Welcome to Tips and Tutorials Tuesday!
Tip: Dusting Rotary Cutter Using Batting
My quick tip for today is to clean your rotary cutter! Lint accumulates quickly, and a lot of accumulated lint can decrease the life of your blade. I like to use a piece of scrap batting to wipe down my rotary cutter when I change out my blade. Now I just need to remember to pause to clean the cutter more frequently than when I change out the blade!
What have you learned that you can share this month?
They get fluff in the inner parts so easily. I keep the used blades for cutting paper.
Good tip, I have used a scrap of fabric but I like the batting idea better.
Every time I change my blade I’m always a bit surprised at the gunk that accumulates under it. Sometimes I can see the fluff peaking out from under the blade – that’s my clue to clean it up!
I mark my old blades just like you do! It is amazing how much fuzz accumulates in and around a blade. I need to figure out a way to remind myself to change the blade more often! Any tips for that!!
Bonjour,
Is there a way to re-use the rotary blade?
Does it go to the garbage?
A real waste
Merci
MIMIYO
That is a fantastic question! I send my used blades off to be re-sharpened / recycled. I found out about that service through another blog post here:
http://latenightquilter.com/tips-and-tutorials-tuesday-how-to-recycle-your-old-rotary-blades/
Merci Yvonne
I shall look in my city Mtl,QC.Ca. where I can have them re-sharpened. I find the blade gets dull very fast and I just sew clothes for my granddaughter.
Have a nice sunny day
MIMIYO
This is something I need to remember to do more often. I’ll be using my rotary cutter & thinking this is just not cutting well at all! I forget how long I’ve actually been using it! Good to know they can be recycled!
I had no idea that blades could be sent in and resharpened! The company is from my state, so you’d think I’d have heard about this. I am definitely going to give this a try, as well as share this with my quilt group. Thanks, Yvonne! I have an old mint tin that I put all of my blades, needles, pins into. Once it’s full, I tape it shut and toss it in the trash.
One of the problems with changing the blades for me is either removing and picking up the old blade or separating the new blade from a package of five. I have used a straight pin to separate them but I recently bought these little purple magnetic hooks that makes handling these blades a whole lot easier and less scarier.
This is a great tip! I trim all of my client’s quilts after I quilt them, and the batting really causes lint to build up fast. I thought the locking mechanism on my cutter was broken until I changed the blade last week. I discovered that it was just clogged with lint. I will definitely be cleaning it between blade changes in the future.
Great use of batting scraps! Another (not so glamorous) use I have for the scraps are cat and dog ear cleaners.
What a good tip.