Do you need cutting blades for your workshop? Forget metal and bet on ceramic

I open a lot of boxes and cut a lot of cardboard. I used to use knives with metal blades, from razors to the ubiquitous Stanley box cutter, but found that cutting card and tape would dull them super fast.

Then a couple of years ago I switched to ceramic cutters made by Slice and haven’t looked back.

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I started using a small slice box cutterwhich was excellent for opening boxes and parcels, and took many months of hard cutting without wearing in the least.

But it had a couple of drawbacks. The blade was a bit short for cutting thick cardboard, especially heavily corrugated stock. The handle was also small and not really suitable for putting a lot of power into the cut.

What I wanted was a blade that combined the size of a utility knife blade with the durability of ceramic.

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Slice had me covered, with his own ceramic utility blades.

These blades are made of zirconium oxide ceramic, which is extremely hard and allows for a powerful cutting blade, but they are also safe on the fingers, and much less likely to cause laceration injuries than metal blades. The blade feels oddly dull to the touch, but it cuts through materials like cardboard, rubber flooring, and corrugated plastic effortlessly.

Ceramic is considerably harder than stainless steel and lasts 11 times longer, which means fewer blade changes or sharpening. In turn, this reduces the risk of injury and saves time and money.

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Ceramic blades have many other advantages.

These blades will never rust, have no coating of oil to contaminate the things they cut, are chemically inert, do not cause sparks when they hit metal, are non-magnetic, and do not conduct electricity.

They also feature a rounded tip to reduce the chances of a puncture injury.

These blades are standard in size and shape. They won’t just fit Cut utility handles and scrapersbut also Fits standard utility knife handles..

Or, you can do what I did and 3D print a handle for the blade.

Slice blades can seem pricey – $19 for two, which is about what you might pay 100 decent quality metal utility blades — but the long-term performance they offer combined with all the safety features and advantages they have over metal blades, I think they are worth the price.

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I don’t think I’ll ever use metal utility blades again.