My Top 5 Sharpeners

I get asked quite a lot, "what is my favourite pencils sharpener?" which is a really difficult question to give a straight answer to, so as with most things now, I decided to write a bit of a review and make a youtube video to go along with the review.

I have decided, of all the sharpeners that I have used over the almost two years now that I have been drawing etc, to select my favourite top 5 sharpeners, rather than just make a video bombarding you with a load of different sharpeners. I would like to make it very clear that this is only my top 5 sharpeners, this is not the top 5 best sharpeners in the world or the must have sharpeners or anything like that; just my opinion and you can take or leave the information.

KUM Sharpener

The first sharpener that I want to look at is my KUM, German made long point sharpener. I will say right of the bat and this was totally by mistake, this was not intentional at all, however, the vast majority of the sharpeners in this review are German. It would appear, as with a lot of things that the Germans produce, they incorporate incredibly high quality and workmanship into everything they turn their hands to.

The KUM Long Point, as you can see has two slots for the pencil, however, this is not to accommodate two different dimension pencil barrels, it is to help create the long point with one pencil. The first slot gives the barrel a steep shave whilst creating what can only be described as a corkscrew style cut on the actual pencil core.

You then remove the pencil and insert it into the adjacent slot, twisting as you would normally do and it is this second slot that polishes and delivers an incredibly fine and long point on the pencil.

There are two much smaller holes on either side of the sharpener, one red and one white, both of these are to aid in the sharpening of your clutch pencil cores. A clutch pencil is quite similar to a mechanical pencil, only the core tends to be much thicker and does require sharpening, unlike the mechanical.

M & R Brass Cylinder.

This next sharpener, although only a small hand held sharpener is perhaps my favourite out of the lot. Again this is another German brand sharpener, the M & R Brass Cyliner and comes with two separate slots for pencils of a slightly thicker barrel and your regular sized barrels.

You can get replacement blades for this sharpener, as you can for almost all pencil sharpeners. It is worth noting that no matter how amazing a pencil sharpener is when you first get it, you are at some stage going to have to replace the blades. It is the sharpness of the blades that gives you the nice clean sharpened pencil, as soon as the blade become blunt, this is when chips will be sliced from the barrel and cores will start to break.

With all of these sharpeners, I will be including Amazon links whereby you can purchase them for yourself if you wish, or to simply just give you a reference point on the pricing. As you can see from the image, this little sharpener delivers and excellent point.

Derwent Superpoint Hand Crank Sharpener.

This sharpener from Derwent is very aptly named as it really does deliver a super point. As you can see from the images, this is like the old school sharpeners that the teachers used to have sitting on their desks. The Derwent Superpoint comes included with a desk clamp allowing you to securely attack the sharper to the desk, allowing for a stable action when sharpening.

The sharpener has a large collection area that catches all your sharpening debris and is easily removed for emptying. On occasion when i pencil core breaks and gets stuck in the workings, you can remove the blade, which is very reminiscent of a drill bit. Once removed you simply flick the core free of the blade and you reinsert it.

One of the big advantages of using a pencil sharpener such as the Derwent Superpoint, is the grabbing action that keeps the pencil still and allows the blade to do all the work. With handheld sharpeners, no matter how good they are, the individual may unknowingly be twisting the pencil, while sharpening and thus allowing for the core to become strained and break. This does not happen as much in a desk sharpener.

The Derwent Superpoint is an excellent sharper and one I highly recommend, especially if you are likely to be doing a lot of sharpening.

M & R Desk Sharpener

Another M&R German made sharpener, M & R standing for Mobius and Ruppert, the manufactures. Although this sharper is very similar to the Derwent Superpoint, there is one very significant difference.

Everything that applies to the Derwent Sharpener applies to this M & R, except for one feature that I personally think is very cool. On the back of the M & R sharpener, just below the hand crank you use to sharpen the pencil, is a small silver dial.

This dial allows you to determine the type of point you want, whether it be a short point or a very long point or somewhere in between. I was put onto this sharpener by another excellent YouTube Smootie77 who also has done a review of this device.

As you can see in the images provided, the difference in variation is quite prominent, however, it does allow for excellent control and precision that you are unable to achieve in any of the other sharpeners. The point also as you can see is fantastic when set at the longest setting.

Maped Sharpener

This little sharpener is by far my least favourite of the 5 however, it does deliver a consistently good point. It has a good weight to it and is ideal for traveling, just dropping into your bag and heading off with.

The Maped sharpener feels good in the hand with it curved design as opposed to similar sharpeners of this range being square. A sharpener is a sharpener at the end of the day and it is all about whether or not it can deliver a consistently sharp point to your colored or graphite pencil and with this little guy, it absolutely does the job.

The Maped is by far the cheapest sharpener of the group and although it is good and consistent, you get what you pay for. With regards to the blade changing for this sharpener, they are simply generic style blades, interchangeable with most sharpeners in this design range.