Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsDon't be misled: 60 mm does *NOT* take specialty blades (i.e. pinking; scallop/peak; wave)
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2020
REVIEW OVERVIEW/TL;DR SUMMARY:
2 stars. Solid ergonomics and safety features can't offset standard blades that dull quickly (per other reviewers) and "specialty" blades that -- contrary to Amazon's description of this product -- are made only for the 45 mm cutter and are not available for the 60 mm cutter.
REVIEW:
Having owned the Olfa 60 mm rotary cutter since 2017, I'm rating it 2 stars. While the 60 mm rotary cutter rates full marks for ergonomics, ease of use (for righties and lefties alike), and safety features, I dock the cutter three stars for two major issues, only one of which I've seen mentioned in other reviews.
The first issue -- as several reviewers have mentioned -- is that the included standard blade becomes dull almost immediately, indicating that Olfa deliberately ships dull blades in order to force customers to shell out for replacement blades immediately. (Not cool.) What's more, during my 3 years of use, I've found that the sharpness of replacement standard blades isn't necessarily uniform, even straight out of the package.
But even more problematic than this -- at least for me -- was a factor that I haven't seen mentioned in other Amazon reviews of the 60 mm rotary cutter: specifically, that the range of optional "Specialty Blades" (i.e. pinking, scallop/peak. and wave) depicted as options in the "Product Description" section of Amazon's page for the 60 mm rotary cutter **are actually not available for the 60 mm cutter.**
Instead -- again, contrary to Amazon's own web description of the 60 mm iteration of this cutter -- **Olfa makes pinking, scallop/peak, and wave specialty blades for ONLY the 45 mm version of the cutter.**
I purchased the 60 mm rotary cutter on the strength of Amazon's description, as I needed a rotary cutter whose blade options would assist me with both paper-cutting tasks (i.e. use of the standard blade to cut stacks of paper for bookbinding or to feed into a desktop scanner for digitizing) and thick-fabric-cutting tasks (i.e. accommodating a pinking blade to add a fray-resistant pinking edge to the scraps of denim, cotton duck, and canvas that I use for sashiko and boro textile repairs).
Alas, without the option of the aforementioned specialty blades, the 60 mm cutter is nowhere near as versatile as the product’s Amazon page led me to believe at the time of my purchase.
UPSHOT:
Is the 60 mm version of the Olfa rotary cutter the most popular rotary cutter sold on Amazon today? Yup; the same was true when I bought it on the strength of Amazon's description 3 years ago. But is the 60 mm iteration of this cutter the best option available for a customer who'd like a $25-$30 cutting tool to be as versatile as possible? Nope: that honor appears to go to the 45 mm version, as it alone accommodates Olfa’s specialty blades.
YMMV, of course, but IMHO, if you need a truly versatile tool, the 45 mm version just might be a better bet for you than the 60 mm version.
