to work great for me, but the last 6 I have bought (all from Amazon) were faulty. After I wrote that update, I placed an order with Dick Blick art supply, and decided to throw in one more Kum Long Point sharpener with the order. Upon receiving this sharpener, which was boxed exactly the same as the ones from Amazon, and had the same "Made in Germany" stamping on the blades as the two I most recently purchased from Amazon (which didn't work, as detailed below), I tested it out on several pencils and it worked PERFECTLY. It was the same old Kum Long Point that I bought originally and loved.
I don't know why, but the 3 sharpeners I've bought from Dick Blick worked perfectly (they now stock replacement blades, too, something I couldn't find in the past), while the 6 I bought from Amazon didn't work at all. Again, the packaging and appearance of the sharpeners is the same. I would suggest that Dick Blick had a huge stock of older ones that they are still selling, and the newer ones are the problem, but the one I just bought had the newer blade markings.
Basically, buying this sharpener appears to be a gamble. It might work absolutely perfectly, or it might be useless. When it works, it works WELL. Unfortunately, at this time I have no idea why some of them work and some don't.
UPDATE: 1-10-2014
I regretfully must update this review with the information that Kum's quality control has taken a dive on recent Long Point pencil sharpeners, once again leaving me with no sharpener that actually works for me (more on that in a bit).
As you can see by my original glowing review below, I absolutely loved this sharpener when I bought my first one in 2010 from Dick Blick art supply. After the blades wore out and I was unsuccessful at finding replacement blades anywhere, I bought a second one, which also worked well...until its blades also wore out. The THIRD one I bought, from Amazon, didn't work at all. I suspected a defective product, but as I was in the middle of a piece of artwork with a stringent deadline, I bought another three to ensure I didn't get another dud. Unfortunately, NONE of the three worked correctly. I managed to swap blades around from my growing collection, and got something that worked well enough to finish that piece and actually get me partway through another. However, in late 2013 I once again ran into the issue and bought two MORE (I now have 8 housings floating around). Straight out of the box, neither of the two brand new ones (which have different blade markings than my older ones) worked.
Kum has chosen to use injection molded plastic for every part of the sharpener except the blades and screws. This means that if you replace blades often (such as when trying to find one that works...), the screw will eventually strip out the plastic, leaving the housing useless. This is one quality control issue, but not one that affects brand new sharpeners. Blade design is another issue. I've found that the blades are slightly concave, i.e. if you lay one edge-down on a flat surface, you'll see a small gap in the middle. Some of the blades that I've come across, however, are straight or even convex, and these never work. I have also run into inconsistency with the placement of the automatic stop, and the diameter of the pencil opening.
I can group the failure mode of these sharpeners into 3 groups, as follows:
1. Pencil does not get sharpened at all
This is the case when the blade screw is beginning to strip out, when the blade is straight or convex, when the automatic stop is too close to the opening, or when the opening is too small. The stage 1 sharpener hole works fine to expose the core, but the stage 2 will only sharpen to a dull point, at which time you can turn the pencil a hundred times and nothing more happens. Trying to force the pencil further into the sharpener will usually result in the tip snapping.
2. Pencil breaks
This is the case when the blade is TOO aggressively concave, and sometimes when the opening is too small. It usually occurs when transitioning from the stage 1 to stage 2 holes with the large, cylindrical core exposed...even using the most careful degree of finesse, the pencil will turn a few times, then instantly bind and snap. Making things worse is that the snapped off tip will usually get lodged between the automatic stop and the blade, requiring you to remove the blade to free it. Attempts to poke it out with the same screwdriver used to remove the blade screws can result in damage to the automatic stop, since it's plastic.
