Shadow Hobby | Thinnerline Circle Cutter
Reviewed by Carl Kung
I recently picked up this new circle cutter released by Shadow Hobby. It's a new style of circle cutter without the drawbacks of the much more common compass style circle cutters many of us have and use.
It's basically a large cartridge bearing with a plastic (acrylic?) insert mounted to the inner bearing race. There's a non-slip ring mounted onto the backside of the outer race to keep it from slipping.
The cutter comes with a single 60° blade which according to the instructions is suitable for materials up to 0.1mm in thickness. There are 30° and 45° blades available as well for thicker materials.
There are gradations marked along the slide to assist in setting the needed diameter.
The blade is inserted into the holder and then you adjust the depth accordingly. They recommend using a cutting mat under the circle cutter to prolong the life of the blade.
I tested it out cutting some circles out of green painter's tape. You basically put the cutter on the tape, set the diameter, rotate it counterclockwise a revolution or two and you're done.
The nice thing about this cutter is there is no centre point/hole that you would get from the compass style cutters and it doesn't wobble or slip.
It also lets you cut really small circles. This one is just over 1 mm in width as you can see by the ruler. Being able to make circles that small should help for masking dial faces on those kits that have clear instrument panels.
I'm really happy with my purchase and if you do order one, I would recommend getting some spare blades at the same time.
© Carl Kung 2017
This review was published on Wednesday, June 28 2017; Last modified on Wednesday, June 28 2017