Wish I had a microscope to inspect balsa vs foam...
What exactly is it about foam that is more...abrasive?

Originally Posted by Tcat

DON'T THROW USED BLADES IN THE GARBAGE! Buy a Sharp's container ot a local pharmacy. They are used for disposal of blades for checking blood sugar for diabetics and hypodermic needles. I just keep one on my bench. Contact garbage service for disposal.

Chewing gum now comes in neat plastic cup-sized containers that have a flip-top lid and a gum-sized trap door in the lid itself. I have one of these containers on my bench and use it to store all the sharps that I'd otherwise throw in the garbage. When it's full, I'll toss the whole thing in the garbage.

Steve

Originally Posted by cityevader

Anyhoo, they seemed to last longer than nowadays.

I think the same thing. Bought a pack of 100 from TH as it looked like a smokin deal. Well, you have to sharpen the new blades before you can use them

Oh well, live and learn

Ken

Also finding myself using, more often than ever, the retractable snap-off style knives. The increased length of cutting edge means any one spot of the blade gets used less, but actually it merely gives the impression of lasting longer. An additional benefit is it acts like those super flexible Japanese fine-tooth woodworking saws (forget what they're called) which gets the blade flat on the surface with the handle out of the way...just another type of tool filling a valuable niche.

Digging into memory, recall getting good results with scalpel blades, but before EBay was invented, they were hard to find.

I think mine fell off the back of an air force medical centre...

Machinate's suggestion sent me E-Shopping. Surgical cutting stuff is as easy to buy online as our trad #11 related stuff now, and not much dearer in cost. Probably comes from the same C#!&% factory as Revel/X-acto/Etc though.

Those bendy saws, which I really need to do something about - Zona?

D

Originally Posted by Dereck

Those bendy saws, which I really need to do something about - Zona?

I still use a Zona and it does okay. Still, it's not really sharp, the teeth don't seem to have much widthwise profile to them. I understand the really impressive options are Japanese razor saws. You can get stiff-backed blades called "Dozuki" for precise, shallow cuts; the general-purpose "Ryoba" with one edge for rip cuts and one edge for cross cuts; and super-flexible "Kugihik" for flush cutting.

They're supposed to be unbelievably sharp. Unlike the Zona saw, which pretty much has teeth punched out of flat steel, Japanese saws have individually profiled teeth which are sharper than most knives. Do not accidentally drag a Japanese saw across your hand.

I don't really know what good brands are, but the things are pretty commonly used in fine woodworking, which generally revolves around harder wood than we use with equal precision. Reviews should be out there.

Try www.traditionalwoodworker.com

Sit down before looking at the prices

D

hmm, prices seem quite reasonable.
In my line of work, i've kicked myself a thousand (ok, perhaps 15) times for misplacing my everyday-use 1/4" drive 7,8,10mm U-joint socket at $40 each off the tool truck.

yup, $600 sounds about right over the years for JUST those particular chrome swivel sockets.

Given the replies in this thread, I started to pay more attention to how the regular X-acto #11 blades performed.

As it turns out, I am building a classic stick model at this time, and found that those good-old single-edge razor blades really work well when cutting and fitting 1/8" square sticks into a trusswork fuselage. The #11 blades - not so good.

I don't have any big complaints about the #11 blades. They come in handy for some tasks. One thing is certain, they are thicker than razor blades - which fits the mashing comment in one of the replies in this thread.