Calvin and Hobbes for December 02, 2019 <a href="https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2019/12/02" rel="nofollow">https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2019/12/02</a>

This week, I’m going to show you a knife designed specifically for cutting corrugated cardboard. It’s made in Japan, costs around $8, and if you want one for yourself, using the Amazon link in the description helps support my videos and the Cool Tools blog.

Cardboard is an abundant resource for making crafts and mocking up design ideas. It’s especially great for kids.

Unfortunately, one of the most common tools for working with cardboard is a boxcutter knife, which is a dangerous tool for anyone of any age. It’s also really not a great tool for shaping cardboard. It cuts the stuff, but there’s really not much nuance with it.

The Canary Cardboard Cutter is a much more satisfying way to cut and shape cardboard. It has a finely serrated edge on both sides and a blunt tip. The edge could cut you if you sawed into yourself, but it’s unlikely to cut you from casual handling.

But when this thing comes into contact with corrugated cardboard, you can work through it like butter. Even without a pointy tip, you can easily work your way into any spot just by starting with the side of the blade and then pushing in.

It works against the corrugation or with it. And unlike scissors it doesn’t pinch the material at all and you can make long, swooping cuts with ease.

But what this does better than any other tool I’ve used is kerfing, which is to make a flexible joint on a material with a series of incomplete cuts. Using light pressure, you can get a consistent kerf cut for making hinges or tubes in cardboard designs.

As a bonus, I’ve had equally great results using this knife on foamcore, without any of the bunching you’ll sometimes get with a box cutter or x-acto blade.

Best of all, it’s just $8. If nothing else, it’s a great, relatively safe tool for breaking down cardboard boxes for recycling.

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