One of the bonus motivations for building my cardboard companion minion was a test run of the Canary Corrugated Cardboard Cutter (*). After my experience in that project, I am now a big fan of this tool.

I learned of the Canary cutter via CRASHSpace, a longstanding maker community in the greater LA area. As they are on the opposing side of downtown LA it is not trivial for me to visit. But now that everything is virtual, I actually have more interaction with members of that community than I would have otherwise.

One of the recent discoveries started by watching Barb Noren's session "Tinkering @ Home" for Virtually Maker Faire 2020. One of the topics was their Tinkering Toolkit and the Canary cutter in that kit caught my eye. Given the popularity of home delivery in these times, many of us are going through a large number of corrugated cardboard boxes. We could throw them in the recycle bin, but Barb Noren asserts that is a waste: they are useful raw material for projects! And the Canary cutter is how reDiscover Center can set children loose on cardboard, as young as seven years old, under adult supervision.

I've built many projects with corrugated cardboard, using X-Acto blades for fine detail and large box cutter knives for large cuts. And yes, I've had my share of accidental cuts and so I was immediately interested in the idea of a much safer cutting tool. I was willing to trade off some cutting effectiveness if it would gain me more safety. And after asking Barb a few questions about it at a virtual CRASHSpace event, I ordered one of my own to try.

When my Canary cutter arrived, I saw a well built tool with a plastic handle for manipulating the metal cutting blade, which was edged with fine serrations. It looked fine but did not inspire great expectations. That attitude changed as soon as I took a test cut. I had expected the serrated teeth to tear rough edges in the cardboard, and I had expected the less-scary blade to also be less effective than a sharp blade at cutting.

I was wrong on both counts.

The Canary cutter cut through corrugated cardboard amazingly quickly, with less effort than box cutter blades, and left a pretty clean edge. Yes, if I compare it side-by-side with something cut by a sharp knife I can see a difference, but when we're working with corrugated cardboard we're not exactly working with precision tolerances anyway. And the serrated edge cuts enough clearance that the blade does not get stuck, which my box cutter knives tend to do. Freeing a stuck sharp knife is the major cause of my crafting injuries, so just by eliminating that scenario, things became a whole lot safer.

However, it is still a cutting knife that demands respect, as I've already managed to draw my own blood once. But it is much less dangerous than putting big box cutter knives in the hands of children. Since Barb's session video, reDiscover Center has posted another video about using the Canary cutter.

I'm pretty amazed at how well the Canary cutter worked. This reduces the barrier of entry for corrugated cardboard projects in the future. As the above video stated, it is not suitable for all cuts. We'd still need to have scissors and our old friend the X-Acto blade for fine detail, but for large cuts the Canary cutter is pretty amazing. Anyone who wants to unleash their creativity on corrugated cardboard should get one. (*)

Naturally, with my hands on such a fun new tool, I didn't stop at just one project and found another cardboard project to start on.

(*) Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.