3. Pencil sharpens to a certain point then necks out
This is the most common failure mode I've experienced with the Kum Long Point and was the exact problem with the two brand new units I most recently purchased. It seems to occur when the opening is too large, the blade is not aggressive enough, or the automatic stop is too far from the opening. The pencil sharpens just fine to a certain point, but then it reaches the end of the blade. At that point, the tip of the pencil is no longer in contact with the blade and receives no further sharpening. Instead, the pencil continues to sharpen farther and farther up the barrel, while the tip extrudes out like a mechanical pencil, forming a bottleneck shape. This is useless. Not only does this extruded section immediately snap off when it touches the paper, it's not even a sharp point to begin with anyway. Once it snaps off, OR if you manually stop sharpening instead of relying on the automatic stop, the pencil is dull and doesn't come to a point...which defeats the entire purpose of using a pencil sharpener.
I attempted to contact Kum via email about this, but after typing out a very detailed description of the problem, their site kindly informed me that it had an internal server error and deleted my message.
At this time I have 32 blades (since each comes with 4). Some are dull, others are shaped wrong, and some seem OK until you try to use them. 6 of my 8 housings have stripped out screws. I've tried all 32 blades in each of the two remaining housings (the newest ones) and none of them work. One of the 3 above failures happens with each blade. I've burned through at least 10 entire pencils in my testing. At $6-7, these things aren't that expensive, but I don't want to buy 15 of them and have the same result with each, nor do I want to abuse Amazon's return system by repeatedly returning the same product for the same reason.
I have tried 3 other pencil sharpeners since then. The first is the
Staedtler Double-Hole Pencil Sharpener
which has rave reviews here on Amazon and is listed as a #1 Best Seller. Perhaps mine is defective...but it is COMPLETE trash. On all the different pencils I tried (Staedtler Rally, Ticonderoga, Papermate Mirado Black Warrior), the sharpener splintered the wood and left the tip jagged, uneven, and not sharp. It probably works fine for writing, but for drawing I require a needle-like tip, which the original Kum Long Point was able to provide. Nothing doing with the Staedtler.
The second is the
Solid Brass Single Hole Pencil Sharpener
which also has good reviews. It's tricky to use due to not having a compartment for shavings nor an automatic stop. The only pencil that I was able to consistently sharpen with it was the Staedtler Rally, which is a little larger in diameter than the others, and thus fits more snugly in the opening. By sharpening VERY gently and carefully, I was able to achieve a great point that satisfied my requirements. However, my other pencils were merely ground to dust in this thing without successful sharpening, because they were able to wobble around too much in the oversized opening.
The third is the Dux 3-Way Adjustable Brass sharpener, which is not readily available; I paid $28 for one from PencilThings.com. Despite the rave reviews I read in various forums about this sharpener, the one I received is a complete piece of junk. It might work for large diameter pencils just fine, but for my standard sized ones, the opening is far too large and the adjustable 3-position automatic stop has such a large gap from the blade that the pencil continues well beyond the blade (just like failure mode 3 on the Kum) resulting in an elongated, deformed, jagged, and entirely dull tip.
So the quest continues for a sharpener that will actually reliably sharpen my pencils. I'm sad that the Kum quality has dropped, because it was THE solution back when it functioned as intended.
I've dropped the review from 5 stars to 3. Really, the sharpener in its current state is worth 1 star if that, but the old ones actually worked perfectly. Perhaps I just suffered from buying multiple examples of one bad batch. However, considering that the two I bought most recently (approximately one year after the 4 prior ones) have "Made in Germany" stamped on the blades instead of just "Germany," it seems unlikely that they are from the same batch.
I'm 100% open to suggestions about pencil sharpeners that actually work. I strongly prefer a long tip over a short one (as this Kum provided...when it worked), and I require a SHARP point, not one that is merely suitable for writing. In the meantime, I may end up switching over to 2mm mechanical and avoid wooden pencils entirely.
