Slicing, dicing… and oiling!

No, it’s not a cooking/recipe post! Heavens no… it’s a post about rotary cutters!

Did you know that oiling them can help them roll more smoothly? Yep. Just like oiling your sewing machine. And you can even use the same oil!

You’ve probably noticed that your rotary cutter can get a build up of gunk under the blade. Left alone, it can cause the blade to roll less smoothly. Why does that matter? I have one word for you… SAFETY. Anything that makes you lean harder into the blade increases your chances of an accident. So let’s look at how to oil your cutter…

First, take the cutter apart. I always do it on a flat surface, and I put the parts down in a line in the order I take them off:

Next up, clean the mess off the blade cover (the grey haze on the black below), and VERY CAREFULLY off the underside of the blade:

Add a single drop of machine oil on the blade cover (terrible picture… I was trying to take it one handed and not pour a quart of oil over everything… but you get the idea, right?)

Then put it back together! If you’re tired of keeping track of the spring washer and nut when you take the cutter apart, consider getting one of Olfa’s new cutters with a quick release on the blade:

Just pull back on the yellow tab and it releases the pin that holds the blade in. This is a nice update to the cutter… the handle shape fits well in the hand and the whole thing is lighter than the original. (Disclosure… Olfa gave me one to review!)

FYI – the pull-down for the blade guard is higher on the handle than in the traditional cutter – it has taken a bit of getting used to. The bottom line is this… you must get the cutter that you will CLOSE. If you can’t easily push the guard up, then get one that springs back. You are NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE THING OPEN on the table!

OK – back to the blades… When do you change out a blade? As soon as the sound of cutting doesn’t “swish” anymore… the sound gets harsher, louder, more grind-y as it dulls. As soon as you notice that you are leaning harder into the cut. And well before you notice that you had to go back and saw on a cut because of the dull spot from when you ran over something. The harder you lean into a cut, the more likely you are to have an accident. If you are really, really leaning in, and you jump the blade off the edge of the ruler, guess where it’s going to go? Right across your ruler hand. YEOWCH.

Yes they are expensive, but less so if you get the 5 or 10 pack on sale at the chain store with the coupon (and there is always a coupon… if not in the mail then in the chain store’s free smart phone app). And if you’re being a total peach, you’ll suck up the coupon difference and buy them at your local quilt store (you DO want the local quilt store to still be there when you want great fabric, right?).

Your hand is worth it. TRULY. If you slice up your tendons you are going to want a hand specialist to put them back together, because you need this hand to made more quilts without hurting for years to come.

How do you get rid of a dead blade? I collect them in a spare blade case, which gets tossed when it’s full:

And when I don’t have a case available, I tape them to a piece of mat board (these are my dead 60mm blades, and this piece of board hangs in my studio):

OK – now go clean your cutter and make something!