Soft Grip Hobby Knife, Excel Blades K18 with 5 #11 Blades, American Made Light Duty Craft Knife (One Assorted Color)

These blades are as sharp as a scalpel (at least I think they are because I’ve never used a scalpel). They ARE…VERY sharp. I’ve been using it to cut shapes out of cardboard and they slice through the cardboard like it’s butter…I’m not an exaggerating…and they cut the cardboard very cleanly. I don’t know what type of steel the blades are made of but they do start to dull fairly quickly which means it’s fairly soft steel. After just a couple of months of periodic cutting I started to feel it dulling. I used a 2000 grit diamond plate to hone the edge and that seemed to restore the sharpness. If you do buy this knife get the one with the extra blades. I don’t know if it’s stainless steel or not, I haven’t seen any rust on the blade that I’ve been using but again, i’ve only had it a short while and, I cover the blade with the plastic cap it came with as soon as I’m finished using it to better protect it. The handles on these xacto type knives are almost always made of Aluminum and I think this Excel knife is also. Aluminum is lightweight but fairly soft which is why when you tighten the blade on these types of knives the Aluminum often deforms and doesn’t hold the blade tightly anymore and the blade wiggles around when you’re cutting something. Whoever at Excel that came up with the idea of putting the tightening knob on the opposite end of the handle is a genius, hopefully it will extend the life of the knife. I’m going to give this knife 4.25 stars instead of 5 for two reasons – 1) again the blades are a little soft and dull fairly quickly (which is common for these types of knives) but they can be resharpened and, reason 2) the handle has some sort of soft, grippy material on it that gives of an unpleasant chemical odor, smells kind of like burnt popcorn, but when you’re cutting something and the knife is a few inches below your nose it’s a little noxious and distracting. Fortunately, the smell went away, for the most part, after about a month. I can still smell it a little if I hold it right up under my nose. Oh…I almost forgot, it’s made in the U.S.A., that’s great. So…if you’re looking for an xacto knife I do recommend this one, and don’t forget to get the one with the extra blades.

It was smaller than expected but it did the job differently recommend

Excellent craft knife. Better than a certain common well known brand. Blade holding mechanism very clever and effective.

Great handle grip - much better than name brand metal one. and happy that I received extra blades. I would have liked getting a few variety of blades instead of just the same one X5, though I do need extra as I already broke the tip off the first blade while cutting plastic bottles to make wine charms. Still - I've continued using what tip is left on the first blade to manually drill holes in the charms to put wire rings through them, and the broken blade continues to work. I know I'll get a lot of use out of this knife, and will probably be ordering different types of blades to use with it.

The blades this came with are very sharp and easy to replace. The handle has a nice heft and feels like it will last a long time. The handle does have an faint burned kind of smell, but you only notice it when you hold it close to your face and it doesn't seem to transfer to my hands. Other than that very minor thing, it's perfect.

Knife. Very sharp knife. Only use as intended. Do not pick your teeth with this knife. Do not do you hair with this knife. Do not leave it where your teenage sons can find it and "borrow" it for knife throwing contests, or attempts at carving their initials into concrete. Just sayin'.

This is the best #11 blade hobby knife I've tried. It is way more durable then any Xacto brand knife I've tried. I bought two of these for myself, and one for a friend because I liked my first one so much. I use one for my field box and one for my workbench. I got Red, and now when I am looking for my knife I can find it much faster whether it's on the workbench, or if it falls in the grass at the field! I also Got a Blue so I know which knife goes to my workbench tool kit, and which one goes to my filed tool kit.

I got this originally, mostly, for the handle. I'd watched a lot of doll rescue tutorials for rerooting doll's hair and a couple of the crafters mentioned using this kind of knife's handle as part of their home-made tools for that.But I found that I use this for Everything... From using just the handle for things (it works a bit like some hand drills where you can change the bit to fit other parts) to what its actual purpose of cutting. The blades are thin enough (yet strong) for all the cutting of tiny bits for miniature crafting and shaving off edges to make things fit better. Yet I can cut through tougher materials with out fearing it snapping off as well.Just a great little tool.

I actually bought this to use for for scoring the top of french bread etc. before baking. When I looked at the price of a bakers lame knife and read a review where a man said a chopstick and a razor blade and he could make one himself lol, I looked for an alternative tool to use that I could use only for that purpose. It didn't take me long to find this knife with 5 extra blades and it works perfectly for it. The blades are razor sharp and at less than $10.00 , it's a very good substitute for a lame knife, and that's just my opinion. For whatever reason you would buy one of these, I can say that it is well made and the blades are very easy to change. I would buy it again.

Excelente producto, ya tenia otros accesorios de esta marca para trabajar con vinil y son una maravilla, calidad pura. No dudo este sea la excepción ya que lo compré junto con el tapete de corte y estoy seguro funcionarán perfecto con vinil.

Works great !