UPDATE: 1-26-2012
I have been using this pencil sharpener faithfully since my original review, to the extent that 2 things happened. First, the blades (including the spare set) finally dulled, and I discovered that buying a pack of blades is a rather difficult task. Not wanting to leave the comfort of my apartment to venture to a physical art store, I searched online a bit and finally just bought another one of these sharpeners, largely because of the second thing: the lid broke off. The "hinge" for the clear plastic lid is just thin flexible plastic, but after opening and closing it enough times to dump the shavings, it broke off. This is hardly a design flaw as a metal hinge would be ridiculous and the sharpener worked well for a VERY long time. It is just worth noting.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I do a lot of pencil drawing with regular #2 pencils and I demand a very sharp point for thin, precise lines. Electric sharpeners can be good, but finding the right one is giant pain as many tend to do more harm than good. I have one that I use on brand new pencils, but for actually creating the desired sharp tip, or restoring the tip after a brief bit of drawing, a hand sharpener is best. I have tried many of these as well, mostly cheap items from the back-to-school bin, and they really don't work. Some shatter the pencil while others leave the tip dull and rounded, completely invalidating their purpose.
The Kum long point sharpener is not cheap rubbish. Its price, while relatively low, may seem steep for a simple hand pencil sharpener, but it's worth the extra bucks. The sharpener includes two blades. One is used to get the pencil "ready" for the second blade; it's a sort of preliminary "prep" blade. If you only used the first one, you would be pretty disappointed with the results. But, use the second blade afterward, and the pencil takes on a perfect, extremely sharp tip. The sharpener includes a small compartment for the pencil shavings, so that you don't have to hold it over the trash while using it.
I'm very pleased with the Kum long point sharpener, and I would recommend it to any artist who is fed up with other, ineffective sharpening tools.
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| Price | $9.99 | $24.99 | $19.95 | $7.95 | $21.40 |
| Sold By | Morgan's Direct USA | Morgan's Direct USA | Spirit Global | Morgan's Direct USA | Slavno LLC |
| Item Dimensions | 2.8 x 1.4 x 1.2 inches | 1.57 x 1.18 x 0.67 inches | 1.31 x 0.94 x 2.13 inches | 1.56 x 1.29 x 0.39 inches | 2.8 x 1.5 x 1.2 inches |
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Lid doesn't cover the sharpening holes. Graphite powder comes out.
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2022
Overall, I think it's a great product. It works as advertised and does exactly what a pencil sharpener should do -- it sharpens the pencil, and pretty darn sharp. One thing I would mention and was kind of bummed about however was that, although the lid holds the pencil shavings, it doesn't hold the graphite powder that also accumulates in the sharpener, because it comes out from the sharpening holes if flipped upside down. This is a problem for me because I keep the sharpener in my backpack which is constantly tossed and turned, and it smears onto other items in my bag. Now, I don't know if this is the best solution to the problem, but I might suggest that there could be a separate lid that covers the holes from the other side, and it could be slid open rather than raised. Therefore, the user could use their thumb to slide it open for easy/quick access, and it would keep graphite powder from falling out. Just food for thought. Despite that, however, it's a solid sharpener and I would recommend it to all wooden pencil users.
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2022
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 30, 2022
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Lid doesn't cover the sharpening holes. Graphite powder comes out.
By Cai Denton on September 30, 2022
Overall, I think it's a great product. It works as advertised and does exactly what a pencil sharpener should do -- it sharpens the pencil, and pretty darn sharp. One thing I would mention and was kind of bummed about however was that, although the lid holds the pencil shavings, it doesn't hold the graphite powder that also accumulates in the sharpener, because it comes out from the sharpening holes if flipped upside down. This is a problem for me because I keep the sharpener in my backpack which is constantly tossed and turned, and it smears onto other items in my bag. Now, I don't know if this is the best solution to the problem, but I might suggest that there could be a separate lid that covers the holes from the other side, and it could be slid open rather than raised. Therefore, the user could use their thumb to slide it open for easy/quick access, and it would keep graphite powder from falling out. Just food for thought. Despite that, however, it's a solid sharpener and I would recommend it to all wooden pencil users.
By Cai Denton on September 30, 2022
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S H A R P.!.........A N D......C A N.....S A V E.....M O N E Y....O N.....B U Y I N G.....P E N C I L S..!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 17, 2011Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
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Robin
Very high quality, very effective.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 25, 2016Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
