Posts filed under Uni

Pencil Sharpener Battle: Classroom Friendly vs. Uni KH-20

*Classroom Friendly (Left,) vs. Uni KH-20*

I’ve been focusing on pencils in the month of October, and recently realized I’ve never reviewed either of my favorite two desktop pencil sharpeners: the Classroom Friendly Sharpener and Uni KH-20 Hand Crank Sharpener. Let’s break down each of these popular sharpeners, and see which one I prefer.

I’m looking for one thing with any pencil sharpener: a long point. That goes for hand-held and desktop sharpeners both. Not sure what the difference is? One image says it all:

*The Dixon Ticonderoga (top,) is on the extreme end of the “short” scale.*

The short point, top, is how many types of pre-sharpened pencils arrive. I knew there were sharpeners out there that offered a deeper sharpening, but what I didn’t know is that a long point sharpener was a thing. Once I found out, and shopped accordingly, I’ll never go back to a short or medium point wooden pencil. Long point only for me.

Both the Classroom Friendly and Uni KH-20 provide the point I’m looking for, with only slight differences between the two. Yes, I’ll go ahead and tell you up front that I rate these two sharpeners closely, but one does see more action than the other at the end of the day.

The Classroom Friendly sharpener blade provides a slight concave shape on the tip. If you look closely, you can see a slight swoop starting from where the barrel paint ends through the end of the graphite point. In comparison, the Uni KH-20 blade finishes its sharpen cycle with a straight line from paint to tip.

I’d say the very tip of the core is also sharper from the Classroom Friendly. That’s not always a positive. With softer graphite you’ll find that part of the tip crumble as soon as it hits the page. That’s not a huge issue since you are wearing down the tip the moment the pencil hits the page, but I don’t see that one first use from the Uni sharpener.

*Every Other Facet, the new Alt-J song.*

There are almost no negatives with they way either of these sharpeners do their job, with on visible exception: the teeth of the Classroom Friendly sharpener bite into the barrel. This is an annoyance, but it is fixable. I use washi tape to buffer the area where it clamps onto the pencil barrel to prevent the bite markers. Other have recommended products like Blu Tack adhesive to smooth out the teeth in a more permanent way.

*Washi tape as protection. Is there anything it can’t do?*

Other differences involve construction - the Classroom Friendly uses a mostly metal exterior, which the KH-20 is mostly plastic. Both have a large capacity slide-out shavings bin. The KH-20 does have a blunt tip setting that the Classroom Friendly doesn’t have, which is great if you use color pencils that don’t require the ultimate in stabbiness.

*Blunt tip from the KH-20 for color pencils.*

In the extras department, the KH-20 comes in three colors, while the Classroom Friendly has seven. The Classroom Friendly also ships with a clamp to mount the sharpener to a table or other surface.

At $25 for a single sharpener (plus discounts starting with three or more,) the Classroom Friendly checks in at $7 less than the $32 Uni KH-20 sharpner. The Classroom Friendly also offers a replacement blade ($15) if you ever need it, which Uni doesn’t offer for the KH-20 as best as I can tell.

In this battle between sharpeners, there needs to be a winner. There is no wrong choice for quality, but I reach for one of these sharpeners over the other about 80% of the time, and that’s the Uni KH-20. Why? It’s rock solid, quiet, and consistent. And I do use the blunt tip setting on occasion for color pencils, although I admit that’s not a deal-breaker. The bite marks on the barrel are my biggest hangup with the Classroom Friendly, and while fixable, the point it provides isn’t worth the extra fidgety-ness most of the time.

I will say I am glad to have them both at arms reach, and after many years of ownership, neither seems to be slowing down.

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Posted on October 14, 2024 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Classroom Friendly, Uni, Pencil Sharpener.

Uni Kuru Toga Metal Mechanical Pencil Review

Is the Uni Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencil the best technical advancement in stationery over the past 20 years? It might be, and if it isn’t, it’s near the top of the list. As a counterpoint, does anyone need the lead rotation mechanism that sets this pencil apart from the rest of the mechanical pencil market? We will get to that point in a minute.

This is far from the first Kuru Toga we have reviewed on The Pen Addict. We will mix one in every year or two when they come out with a new and interesting model. The pricey Kuru Toga Dive ($50-$100, depending on a litany of variables,) was, and still is, an outlier in the interesting department, and still brings all the pencil heads to the yard. The standard Kuru Togas, like the colorful $7 KS model, keeps the product lineup fresh, interesting, and popular.

Where does one of their latest releases - the Kuru Toga Metal - fit in with the rest of the product lineup, and the overall mechanical pencil space?

*The barrel opening helps show the rotation in action, moving from white to orange as it engages.*

On merit, this is a great pencil. The aluminum barrel gives it a nice feel in hand - sturdy and solid, but not heavy. The grip and barrel feature varying widths of ridges for a stable grip feel. The clip is strong, the knock is nice, the nose cone is designed … wait, what’s that in the nose cone?

Aside from the metal barrel, Uni is marketing a resin nib damper that reduces tip wobble. Has mechanical pencil tip wobble been a problem that I have overlooked for years, because never once have I run across it. I guess maybe if the pencil features a retractable pipe there could be, but the Kuru Toga Metal doesn’t have that feature. Traditionally, mechanical pencil tips feature one large nose cone that is rigid and static, with no opportunity to wiggle. And given the detailed work that is often required from pencils like this, I think I would have heard more about it.

