Favorite cardboard knife & questions

F

full flat grind

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Jun 5, 2015
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Who loves cutting cardboard? I do! :D

With that in mind, how would you answer the following questions?

1) What is your favorite knife for breaking down boxes? Right now mine is a toss-up between the Spyderco Domino for light boxes and Cold Steel American Lawman in CTS-XHP for heavy-duty ones. I find it a fun and useful edge-testing method. Did I mention it was fun?

2) Do you secretly look forward to shopping at Costco so you can cut their take-home boxes into little pieces for the recycling bin? I do! Since they only give you one, though, I usually get another one to help carry all that consumer goodness and of course murder it once I get it home.

3) If you answered "yes" to 2) above, have you confessed your box-carving pleasure to your wife / significant other? I have! She doesn't mind, really. Must be the right one, eh?

4) And finally, on recycling day, do you smugly look at your neighbors' overflowing bins of poorly-crushed boxes (so sloppy!) while wheeling out yours which is of course only partially full of neatly-sliced pieces of material? I do! Heh heh. Poor bastards. If they only knew there was a better way ... :D

Thanks for participating and please share any relevant thoughts you might have.

Peace.
 
Anything else is just playing.

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The first Gerber folder has Stanley’s thinest box knife blade at about 0.4mm. (I have to take a diamond grit file to the slots in the blade to get it to fit around the set screw in the knife. Just a touch; not big deal). I resharpen the blades so I don’t have to do this very often. The blade is some how designed different; shorter in length and for a nonretractible handle. I don’t break these in use so a thicker blade is unnecessary.

Obviously the second Gerber has the Carbide edged blade in it for high wear resistance when cutting abrasive junk.
 
I have many other box knives including a Milwaukee (not shown) but just use the Gerbers. So thin and light they are always with me at work. The other box knives I have things that bug me about each one so . . .




 
I know, I know this isn't what you wanted to talk about or hear but I posted this photo in another thread and it graphically illustrates why I HATE a regular thick knife for cardboard. They just get stuck trying to wedge open a three or four millimeter gap in the material and that translates in to all kinds of friction and wasted energy driving the silly thing.

Thin is the way to go.

 
Try cutting against the ribs with your blade at an angle, not 90° to the cardboard.
Less wedging, bunching and easier cutting overall.

So far my favorite is my manix 2 cruwear, followed by my O1 sodbusters. Though the O1 doesn't hold an edge as long as the cruwear.

Still have yet to get one of these though:
NJBillK said:
Dustar Model CutterJack Folding 2.9" Wharncliffe M2 Plain Blade, FRN Handles - DSCUTTERJACK
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Inexpensive and M2 steel ran to 61hrc.
While it is a little soft for M2, it will hold and edge just fine.
Click to expand...
 
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For me a Spyderco Dragonfly is one of the best at cardboard cutting. Just enough edge length, plenty of control, and fairly thin. Reprofile the bevel to 30 inclusive or less and it just whizzes through cardboard like it's not even there.

I think the bevel angle is more important than overall blade thickness. I had a Spyderco Military that was around maybe 25 degrees inclusive and that thing actually cut better than a Dragonfly with the factory bevel.
 
Wowbagger said:
Anything else is just playing.
Click to expand...

I have been thinking of this a bit...
Do you only drive a Bugatti or a Rolls Royce?

I am a knife guy, due to that I like to use knives for whatever task needs cutting and is feasible. I won't use a knife for cutting chain link fencing, but I will for cardboard, even if the performance is a bit lower overall.
 
This is my box cutter, 100+ year old Union Knifeworks Moose, (this pic's gettin' a lotta use today ;) )

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hermit dave said:
A box cutter. Cardboard is an edge destroyer.
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I've heard this before, but frankly I find that modern steels hold up just fine to cutting some cardboard. My edges don't get "destroyed." I just touch them up and they're GTG.

Wowbagger said:
Anything else is just playing.
Click to expand...

Wowbagger said:
Thin is the way to go.
Click to expand...

I get the logic. I just don't really enjoy using box cutters. The ergos kinda suck, the blade is tiny, and once it starts to get a cool patina I have to throw it away. What fun is that? ;)

But I agree, if I have to cut a huge buttload of boxes (that's a lot), I might use a box cutter as you humbly suggest. By the hundredth box or so, my blade might be getting dull and it would be more convenient to swap it out than to sharpen it.

But my post is more about the joy of breaking down a couple of boxes than the chore of plowing through a hundred. And although I get that thin is less frictional, the knives I mentioned do just fine.

To me, box cutters just aren't fun. :D
 
One note on using Spydercos for cardboard: I find that sometimes material gets caught up in the Spydie hole, creating drag. Although the PM2 is a great cutter, I've noticed that I have to be more careful to "stay away from the hole," as it were (huh huh). The Domino seems to have less trouble with this, perhaps because its blade is so wide. That is one of the reasons that, for me, the PM2 is a better EDC but the Domino is better at box cutting.
 
Alberta Ed said:
Boxcutter. Cardboard ruins edges.
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I don't get this.

I know that cardboard is abrasive, but I can break down a couple of boxes with CTS-XHP and still be able to cleanly slice phonebook paper.

What's the point of having a modern "super steel" if you can't cut some cardboard with it?
 
You can if you want and don't mind but your knife will be scratched up easily. Plus, sometimes it is not just two small boxes to cut.
 
Really if I only have one or 4 boxes a day, my SAK will be fine, but if I'm cutting up a bunch of boxes everyday, then for sure a razor utility knife is the only way to go. There are so many types out there that if you need one to be ergo, there is one that is ergo. The blades get rusty or dull, replace the blade. At 10 blades for 2 bucks it's not a big expense, plus most employers will actually provide the blades.
 
I never understood that either. We all know utility knives are great for cardboard, but we are on a knife forum so......... lol. I usually use my gec bull nose, opinel, or spyderco sage 2 that I modified a bit. I use them they get dull I resharpen. I do however agree if your breaking up a crap load of boxes like after a move I usually break down and use a utility knife. But for the most part those three gotta love thin grinds and thin blade stock.
 
If I only have 1 box to break down I usually use whatever I have in my pocket. If I have several (rare) I'll grab a knife that's seen a lot of use or go to the tool box and get the box cutter.
 
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