I've cut myself many times: the worse was slipping on the edge of a jagged tile, give me a knife - won't hurt so bad.
I saved my fingers early by leaving one butcher shop apprentice job as a teen.
Oren "My doctor says I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes."
I've tried about all of them too and always went back to the generic Stanley knife. A year ago last Christmas I was given one of the Sheffield (made in China) folding utility knives and I think it's great. I folds like a lock back pocket knife so you have to open it like that too. I took me a while to get used to that. It holds 5 blades in the handle and you can change them without any tools. I've seen it branded by several of the generic tool brands too.
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carry it in my tool belt and it gets used daily. I wondered if it would hold up to everyday use for a year but it's made longer than that.
Try hopping an 8ft rusty barbed wire chain link fence as a kid and the wire snaps as you go over the top holding it between the barbs. You fall and natural tendance is to grasp hands closed. First time I saw my bones not on an x-ray.
OK, so it's not a tool story. Made ya cringe though didn't it?
p.s. Yep, just looked. Scar still there from wrist to almost tip of middle finder.
Its little off topic but a good while back I bought some blades, they were called "blue blades" from Irwin. Anyways I have gone through countless blades but these ones outlasted every other brand I have used by at least 2x.They flex rather than break too, which I liked.
I don't drywall at all anymore and I have little use for blades. If I did I would buy a lot though. As soon as they make something good it usually gets yanked from the market since it cuts future margin. Either that or they will slowly reduce the quality.
Home Depot has a nice knife. It's like a lock back jacknife but with a replaceable blade. The blades are regular utility blades. This knife on ebay isn't exactly like the one I have but it will give you an idea of what it looks like. Because it folds up, I carry it in my pocket all the time.
Haven't see it mentioned, but I have a full sized utility knife that uses snap off blades like the smaller Olfa knife. I don't always use it whenever a knife is needed, but when I'm doing a lot of cutting like slicing up leather, it's handy to be able to snap off 1/2" of blade and have a new edge for immediate use. Works out a quite a bit faster and cheaper than replacing a number of regular utility blades.
The Olfa blade is thicker as well and from what I've been told holds an edge much longer than most blades. I have a Mastercraft that uses regular 2 point blades that is very easy change but rarely use it.
This my Olfa very heavy duty and scary as hell with the blade extended.
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* Largest and heaviest snap-off knife on the market * Uses blades that are 40% larger than conventional knife blades * Unbreakable ABS handle * Stainless-steel blade channel * Ratcheting wheel lock * Anti-slip rubber grip * Includes one blade
> I carry it in my tool belt and it gets used daily. I wondered if it
Now that's the first utility knife I've seen yet that could possibly convince me to move away from my trusty Stanley knives. I've tried different retractable and always went back to my basic Stanley. I liked the feel in my hand and I didn't have to worry about the blade sliding back in during use, or the mechanism gumming up and working hard.
After reading your original message I went to EBay and looked over this vendors products. Bought the Lawson knife with side-loading blades and just got it a few minutes ago. It's everything he advertised and more. It's already become my favorite instrument for maiming and hacking up myself. Can't wait to see how much blood I will lose.
Seems to be heavier built than a Stanley Knife, has some rubber coating for grip, little door pops open on the side to side-load a pack of blades (comes with 6, 1 in the carrier and 5 in the storage drawer.) Wording on storage door indicates 5 blades in storage is max.
Removing a dull blade is easy, just press a button in the front and the old blade pulls right out. Slide the blade carrier back and fwd again and it loads a new fresh blade (total time to load a new blade is 3-5 seconds, including removing the old one). Can turn the old blade front-to-back and pop it back in to use the sharp end.
Also bought a box of 10 packs of 3-blade (30 total) off same seller as knife (Cripe Distributing). Has Lenox edge, shatter-resistant, bi-metal, suppose to last 3x longer, for $7. Haven't used them yet, but they look like excellent quality.
All-in-all very well satisfied with utility knife and very highly recommend it. Always hated having to use a screwdriver to open the Stanley Knife and put new blades in. Here's the vendor's EBay store, seems to carry all kinds of utility knives and other tools:
You're welcome. A large part of my posting was my dissatisfaction with Stanley's marketing and product line. They are currently running ads about their old knife which has a push button near the front to change blades - they're promoting it as "automatic" and "new". It is neither.
Stanley is the 900 pound gorilla (you have a problem with that?!) and does pretty much what it pleases. There is no reason for them to update their product line in the "more boring" categories if there is no market demand for them to do so. Hopefully, by making people aware that there are alternatives to Stanley, I have helped in some small way.
R
PS I'm not a Stanley basher. I have a large collection of antique Stanley tools, some of which are daily users, and it would still be a chore to wrest them from my cold, dead hands.
Shipping was $4.50 for one, + $1 for each additional. Don't know what your sales tax is, but ours is 6%. Local would sell it for retail, then add 6% so I'm still ahead. Haven't seen them local, but I would check at Lowe's and Menards.
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