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Making Clean Cuts Through Carving Medium
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Apr 17, 2007 8:42am
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Making a long, clean cut straight through a slab of carving material and leaving a perpendicular edge has always been difficult for me. Beveling the edges away from my image has also been challenging. I often accidentally bevel toward the image and lose that edge support.

No more!!! ;-)

This week I bought a polymer clay blade that has eliminated my problem. Now I can divide my slabs into clean blocks and my edges look so nice and straight. I tried it on my "pink stuff" and white PZ Cut this morning, and was delighted with the results.

This particular blade is made by AMACO® (American Art Clay Co., Inc.) and is called a PolyBlade™. It functions like a single-edged razor blade but is a full 6" long and is thicker than a regular razor blade. It also has a handle that minimizes twisting and doubles as a blade cover.

On the AMACO website it sells for over $5, but at Hobby Lobby it sells for under $3.
http://www.amaco.com/grouphome1.php?catID=78&productId=399&GROUP_ID=9&CATEGORY_ID=78&TITLE_NAME=PolyBlade

MisterArt sells the AMACO® NuBlade™ that looks essentially like the PolyBlade™ without a handle. (Remember that buying from MisterArt at the AQ Marketplace helps to support AQ.)
http://www.misterart.com/g7309/Amaco-Nublade-Polymer-Clay-Blade.htm

I couldn't find the other blade at MisterArt, though.

Anyway, for what it's worth to you all, this is a great blade.

Mama Cache
Re: Making Clean Cuts Through Carving Medium
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Reply to: #86116 by Mama Cache
Apr 20, 2007 12:13pm
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Thanks for this tip. I also have a lot of trouble cutting the carving material. When I read your post, I thought dud!! I already have a polymer clay blade and never thought to use it to cut carving material. I tried it and it works great!! I've move my blade from the polymer clay box to the letterboxing box. THANKS
Re: Making Clean Cuts Through Carving Medium
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Reply to: #86116 by Mama Cache
Apr 20, 2007 12:24pm
Thread (disabled) Board
Quote Making a long, clean cut straight through a slab of carving material and leaving a perpendicular edge has always been difficult for me.

This week I bought a polymer clay blade that has eliminated my problem.

This particular blade is made by AMACO® (American Art Clay Co., Inc.) and is called a PolyBlade™. It functions like a single-edged razor blade but is a full 6" long and is thicker than a regular razor blade. It also has a handle that minimizes twisting and doubles as a blade cover.


OK, having read that message, I went shopping yesterday. My local JoAnn Fabrics offers the PolyBlade, and nearby on the same rack it offers something called a Sculpey Super Slicer. At first glance, both these items appear to be the same thing: a 6" long razor blade. However, upon closer examination, they appear to be different. The PolyBlade is a thick, stiff blade, and comes with a plastic "handle" (looks like a piece of hard plastic tubing slit lengthwise) that clips over the back edge to make it nicer to push on.

The Super Slicer, OTOH, is a very thin blade. The intention is that you can bend it into a curve when cutting, making gentle sweeping cuts rather than straight cuts. It doesn't come with a plastic handle -- that might stiffen it up -- but it'd be easy enough to make one if you have some hard plastic tubing.

The Super Slicer costs a bit more, but you get two blades in the package. And it was on sale 50% off, so it was less than $4.

It just so happens that I don't have a problem making straight slices across an entire block of rubber. I have a miter saw, and I took the blade out of the miter saw and sharpened up the back edge. By installing the blade upside down, I can slice off a chunk of PZ Kut just as neat as you please.

Unfortunately, that's not usually what I need to do. I usually want to cut out a piece of PZ Kut, something perhaps 2" square, and perhaps not square but trapezoidal. Having a 6" blade that will allow me to cut from one point in the middle of the rubber in a straight line all the way off one edge would be handy, which is why I was shopping for one of these 6" blades. I've used the blades from boxcutters, but they somehow don't seem to work as well as I'd like.

There's still the issue of the sides of the trapezoids with both ends out in the middle of the rubber somewhere. The 6" blade will make a cut that runs off in one direction or the other for 6", not good. So here's what I'm going to try: Conventional single-edge razor blades, the type used in Red Devil razor knives, those metal razor cutters where you press a button and slide the blade in and out. The blades are rectangular with a reinforcing rib crimped onto the back edge. They are also very thin, since the rib provides stiffness.

Since they're about 1-1/2" long, you can use one to make a slice in a block of rubber 1-1/2" long by just pushing down. You can make a slice longer than 1-1/2" by making one such cut, then moving over and making another.

Still can't make a cut shorter than 1-1/2". So, I took one of these Red Devil blades and cut it in half with a cutoff wheel in the Dremel. That'll allow me to make straight cuts as short as 3/4". If I need to cut anything shorter, I'll probably just resort to the X-acto.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll find an application where I'd like to make a curved cut on the block of rubber, so I can use these flexible Super Slicer blades as they were meant to be used. Dunno why that would ever come up, though.