This is my new toy and it is quickly becoming a favorite. The Kum “long-point” sharpener is just plain KEWL! It solves so many problems for those of us who like to use pencils and need a portable solution to sharpening them.
While there are many portable sharpeners on the market, most of them produce a really stubby point that I don’t find satisfactory for sketching. I like nice, long points, like I get from my old ‘school’ sharpener that’s attached to the wall of my office.
The Kum sharpener provides a long point by using a two-step process. There is one ‘sharpener’ that removes only the wood, exposing a length of lead (graphite/clay). Then, you stuff the pencil into a second sharpener that sharpens the lead to a nice, long point. It’s almost magical.
Isn’t that great? If that’s all it did it would be the best $5.60 I’ve ever spent, but this is like the TV commercials….there’s more.
This sharpener will sharpen 2mm and 3.2mm leads. I’d nearly abandoned my collection of 2mm pencils simply because I couldn’t find a solid, portable sharpening solution for them. They used to make really tiny versions of the standard sharpener that would sharpen them but I haven’t found anyone selling those anymore, probably because all draftsmen have long ago moved on to using AutoCAD or SolidWorks. But the Kum sharpener does a great job on my 2mm pencils. I don’t have any 3.2mm pencils but I assume they’d work as well as there are nearly identical sharpeners on opposite sides of the device.
If you need to sharpen pencils on location, take a serious look at the Kum sharpener. It may be the best $5.60 you ever spent too. If you don’t need to sharpen 2mm or 3.2mm leads, you can even get one without those features for $4.10. Both of these prices are from Jet Pens, which is where I got my sharpener. BTW, the pencils in the photos are Blackwing 602s, my favorite wooden pencil.
Of course, the dictatorship in Egypt is far different than what the vast majority of Americans face.
The benefits of having high thread count sheets is that
mills are forced to create much finer threads in order to increase the amount
of threads in a square inch (keeping in mind that
they don’t also increase the ply). The news that you as a reporter tend to report must be based on fact. Historical documentation of UFO sightings goes as far back as the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III, who reigned Egypt around 1504-1450 B. Finer threads usually result in a much smoother and softer fabric.