*From L to R: no nib damper, nib damper, no nib damper.*

But then again, there has to be a reason to charge $36 for a mechanical pencil. I’m just not sure “nib damper” is on my checklist of required features.

Rewinding back to my earlier question: do you need a lead rotation mechanism in your mechanical pencil? I’ll be the first to tell you that I like this feature, and it absolutely works as described. To test it, I fixed my fingers on the grip and wrote the same phrase over and over to see what the tip of the graphite looked like when finished. It came to almost a perfect point, which is impressive.

*The graphite shape after my fixed grip writing. It works!*

What if I rotate the pencil in my hands while using it? Does the mechanism still work? Absolutely, but then you just have a normal mechanical pencil in your hands where your manual grip rotation works alongside the mechanical rotation and makes different width lines on the pages, depending on the position of the graphite.

Is this too much to think about? I think so. I’m a pen and pencil rotator, so outside of fountain pens, I’m constantly spinning the barrel in my hand. With pencils it is more prevalent, of course, and while it would be a choice to never spin the pencil and let the Kuru Toga do its thing, I don’t think that is possible.

*Top to bottom: Kuru Toga Dive, Rotring 600, Kuru Toga Metal, Pentel Sharp, Spoke Model 4.*

I buy Uni Kuru Toga mechanical pencils because they are well-made mechanical pencils and they look cool. I don’t buy them for the lead rotation technology, despite the fact I think the technology is awesome. I’m guessing this is an obvious take, and many people fall into this category. I like the rotation when I need it … have I ever needed it?

The last bit to cover is where the Uni Kuru Toga Metal Mechanical Pencil fits within my recommendations of the rest of the Kuru Toga product lineup. The $36 price tag makes it easy to move down the rankings, especially given that I believe the Roulette model is the best model, and is only $13.50. That is a steal at that price. The Advance model ranks ahead of the Roulette in style options, and costs even less at $8.50.

Instead of listing out even more I’d pick ahead of it, I think the only one I wouldn’t is the Advance Upgrade model. I didn’t get along with that barrel design at all.

I completely get along with the Metal model, I’m just not sure the price gets along with the competition.

(This pencil was sent to me by a friend living in Japan. Thank you Jacob!)

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Posted on September 30, 2024 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Uni, Kuru Toga, Mechanical Pencil.

Uni Pin 0.38mm Fineliner Pen Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

Fineliners have been a staple in my stationery inventory ever since I stumbled across the Staedtler Triplus line when I was in college and hanging out with cool art majors. It didn't take long to discover that there were many better alternatives to the Staedtler staple, which led to lots of buying sprees and experimenting with different brands and sizes.

After realizing how quickly the tips degrade when using these pens for regular writing, I stopped spending as much time with them. But, they're still a solid pen that I love using from time to time when the urge hits. I'm not an artist, but I still get a lot of enjoyment out of fineliners.

The Uni Pin is a fineliner that I discovered through JetPen's fineliner sampler pack. I was recently reminded of the Pin in episode 609 of the Pen Addict Podcast where Brad and Myke talked about a recent bracket-style voting championship that Uni USA hosted on their Instagram account. The surprising winner over the other well-known ballpoint, gel, and rollerball pens was the Pin.

While I personally don't rank the Pin over any of my Jetstreams or Signos, it definitely made me want to take the Pin for another spin.

The Pin is a felt-tipped pen with a pigmented ink that is water-proof, acid free, and fade-resistant. In terms of archival quality, this is a fantastic choice. The ink is incredibly dark and consistent in color. The edges of the lines are sharp and controlled. There isn't any signs of feathering when you're writing with this pen, even on papers that tend to cause inks to bleed a bit.

One of the main reasons I personally turn to a fineliner is for the deep, saturated ink color and crisp lines. The Uni Pin fits this bill perfectly. Comparing it to the ubiquitous Staedtler Triplus, the Pin ink is so much darker, and the writing experience is much smoother. While the Pin isn't a "wet" writer by any means, it feels smooth and buttery when writing, where the Staedtler feels dry and scratchy.

Comparing the Pin to other Japanese pens in the same realm is a bit harder to do since they're all great. Probably the most popular fineliner is the Sakura Pigma Micron, and I personally find it difficult to find much of a difference between the Sakura and Uni. The main difference is price, where the Uni Pin is about 30% cheaper. When you're buying a lot of these pens in different sizes, that small price difference adds up quickly.

The 03 model of the Pin in this review is a 0.38mm tip. There are many other sizes to choose from, and the 01 (0.28mm) is another favorite of mine. Sizes range from 0.03mm up to 0.8mm. There are also other colors, though not a crazy amount. Just the basics: black, blue, red. You can also get gray and brown in some of the tip sizes as well.

If there's one thing that Uni's Instagram championship told us, it's that the Pin fans are out there in great numbers. That representation is a great reminder and testament to this humble little fineliner. This is something every pen drawer needs on hand for those precise and archival-ready tasks.

The Uni Pin fineliner is $1.75 per pen, so stock up on some different sizes and colors!

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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