"Anyone Used A Ceramic Craft Blade?" Topic

We had a safety discuss at my work two weeks ago regarding hand injuries from various uses of bladed tools (box cutters, Xacto knives, scissors used as letter openers). One fellow brought in samples of ceramic blade tools he had gotten from a company named Slice. I looked at its website, sliceproducts.com/products

It produces blades for craft knives. Has anyone used these? I would think they are more brittle than steel blades, but are supposed to have a longer lasting edge. So they should be good for cutting balsa, cardboard, pasteboard, and plastic sprues. But can they be used to clean up mold lines on plastic and metal figures without snapping?

not sure I would take the chance

link

The ceramic blade is stronger than steel but unfortunately, is more fragile because it is more brittle. That means that if you drop a ceramic knife or attempt to cut bone or frozen foods with one, it can break or chip.

Unlike steel knives which can be used for various slicing/dicing/chopping tasks, ceramic knives are limited in use mainly to slicing fruits, vegetables and boneless meats. According to some manufacturers, you can slice cheese with a ceramic knife, but not all agree.

Sounds like it might be okay for plastic (maybe), but risky for modern white metal (which is pretty hard). Either way, definitely wear eye-protection if you try this. A splinter of ceramic blade in your eye would be very bad news.

A solution desperately looking for a problem. Good, surgical quality steel blades are very hard to beat for functionality.

I'd stick to those.

John T

Thanks for posting about these, gamertom. I didn't even know these existed.

These might make sense for cutting foamboard/foamcore or cardstock for paper model building. I agree with the comments on safety precautions--these don't make sense for removing mold lines or parts from sprues.

But I might try some out. If I do, I'll report back here on [TMP].

Cheers!

My daughter sliced open a finger with one last year, so they _do_ work…

Yea, stick to metal for cleaning mold lines.

I wonder if they would be good for cutting foam for terrain. That seems to dull blades very fast.