Box Cutter Blade Replacement

Slice® makes two models of box cutter featuring our innovative, award-winning J-hook design. With the 10400 Manual Box Cutter, the user engages and retracts the tool’s blade manually using a slider. The 10503 Auto-Retractable Box Cutter, on the other hand, has the additional safety feature of auto-retraction. The user engages the blade by pushing a slider and holding it in place during the cutting task. If the user releases the slider, the blade automatically retracts into the housing. Both tools can be used ambidextrously and are compatible with the same box cutter blades, which are easily replaced, as shown in the video.

Box cutter blade replacement is a very dangerous task if you’re using a traditional box cutter. Traditional blades are overly sharpened when they’re manufactured, in an attempt to extend their useful life (metal dulls quickly and most ceramic blade makers sharpen their blades with the same dangerous method). This means more blade replacement and every time you handle a traditional blade, you risk a costly and painful laceration injury.

The Slice Blade Difference

Manufacturers of traditional box cutters are focused on getting an extended usable life from their box cutters. Metal, even stainless steel, dulls more quickly than our engineered ceramic blades, as zirconium oxide is far harder on the Mohs scale than stainless steel. Manufacturers of traditional box cutters (whether their blades are metal or ceramic) sharpen their blades to a far greater degree than necessary, sacrificing user safety to enhance short-term productivity. The focus at Slice® is on safety. We make our blades as sharp as they need to be, and no sharper.

Our ceramic safety blades feature a unique, patent-pending, double-angle grind that is applied to our 100 percent zirconium oxide blades by hand, using a diamond wheel. The result is a finger-friendly® blade edge that not only is safer to touch, but also stays sharp longer, proving that you don’t have to sacrifice user safety.

Slice blades have also been proven to last up to 11.2 times longer in head-to-head comparisons with stainless steel blades. Longer lasting blades require less frequent replacement. When you do need to replace one of our ceramic safety blades, our proprietary edges are going to keep you safer from potential lacerations.

In addition, our blades have certain properties that make them extremely useful in many industries. They’re non-magnetic, non-conductive, non-sparking, chemically inert, non-contaminating, non-reactive, impervious to acids and salt, non-porous, chemically resistant, and never rust. These properties make them useful for industries such as:

  • Pulp/Paper Processing
  • Aerospace
  • Biomedical
  • Electrical

How to Replace Box Cutter Blades

Sooner or later, even longer-lasting Slice box cutter blades will need to be replaced. Both the 10400 Manual Box Cutter and the 10503 Auto-Retractable Box Cutter use the same type of blades. Although we ship our box cutters with rounded-tip blades as an added safety measure, replacement box cutter blades are available in both rounded-tip and pointed-tip versions.

With Slice, learning how to replace box cutter blades is a matter of following a few simple steps. Turn the box cutter on its side and look for a ridged blade door button near the tip of the tool.

Push this button away from you, removing the end of the tool and exposing the box cutter blade holder compartment. Now push the slider button forward, which allows you to grasp and remove the blade.

While holding the slider button extended, turn the blade over and reinsert it to use the other end of the blade, getting more life from a single blade, or insert a new blade. Let the slider move back, retracting the blade into the housing.

Replace the blade door onto the end of the box cutter. Listen for the click to ensure it is properly seated. Now your box cutter is ready to use.

The blade replacement process for both models is exactly the same, with one exception for the 10400 Manual Box Cutter. With the 10400, you must ensure that the blade is fully retracted into the housing before you attempt to remove the blade door and gain access to the box cutter blade holder compartment.

How to Dispose of Box Cutter Blades Properly and Safely

Now that you know how to remove and replace your Slice box cutter blades, you should be aware of the correct procedures on how to dispose of them. Box cutter blades, especially traditional blades, can be dangerous when they are not safely encased in their tool housing.

Knowing where to dispose of box cutter blades is essential to keeping others from accidental puncture or laceration injuries. Traditional box cutter blades always require sharps box disposal. This extra safety measure prevents workers who perform waste clean-up tasks from being injured as they transport used blades. A box cutter blade thrown in the regular trash can easily rip through flimsy plastic and cause serious injuries.

Slice rounded-tip blades don’t present the same danger of an inadvertent puncture injury, and their finger-friendly blade edges significantly lower the chance of lacerations. We do recommend, however, that our pointed-tip box cutter blades be disposed of in a sharps box, as an added safety precaution against punctures.

Our ceramic blades are also recyclable. If you can’t find a facility near you that knows how to recycle box cutter blades made from ceramics, contact us and we’ll let you know how to send your used blades to our headquarters for recycling here.

Ready to dive deeper? This article will tell you everything you need to know regarding Slice safety blades. Likewise, check out this linked article if you’d like to learn more about ceramic blades.

Now that you know how easy box cutter blade replacement is, we hope you’ll make the safer choice to use Slice tools.