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Reviewed By: Mary Chong
I have a background in Graphic Design, so it was only natural that when I started into the world of paper crafting that I went for the old basics from art school in terms of tools. Going back in time to all the usual standbys like a metal ruler and a straight edge blade. We've all heard the saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it"... but how about MY new saying? "It may not be broken but maybe it CAN be better?" The Fiskars Fingertip Craft Knife is part of my new bag of tricks and I'll tell you why.On regular knives the shaft is like a pen but without any options of cushions or rubber to make it the handle more comfortable for your fingers. Also, I have small hands and I always found regular straight blades to be awkward especially after a long day of cutting fine details. So, when I saw this strange looking device on the wall of my local scrapbooking store, I was intrigued.
How it works is that you insert your index finger through the loop. The sides of the loop act as a place to "rest" your thumb and third finger. This gives you more control and comfort while you cut as the tip of your index finger is what's guiding the knife.
Here's a photo of the Fingertip knife next to my other knife by Stampin' Up.
I cut on a glass mat when I am doing fine detail work and because I wasn't used to the grip of the handle the first time I used the knife I broke off a teeny weeny piece of the tip - I actually heard a little snap. It is still totally usable and didn't affect the blade at all but just watch that you don't use too much pressure.
In this example you can see how the Fingertip knife made fast work of trimming around these flowers. One tip when using any knife is to keep the knife stationary and to actually move the paper instead.
Pros:
- I do like the bright trademark Fiskars orange handle, it makes it easier to spot in my black craft tote.
- The knife has great control when cutting.
- It's comfortable in your hand and because of its odd shape it won't roll off the table (like my regular knife always does).
Cons:
- Due to the design/shape I do find it gets lost sometimes in my craft bag - mainly because I don't have a "slot" for it and it doesn't fit in the pen slots like other knives do.
- I do have a beef with all knives with "arrow head" shaped blades and it's that the normal paper crafter only really uses the top 25% of the blade. So, the top tip of the blade gets dull and you have to replace it, but yet the other 75% of the blade is still sharp as a knife (pun intended). I think it would be an awesome idea if they came up with blades that had different lengths and you could use the one that suited what you were cutting.
- Speaking of blades; I do wish it came with a few replacement blades in the package just for convenience sake but that's just being picky on my part. Also, I know that the point to the design is that it is compact but I always wonder why they don't make allowances to have the replacement blades contained within the knife itself so you don't have to look through all your drawers to find that 1 replacement blade that you bought last month, tucked away for safe keeping, and NOW can no longer find the knife in the growing pile of scrap (grumble grumble).
So, I guess you really can teach an old dog like me new tricks!
Fiskars online store sells the Fiskars Fingertip Knife for $5.50 US + tax/shipping
I saw it at my local Michael's store for $8.99 Cdn + tax.
Rating: 8 out of 10
We would love to hear what your comments are on this knife. Please fill us in on how you feel!
14 comments:
I want this right NOW! *S* I found a good price on eBay that will be about $6, including the shipping.
They are a great tool, but the concept of arming a target group that typically talk with their hands could give new insight to the phrase "crop til you drop". I have one but my finger is too fat. I have thought of heating it and trying to make it bigger, but I have other things to do.
I beg to differ about blades in the handle, it would require too much disassembly and reassembly. As a graphics artist you should know to change blades often so as to not tear the paper. I have a tray on my craft table for new blades and an old pill bottle for the used ones. I have no idea of what to do with the used blades, but it just seems wasteful to toss them.
I buy my blades at a hobby store in packs of 100 at about 18¢ each instead of 50¢ each in packs of 5.
I love it when standard designs are updated to be truly user friendly, and agree that there should be some kind of compartment for the blades. My hands tire easily when making a lot of cuts so I am interested to see if this helps - it looks like it will. Inspiring review Mary, thanks.
--Soups
Great overall review of this product, Mary. I would LOVE to try it!@ Will keep my eyes peeled. :o) ~Ali
Thanks for the review Mary! I am horrible at cutting with craft knives in general because they always feel really awkward to me, but I may have to give this one a try.
Great review! I have seen this around and you've answered a lot of my questions. :0)
Thanks for the review. I haven't seen one on my shopping forays yet, but wasn't really looking. I am "craft knife challenged" and usually opt for paper snips instead of my craft knife. I will definitely try this one. My thinking: "why not...I've tried all the others!"
Thanks again!
Thank you for the review, I saw one and wondered about it. I'm not all that handy with a knife, but I do love the freedom of a knife and a straight-edge. I'm definitely going to keep my eyes open for this.
About the arrowhead craft blade, one of my professors in college showed us how you can get more use out of it in two ways:
a) You can buy yourself a sharpening stone at an art store and sharpen the blades. I haven't bothered, but I do have the stone from when I was an art student and poor.
b) The easiest way is to take a pliers and snap the tip off when it gets dull. You'll get a brand new sharp tip on the end and you can continue cutting and snapping when it gets dull until there isn't enough left of the blade to snap easily.
This looks awesome! So much easier to control than the normal straight pen, I would think. Thanks for your opinion!
love mine
I picked mine up yesterday at Target for $3.99 AND it's PINK!
I want this, too! It looks like it would be much easier to handle and to "draw" around things I need to cut out. I find the standard X-Acto knives to be a little hard to handle, and I always seem to be ripping up the paper instead of cutting it.
I just tried this tool for the first time last night, and I love it. I cut out a little tiny apple and, the hard part, the stem and leaf, beautifully! I was very impressed with myself. I found this tool at Target for around $5, so worth it!
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