KUM Ultra CLN

Noch recht neu auf dem Markt ist der Ultra CLN von KUM. Das Ver­spre­chen des „super soft era­sing“ hat mich spon­tan zugrei­fen las­sen, auch wenn mir die Gestal­tung1 des Radie­rers nicht son­der­lich zusagt.

KUM Ultra CLN

Laut Man­schette kommt der Ultra CLN ohne PVC, Phta­late und Latex aus; zudem soll er nicht krü­meln sowie papier­scho­nend und für alle Ober­flä­chen geeig­net sein. Was mit „No dis­co­lou­ra­tion of the era­ser on paper“ gemeint ist, erschließt sich mir aller­dings nicht. – Neben die­sen und den übli­chen Anga­ben auf der Man­schette fin­det sich „037“ als Blind­prägung direkt auf dem Radie­rer (ein Produktionscode?).

KUM Ultra CLN

Der Ultra CLN ist etwas wei­cher als der Tom­bow Mono, aber här­ter als z. B. der Hinodewa­shi Matomaru-kun, und so neigt er im Gegen­satz zu letz­te­rem nicht zum Ein­rei­ßen. Seine Radier­leis­tung emp­finde ich als gut bis sehr gut und die Krü­mel­bil­dung als gering (ich habe jedoch den Ein­druck, als krü­mele der schwarze gering­fü­gig mehr als der weiße). Posi­tiv ist auch, dass er selbst bei wei­che­ren Blei­stif­ten2 nicht schmiert. Der Ultra CLN hat viel weni­ger „Grip“ als die bei­den genann­ten Radie­rer, kommt aber trotz­dem mit gerin­ger Anpress­kraft aus. Dies ist beson­ders bei emp­find­li­chem Papier wie dem mit 52 g/m² sehr dün­nen Tomoe River von gro­ßem Vor­teil, denn es ver­rin­gert die Gefahr der Beschä­di­gung deut­lich (so benutze ich den die­sen Radie­rer bevor­zugt im Hobo­ni­chi Techo). Oben­drein ist der Ultra CLN sehr sparsam.

KUM Ultra CLN

Fazit: Der KUM Ultra CLN ist für mich eine sehr erfreu­li­che Radierer-Neuheit. – Meine Exem­plare habe ich im ört­li­chen Schreib­wa­ren­han­del für 80 Euro-Cent pro Stück gekauft.

  1. Zum Ein­satz kam hier übri­gens der Font Bau­haus von 1975.
  2. Getes­tet mit STAEDTLER Mars Lumo­graph 100 2H bis 6B und radier­ba­ren Arterase-Farbstiften von Mitsubishi/uni.

17 Kommentare zu „KUM Ultra CLN“

  1. What a coin­ci­dence! I recei­ved the black ver­sion of this era­ser yes­ter­day. So thank you for this article, now I look for­ward to test mine! But I have so many era­sers, it’s beco­ming like for pen­cils: one era­ser for each type of pen­cil on each type of paper :)

  2. Ich nehme an, mit „no disco­louration of the era­ser on paper“ ist gemeint dass der Radie­rer das Papier nicht ein­färbt, sprich schwarze Schlie­ren hin­ter­lässt. Jeden­falls ist das stets meine Sorge bei far­bi­gen Radie­rern, so dass mir ein ent­spre­chen­der Hin­weis von Her­stel­ler­seite sinn­voll erscheint.

    Wie ver­hält sich der kleine Kerl denn im Ver­gleich zum Staedt­ler Mars plastic?

  3. Matt: This is a funny coin­ci­dence! I hope you like this era­ser. And you’re right – this could be the consequence ;-)

    Andi: Diese Inter­pre­ta­tion liegt nahe, doch das steht auch auf der Man­schette des wei­ßen Ra­dierers. – Die Sorge ist nach­voll­zieh­bar. Bis jetzt ist mir nur ein ein­zi­ger schwar­zer Radie­rer unter­gekommen, bei dem ich den Ein­druck hatte, dass er das Papier zumin­dest leicht ein­färbt (übri­gens war die­ser auch von KUM). – Einen Ver­gleich mit dem STAEDTLER Mars pla­s­tic kann ich noch nicht vor­neh­men, da ich die­sen zur­zeit nicht zur Hand habe.

  4. Excel­lent review Gun­ther. Seems we have a new con­ten­der in the hea­vily con­tes­ted era­ser mar­ket. The price in Ger­many is com­pa­ra­ble to that of the Staedt­ler or Faber erasers?

    In my daily gra­phite use, I usually rotate bet­ween the Tom­bow Mono, Staedt­ler Ras­oplast, and the Edding DR20. I’ve found that even thought the Mono and Ras­oplast are quite close in per­for­mance and over­all feel, they behave dif­fer­ently depen­ding on paper and pencil/ lead brand. When none of these work as expec­ted, I usually bring out the Edding to do the heavy lif­ting. So, I would love to see how these KUM era­sers fare on my daily work. 

    Hop­efully the local importer for KUM shar­pe­ners will come to its sen­ses and bring some copies of these era­sers to mar­ket. We really need more choices!

    The Bau­haus font is defi­ni­tely a throw­back to the disco-age, but then again, this font is far older than that, so I find it rather appe­al­ing. That Regis­tered sym­bol is an enti­rely dif­fe­rent mat­ter, thou. 

