Uni KH-20 Hand Crank Wooden Pencil Sharpener - Blue (japan import)

I use it everyday at work, I even put googly eyes on it and it looks so adorable lol. The kids I work with love it too.

Very good sharpener! Leaves my color pencils very pointy just how I want them.

This is a great colored pencil sharpener! It's very well made. The shavings bin on the bottom is twice as deep as my other helical type sharpener which means fewer trips to the waste basket. The "rabbit ear" style pinchers on the top front which hold the pencil in place during sharpening work easily. You poke the pencil into the hole while pinching those sticky-uppy parts and pull the front out until it grasps the pencil firmly. You let go, hold the sharpener with your left hand and crank the crank with your right hand, gently. Pencils with hard wood casings might be harder to sharpen but this sharpener can handle it. The button to get a sharp point or a rounded point works just fine, in for rounded point, out for sharp point. And I do love that long long point. I thought I'd be breaking a lot of tips, but if I'm coloring gently as I should for layering, that point lasts! And the accuracy of a fine sharp point is SO satisfying! When the front of the sharpener is out, the shavings bin is not open at the top where there might be a danger of shavings falling out, it is covered . This, in my opinion, makes this sharpener just a little above my other favorite sharpener. My Dahle 133 will give me very good performance every day for about 4 years, and a nice sharp regular length point. This sharpener is bigger--a real handful--and gives a fabulous long point. It all depends on what you're looking for. I wanted TWO helical sharpeners so I wouldn't run out of help. Nothing like a decent sharpener to make coloring a true pleasure. I RECOMMEND this sharpener! Dahle's "big brother!"

I've used other manual, hand-cranked, and electric pencil sharpeners in the past. The KH-20 is a revelation in intelligent consumer design and usability on a par with the first time I tried a Macintosh in 1992 after finishing my thesis on a PC using command lines and formatting codes.My reaction both times: "If only I had known about this sooner!"Other hand-cranked sharpeners require you to feed the pencil in with one hand while cranking with the other. For that design to work, the sharpener must be firmly mounted to a stable surface. Even so, the quality and consistency of the results are, to an unfortunately large extent, operator-dependent.The KH-20 is different. The sharpener holds the pencil and feeds it in. A light touch with one hand is enough to hold the sharpener in place, and you use the other to crank. Unlike other hand-cranked designs, once the point is sharp it won't keep cutting when you turn it.As a bonus, a simple button lets you choose between two point types.The mechanism of the KH-20 is more complicated than a regular hand-cranked sharpener, but the user experience is actually easier. That's good engineering.And unlike other designs, it produces consistently excellent results. That's great engineering.Just watch a 30-second video of someone sharpening a pencil with this online and you'll have it down pat.The only potential concern is long-term durability as I haven't had it long enough to judge. If it lasts at least as long as other sharpeners I've had, I'll be wholly satisfied.

Excellent long points for artists.

I loved this pencil sharpener. It sharpened every brand of colored pencils I have, including Prismacolors, without ever breaking a point. I would have given it five stars except that after six months, the clamp that holds the pencil steady failed and the pencils spun around as they were being sharpened. It not only did not sharpen the pencils but it broke the points. I was not able to contact Mitsubishi (Amazon could not give me any information on them) and it was way past the window of return. I liked it so much that I took a chance and ordered another one in the hopes that it will last a reasonable amount of time.

I gave my five-star rating first of all to the YouTube review of Baylee Jae's of the product, then for the Mitsubishi's pencil sharpener.I ordered the pencil sharpener after seeing the rave reviews online from several well respected colored pencils artists, then half and hour after I received it, I was ready to return it in a foul mood. It didn't sharpen anything! The Safety and Operation steps printed on the box were all in Japanese, and the very tiny piece of 'directions' inside the box was in very esoteric style of English writing. None of which made sense to users exactly how to make the sharpener to sharpen any pencil.I went to the Amazon site to see how to return merchandise. I found it mentioned somewhere about a YouTube review of Baylee Jae's of this product, and went there to see what I could have missed. If you have never seen this Mitsubishi product in operation, you owe it to yourself to see this special review. It explains each and every component in this sharpener. It is concise, detailed, and very helpful.Five minutes after watching the review and practice what I've learned from it, I decided that the item I got was actually a great sharpener. I am grateful to this review, and I think Mitsubishi woe the reviewer Baylee Jae a big, big reward!