Here’s when it’s time to change a dull utility knife blade

Knowing when to change the blade on a utility knife is important to productive and successful home improvement projects. It doesn’t matter how effective the cutting tool, it doesn’t work if the blade isn’t sharp.

Here’s how we know it’s time to change the blade on a utility knife.

I Iove 25mm blade utility knives. It took a while to get used to, but I’m all in. The one in my tool bag is a Hyde utility knife. 

But when is the 3ish-inch blade dull?

Since I don’t snap off sections like a snap-off utility knife, I use the whole thing. So how do I decide?

The tip immediately cripples like all ute-knife blades do, so there’s the rest of it to consider. There’s a whole ton of sharp behind that tip for opening packages, cutting tape, slicing string and…

The sharp vs dull utility knife test

The big test is sharpening a pencil (yeah, I, too am thinking about John Wick…with a pen-ceel).

I use the heel of the blade to sharpen my pencils and it works great. Once that’s no longer easy, the rest of the blade is caput and I swap it out.

Two kinds of utility knives

This is the kind of utility knife I keep in my tool pouch. It has one long blade, and it’s the kind I’m talking about in this blog.

This is a snap-off utility knife. It also uses the 25mm blade that I like, but each blade is scored so you can snap off the dull part and have a new blade without having to open up the blade housing and insert a new blade.

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