Carve The Perfect Pumpkin With X-Acto's Basic 3 Knife 10 Blade Set
Written: Oct 02 '07
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Awesome for all types of crafts, nice assortment of blades, three holders.
Cons: Can be expensive if you don't know where to get a good deal on them.
The Bottom Line: A great set of blades with three awesome holders, X-Acto gets to the point of things with this incredible boxed set.
|
|
|
| Freak369's Full Review: X-acto Knife Set with 3 Knife Styles & 10 Assorted... |
X-Acto tools are known for their precision cuts. I use them all the time for craft projects and when scissors just aren't an option. I never thought to use them to carve pumpkins until last year. I was sitting there using a pumpkin carving set racking my brain thinking, "There must be an easier way to get this done". I hit my local art store and started looking for different cutting sets and found a few from X-Acto. Some art stores are notorious for jacking up prices on things, especially if they are located near an art school, college or university. There was no way I was going to pay $39.99 for this set so I looked online and found some other stores in the outskirts of town that had them for $15.00 less. The set was exactly what I needed to make some sinister looking pumpkins and get just the right amount of flesh off the gourds. If that was all this set was used for then it would have been money well spent, even for something that only gets used once a year but that isn’t the case. Because of the diversity of the blades, this is something that gets used on a weekly basis, if not more often than that.
X-Acto 3 Knife 10 Blade Boxed Set
The three holders that you get with this set are nice; it gives you t he freedom t pick the best tool for whatever job you are doing so you don't have to make due with something that 'almost' works. You get two traditional all metal holders with sleeves and one with a fatter plastic handle. All three of them have the usual X-Acto quality so it all boils down to what you plan on using them for that will dictate which one you grab out of the box. To get the blades in and out of all three you need to adjust the collar to loose it and slide the blade into place. Do the reverse to secure it before you start using it. To remove a spent blade it does help to place a piece of tape over the sharpened side to avoid accidentally getting cut. How often will you need to remove and replace the blades? That all depends on what you are cutting, trimming or working with. Plastics, thick cardboard and poster board will shorten the life of the blades. For general crafting you can expect at least a few weeks from most of the general blades in this set. There is only one of each style blade in this set and if you are like me, some will get used a lot more than others and subsequently wear out a lot faster.
My only true complaint about this carded set is that there are no protective covers for the holders. The reason for that is that they should be stored in the case. This is a nice concept; you don't have to fumble around with getting the covers off it you are using all three of them at once but the downside is rather obvious - it is a real hazard if you have kids in the house. These blades are extremely sharp and should be stored well out of the reach of kids of all ages. That doesn't mean just the three to ten year olds; I have seen teens and tweens do some real damage to their hands and fingers when using X-Acto products. The box does have a flip close metal tab but that can easily be opened by a child of any age. This is something that stays on the top shelf of the closet when it's not in use and when I am using it, I am always counting the blades in the box, the grippers / holders that I am using and the blades that are in the holders.
There are ten blades in this set and all of them can be inserted into the three holders that come with it. The molded section that houses them is nice and there are lift tab sections to get them out without killing the peds of your fingers. The ones that see the most use in my house are the rounded #10, thin tipped #16, fat point # 24 and the scalpel-like #22. The others are used from time to time but not so much so that I have had to replace them. Most of the blades in this set can be purchased as stand alones meaning that you can buy them individually. You will have to go to an art or specialty store to get them and that can mean paying two to three times what you would pay elsewhere. The selection of blades in this set is nice; you can do a lot of things with them but you have to remember that they are extremely sharp and should always be handled with care.
This set is different from the woodcarving set that comes in the same styled case but has an almost completely different set of blades and gouges. While this one might be a good pick for crafters, amateur woodworkers and those looking to distress wood, it isn't something that is going to be practical if you are into large scale jobs. If you are setting out to look for the set that is listed here, make sure you read the details to it closely or you might end up with something that is more for wood detailing than for general cutting. To further complicate things there is also a Standard Wood and Knife Set that blades, three X-Acto holders, gougers and two flat cutters.
When I started pricing this art the local art stores, some places were selling this for $39.99. I wasn't looking at a larger or different set either. I eventually found this for $24.99 at a small hobby and art store. The man there said that it was one of the best basic sets from X-Acto and that he had almost all of the replacement blades for it. Is this worth the price I paid? Even if I only used this to carve designs in pumpkins it would be worth it because of the amount of detail I can get with the various blades. Couple that with the poster board, cover stock, foam, cardboard, plastic and cloth that I have cut with it for various projects and you have an incredible set of cutting tools.
The Bottom Line
The blades with the sharp tips are perfect for cutting through sheets of foam, card stock and anything that requires a perfect and straight cut. The rounded blades work well for general cutting and on thicker things that the pointed tip ones might get 'stuck' in. I got this set last year when I wanted to do some detailing on a pumpkin. The carving sets that I had in the past were nice but they didn't allow me to get a lot of detail, remove only a few centimeters of flesh [from the pumpkin, not me] or create extremely fine lines. I used a few of the X-Acto knives that I had at the time and really liked the way what they performed so when I saw this set, I knew that if it didn’t work out for carving pumpkins I could use it for my art, crafts and general odd jobs around the house. This might not be something that an advanced artist would make much use of though; if that is the case then you probably already know which blades you will use most of the time and which of the holders / grippers will be best for tour needs. This boxed set also makes for a great gift for art students, crafters and those who are into building models.
As always, thanks for the visit…
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2007 Freak369
X-Acto Light Duty Knife
X-Acto Knife Blades
X-Acto #11 Blades
X-Acto Pen Knife
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.