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Anyone notice the OLFA blades are brittle?

ausf

Master at Arms
I love 'em, they stay sharp way longer than any X-acto I used, even the premium ones, so I don't mind the added cost, but I've come across them snapping on me while carving.

I assume it's the steel used, harder is usually more brittle.

I've had a half dozen or so snap with the clink of an M1 clip ejecting, more often than not with the blade bouncing off my forehead.

I'm thinking it's only a matter of time before one goes point first into my eyeball, so I've taken to wearing goggles when using them for sculpting...

To be clear, these are the larger ones that are the size of #11s, not the smaller ones, those seem to stay intact (but that might be a factor of blade size, not material).

I've had plenty of X-acto tips break off in my day, but these are snapping at the base and going airborne with velocity. The ones that haven't bounced off my melon have made it across the shop.
 
I had the very tip snap of while cutting some PE...but the biggest problem for me at present is I can't for the life of me find mine :( I believe there are gremlins in my shop...third thing I have lost this month.
 
Sounds to me like they weren't tempered down from being hardened. If you want to try and temper one down a little, take the blade and set it on a larger piece of metal. Then slowly heat it until you see a slight color change. The color you want to see is a yellowish tinge. If you heat it until it turns purple or blue you went too far.

I would suggest experimenting on one of the broken blades until you have some idea of what the process looks like. This is a common process I have to do if I make a watch part or tool. Harden the part, then clean the part and lightly heat it until you have the color change to a straw (yellowish) color. Might add a new skill to your set.

Still horrible lag on typing, loading pages is still fast and smooth. Might be a buggered update to my Chrome, flash or Java on my computer.
 
Paul the website is really static when you're typing a message, think you're right, might be a spell checker or some plug in slowing you down.
 
These are all different blades from different vendors over time. Some direct from Japan, some local.

I don't think it's a flaw, I don't know much about metallurgy but I thought very sharp things made of steel are brittle due the the type used. I'm thinking of those machinist drill bits or CNC bits.

I probably didn't make this clear, I'm carving hardened Aves, there's some serious pressure on the blade and it's certainly not what they were intended for, but I've never had X-Actos do this, they usually just lose the tip and it sticks in whatever I'm working on.

The OLFA blades snap like they have some serious pent up energy.

I'll try the heating method Paul, thanks for that, but realistically, I should just use the Dremel instead when I need to really dig in. It's mostly laziness, it's easier to keep going rather than crack a window, turn on the exhaust and still get covered in static-clinging dust.
 
You might look into getting some jewelers engravers. It takes a bit of knowledge to sharpen them but they are one of my main tools when it comes to carving.
 
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