I resharpen my blades. I use fine sandpaper and a piece of marble (leftover from making a sharpening station for woodworking chisels) and it works great.
I cut backing board and styrene for prop making several times a week an one of the best investments I've ever made was a Kevlar glove to put on my hand holding down the ruler. It's saved my hand from a major slice on 2 occasions. The gloves are fantastic and while the blade did break my skin from the impact the glove prevented the blade from slicing me open. It cost me about 15 bucks for the glove but it's better to be safe than sorry.
A little tip in the Xacto blade disposal. Taping them is nice and all but if your smoosh your garbage down and the blade is sitting just right you get stuck anyway. What I do is take a small box, the one I have here now is 2" x 2" x 6" (some makeup came in it) and cut a small slit in the top about 1/8" wide and maybe 1/2" long. When I'm done with a blade I just plunk it in the box through the slit. When full you can tape over the slit, secure the top and dispose of it in the garbage.
great tips- I especially appreciated your recommendation to invert the blade for safety. I never really knew how to keep it safe after I lose the cover.
Well designed,initiated and edited video telling us all we need to know about cutting accurately. I wish all youtube vids were made this way. Great point about binning the blades afterwards,made me feel so guilty LOL I won't do that again.
im glad to hear from somebody that you shouldnt get the cut thru the first time. i had heard from my scenic design professor that I should only need to cut thru my foam core once for a clean cut but found that was NOT working for me with my weak noodle fingers and that it overall created bad cuts on my foam core when making my stage models. good to hear this is actually a good form of accuracy!!
That shadow is no joke, good tip. And there is no such thing as to well wrapped a blade for disposal. Maybe even a Post-it note then tape wrap. 😆 Thanks for the vid.👍
10 years later, and the image quality is awful, the sound is not great... but what's important is it's well edited and informative to anyone using these tools today! Thanks for the video!
The brand of the cutting mat he is using is UCHIDA, they are available on amazon and have quite a few reviews of people that have been using them for decades.
Thanks for the tip about mangling the inside of the foam core. I switched from my segmented blade to an x-acto knife because I thought it would be better at curves, but the inside of the boards turned out gross and I thought it was me. I'll go get a new blade for my x-acto knife in the morning.
Why not use a safety ruler?Not only do they protect your fingers, but they have more weight, and the indent allows you to pressure them into place easy. they also have a steep angle to support the blade. Maun makes some nice ones.
you know my heart blackens with pain, anger, hatred, powerlessnes, rage and suffering whenever im doing scale models... but when i see the bastard finished and on time... its all worth it : )
I'm an editor, and I have 2 simple tips to make your already polished videos more polished. 1st, improve your lighting from the back, the camera auto adjusts exposure and if you have a particularly dark spot it will look grainy and compression will give it odd splotches of color. 2nd, your daughter sounds--and I'm sure looks--very cute, but having her at the beginning will turn away a lot of new viewers. If you put it at the end and put one with your voice at the start it would improve quality
Ah thanks a lot for the very useful safety instructions. I see lots of videos where ppl get hurt doing all sorts of things and it's a relief to see someone explaining how NOT to get hurt for a change, without talking down to the audience like governments do.
i kinda backed away a little when you did that 1-strike cut at 2:49. i used to do that before and at some point, i took a bad turn and i cut the thumb that was pressing on the straight edge! what a terrible thing to remember. :l
my teacher says that the x-acto blade is only good for one clean cut, that you shouldn't have to go over it that much, and that you should throw the blade out and use a new one after that one cut. What is your opinion on this?
@DeshierArchitecte Well i don't know how you call them on english, but i know them as "compas the corte", i think it is the Compass Cutter in english...
Great info. I am looking for a good way to cut cork sheets (1/4" thick) at a 45 degree angle. Sometimes I get a nice edge, but many times, even sharp blades, seem to drag and tear the cork and make a jagged edge. Would you know a good method or tool to do this? Thanks... Philip
hey i am an architecture student and i have no idea which material should i use to make my models i am in first year and i am currently using thermocol,foamboard, mountboard and filecard. i am completely disasatisfied using these materials please advise me on what to use. thank you
great advice...! I myself was once cut by the left ring finger because I use a plastic ruler! Where do you purchase all those professional tools in your place?Internet?
@How To Architect, when you are using a blade to cut curved lines, couldn't the sharpness of the blade be compromised by one mistake using a metal ruler/French curve cutting into it when handling the blade at an improper (low) angle?
@forgetith8me ugh, I hate making models. They were fun when i had enough time to do the detail i want, but now it seems like I have 1 day to get one done and they just never turn out as good as you want them too.
You rub it across your big toe, if it's still there attached to your foot, then it's dull, If you see you too a few inches away, apart from your foot, then your exacto knife is sharp. Jkjk🤣🤣
