Rotary Cutter with Extra Steel Spare Blade - Driffy - 45mm

A 45mm rotary cutter with a safety lock and one spare Japanese SKS-7 steel blade. The straightforward option if you cut quilting cotton and want a good cutter without paying for a coating you may not need.

Specification

Left or right handed

The blade mounts on either side. Undo the nut, move the blade and washers across, rebuild in the same order. The safety lock works the same either way.

Easier on the hands than scissors

A rotary cutter uses a rolling edge and your body weight rather than repeated grip-and-squeeze, which is why quilters with arthritis or weak grip strength tend to move to one. It also cuts several layers in a pass, so a stack of strips takes one cut instead of four.

None of that helps if the blade is blunt. A tired blade needs more force, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid, so change it when it starts skipping threads.

Which of our cutters should I buy?

Same cutter in each. The difference is the spare blades.

Using it well

Cut on a self-healing mat, away from your body, standing rather than sitting. Square the fabric first. Replacement blades are available in packs of ten. This is the version our own buying guide recommends as the default starting cutter — see how it compares to Olfa and Fiskars for the full reasoning.

Keep out of reach of children.