    I

  5. Thank you, Guil­lermo! I think the Ultra CLN com­pa­res very well to the other con­ten­ders. – It depends on the store but I’d say the KUM era­ser costs a little less than the era­sers from STAEDTLER or Faber-Castell.

    It’t ama­zing how dif­fer­ently era­sers work with dif­fe­rent pen­cils and paper. Just like Matt said – you’ll end up with an era­ser for each pen­cil and each type of paper ;-)

    I hope that the Ultra CLN will be available near you soon!

    As far as I know the Bau­haus pro­to­type from Her­bert Bayer looks quite dif­fe­rent from the ITC Bau­haus used here. Of course it’s a mat­ter of taste but to me it looks a little out of place here. – By the way, they have used the same colour for the text “pvc free …” on the blue sleeve of the white era­ser so it is almost unreadable.

  6. Ok, so I finally got to try this era­ser (in black).

    In real use -office use, with crappy paper- I was very dis­ap­poin­ted. Ok maybe not VERY dis­ap­poin­ted, but dis­ap­poin­ted, it doesn’t erase as well as the Uni Boxy, the W Air-In or the Matomaru-kun (all made by hinode­wa­shi, my cur­rent favo­rite brand or erasers).
    Even the Staedt­ler Mars pla­s­tic era­sed bet­ter, so did the Laü­fer plasti-combi, and many other era­sers I tried.

    I admit on smooth and thin/fragile paper, it does ok, and it’s very plea­sant to use, but it just doesn’t manage to lift the gra­phite com­ple­tely when I write on toothy Cana­dian crappy paper (what my employer buys). Too bad.

  7. I tried with many pen­cils, but I admit, they were pro­ba­bly all on the soft side, think Palo­mino BW 602, Mars Lumo­graph 2B, Mitsu­bi­shi Hi-Uni 2B. With firmer pen­cils, the era­ser is ok.

    I think it’s the com­bi­na­tion of sof­tish pen­cils with very toothy and not very well pro­ces­sed paper that crea­ted the bad results with the KUM era­ser. For that com­bi­na­tion, other era­sers work bet­ter for me ;)

  8. Thank you for these details. It really looks as if this era­ser doesn’t work well with sof­ter pen­cils! I use mainly B and had no pro­blems so far, even on che­a­per paper.

  9. Just a quick update on the black Ultra CLN KUM era­ser. Been using it regu­larly for about 6 months now and I find it to be quite close in per­for­mance to my all-time favou­rite: Tom­bow MONO.

    It era­ses pretty cle­anly and pro­du­ces few (and rather big) crumbs, which makes them easy to remove from dra­wings. Some­thing key when you pre­tend to keep your work clean and tidy.

    Really impres­sed with it. Unfort­u­na­tely, the local KUM dis­tri­bu­tor is yet to import them. Hop­efully one day!

  10. Since I’ve become quite invol­ved in dra­wing and illus­tra­tion lately, I been using this era­ser with ever­y­thing, from hard 5H, to soft 6B pen­cils. I recently did a small com­pa­ri­son bet­ween this one, the FC Dust Free, Sakura Foam, Seed Radar Light, Seed Clear Radar, and the Edding DR20 and IMHO, the Faber Cas­tell beat all others in per­for­mance. It even mana­ged to erase some color leads. Second was the KUM CLN.

    Truly a nice era­ser. Too bad it is not easily available in the US or here. All the less so, now that CW pen­cils is about to change course with its pro­ducts and brands.

  11. The Faber-Castell Dust Free is ama­zing, and I think it’s one of the best era­sers curr­ently available. Have you also tried the stan­dard SEED Radar? – It’s a pity that the Ultra­CLN is so dif­fi­cult to get in your region.

  12. Agreed!

    Never used the Radar stan­dard. But am incli­ned to look into it. Have you? Do you recom­mend it?

    As for the KUM, it is quite a shame that they don’t dis­tri­bute it this side of the pond, not­wi­th­stan­ding that they alre­ady have dea­lers in US and Mexico. Hop­efully they will change their ways. At least, you can now buy the Mas­ter­piece in some stores -still my fav sharpener!

  13. After using many dif­fe­rent era­sers I came back to the SEED Radar a few weeks ago and since then I use only it. Yes, I recom­mend it!

    Yes, I also hope that the Ultra­CLN will come to stores or online retail­ers near you some day.

    It’s great to hear that you still like the Mas­ter­piece. I haven’t touched mine after the Pol­lux has arrived!

  14. The only down­side to the Mas­ter­piece, is that it doesn’t work as well for wri­ting pur­po­ses. For drawing/ illus­tra­tion is phenomenal.

    Bes­i­des, it is pretty easy to find repla­ce­ment blades for it. Those are not as spe­cia­li­zed as the Pollux.

  15. The points crea­ted by the Mas­ter­piece are quite spe­cial, and I can ima­gine that artists bene­fit most from this shar­pe­ner. – It’s good to hear that repla­ce­ment blades can be found easily.

    I was once very enthu­si­a­stic about the Mas­ter­piece but after I got the Pol­lux I haven’t used the Mas­ter­piece anymore.

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