If there is anything I have learned about Blackwing over years of reviewing their products, I have learned that you should always wait until version two of their accessory releases to make your purchase. The new Blackwing One-Step Long Point Sharpener is no exception to that rule.
I can't argue that this isn't a compelling looking sharpener. The design is modern, and fits Blackwing’s new art style and aesthetic. The big problem with it is that it doesn't sharpen pencils well. That's kind of its job, right?
I was able to quickly test out this sharpener at the Baltimore Pen Show earlier this year and felt that it performed poorly. I chalked that up to the moment, and the minute or two I had with it. I looked forward to receiving my own model to test at home to see what I missed the first time around. Nothing, apparently.
On paper, the sharpener should give you a short, sharp, clean, concave tip on your favorite pencil. I was able to get sharp, sometimes. Other times, the tip of the graphite broke off inside the sharpener, despite my trying different hand pressures when sharpening. At least three times for this review alone I had to unscrew the top to retrieve a snapped lead.
Sharpened with Pollux, top, and Blackwing One-Step, bottom.
Concave I could get, too. The problem is that the concave cedar was left ragged and messy. The results looked terrible. Worse than any other sharpener I recall using. To use this sharpener was an exercise in frustration.
There is no pencil sharpener I own that isn't better than this one.
Side by side tests were the most telling. Blackwing's own Two-Step Long Point sharpener is far superior, and is half the price. So is the KUM Masterpiece, and the glorious Pollux, which is what this sharpener strives to be. The results show that it’s not anywhere close. The desktop Uni KH-20 sharpener is a far better investment if portability isn’t required.
Yes, all of these fall into the expensive sharpener range, but at $20, so does the Blackwing One-Step Long Point Sharpener. If you are paying this price, you expect performance commensurate with that. It's not in the ballpark, and is close to unusable - especially when compared to every other sharpener in existence.
Hyperbolic? Sure. But this sharpener continues a long line of version one Blackwing products that perform poorly. Hopefully there is a version two in the pipeline that works as well as the most basic sharpeners on the market. Until then, there are numerous better choices.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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