The Best Utility Knife Depends on the Job at Hand

The Slice<sup>®</sup> 10554 Auto-Retractable Utility Knife is the best utility knife for many cutting tasks, combining our finger-friendly<sup>®</sup> safety blades with the added safety measure of auto-retraction.
The best utility knife is the safest utility knife.

The best utility knife is the one that you’re going to keep handy in your home or industrial toolbox and use on a regular basis. 

Choosing the Best Utility Knife for Work

Although personal preference plays a large role in deciding which utility knife is best for you, always consider these factors:

  • Is it designed to be safe? 
  • Is it effective? 
  • Is it well constructed? 
  • Is it made of quality, durable materials? 

All Slice® utility knives use our patent-pending finger-friendly® safety blades. Made from 100 percent zirconium oxide, our blades are ground using a proprietary process that makes them only as sharp as they need to be in order to cut effectively, unlike the dangerously sharp edge found on traditional blades.

Our safety blades last up to 11 times longer than stainless steel blades. Even during blade replacement, our blade edges are safe to the touch, mitigating the risk of laceration from incidental contact with the blade. 

Slice constructs its tool handles from durable metals or glass-infused nylon. The components are fitted to operate smoothly and they tolerate being dropped without damaging internal mechanisms or the housing.

Slice Utility Knife Handle Types

Slice makes four basic handles for utility knives—with more on the way. The best handle for you is the one that feels good in your hand and allows you to perform your cutting task comfortably, easily, and safely. 

Fixed-Position Folding Utility Knives

Looking for the best pocket utility knife? The Slice 10562 Folding Utility Knife features two locking positions. The fully opened position is well-suited to general cutting tasks, while the angled position reduces excessive wrist strain when doing overhead or vertical cutting. 

The Slice 10562 Folding Utility Knife features two different locked positions, making it a great candidate for your best utility knife.

The 10495 EDC Folding Knife is smaller than the 10562, while offering the powerful safety and cutting effectiveness features. It offers spring-assisted blade deployment. 

Either of these folding knives would be a great candidate for your best pocket utility knife. 

Manual Utility Knife 

Need, or prefer, a manual, fixed-blade-position knife? These knives allow you to choose the perfect cutting depth for your task.

The trick to using manual knives safely is selecting the minimum blade depth required for your task, and then remembering to retract the blade entirely into the housing when the knife is not in use. 

The 10490 Manual Metal-Handle Utility Knife, features an onboard blade garage™ for extra blade storage. This handle accepts a serrated replacement blade, making it your best serrated utility knife.

The 10550 Manual Utility Knife has a glass-filled nylon handle that is both sturdy and easy to grip. It can be used in working with heavier materials, such as roofing shingles.

Auto-Retractable Utility Knife 

Want added safety built into your utility knife? Opt for one with an auto-retraction mechanism. The user engages a slider to expose the blade. As soon as the slider is released, the blade is retracted into the housing. 

The 10491 Auto-Retractable Metal-Handle Utility Knife couples safety with a popular metal handle design. This knife also accepts a serrated replacement blade, making it an excellent option as your best serrated utility knife, especially if your facility requires the use of safer auto-retractable knives.

The 10554 Auto-Retractable Utility Knife, features a durable glass-filled nylon handle and a lanyard hole, making it easy to carry with you from job to job. 

Best Retractable Utility Knife: Smart-Retraction

Auto-retraction has reduced knife-related injuries. A new advancement takes safety one step further: self-retraction. Slice calls this self-retraction mechanism “smart retracting,” because it makes the tool a smart partner in maintaining a safe workplace, instead relying solely on workers to follow safe work practices. The user holds the slider open to expose the blade, but the minute there’s no longer cutting pressure against the blade, it’s instantly and automatically retracted into the housing, even if the user is still holding the slider open. 

An example of a self-retracting mechanism is in the Slice 10558 Smart-Retracting Utility Knife. You can see this utility knife in action in this video, to help you understand why the Slice 10558 is a contender for the best retractable utility knife when it comes to safety.

Specific Utility Knives for Specific Tasks

Now that you have a better idea of the types of utility knives that are available, let’s take a look at which utility knives are best for certain tasks.

Best Utility Knife for Drywall 

If you’ve ever installed drywall, you know that it’s definitely one of those jobs where you measure twice (at least!) and cut once. Why’s that? Because you don’t really cut drywall, you score it. So you have to have accurate measurements before scoring both sides of the drywall and then snapping it along the lines you scored. If your measurements are off, it’s hard to make corrections.

Any of the Slice Utility Knives work with drywall, whether you prefer the 10550 Manual Utility Knife, the 10554 Auto-Retractable Utility Knife, or the 10558 Smart-Retracting Utility Knife.

You could also use either our 10490 or 10491 Metal-Handle Utility Knives, or even the 10562 Folding Utility Knife.

All of these utility knives are shipped with rounded-tip blades as a safety measure. However, pointed-tip replacement blades are also available.

Best Utility Knife for Cutting Carpet

Cutting carpet is a tough job for any utility knife. Work with a straightedge or a row-finder to ensure that you make your cuts between the carpet fibers where they are attached to the backing. This keeps you from cutting through the carpet fibers, making it easier to construct nearly invisible seams where different pieces of carpet butt up against each other in larger installations. 

Work from the back of the carpet. It’ll probably take several passes with your knife to cut the fibrous grid of the backing material, no matter what type of knife you use. The Slice 10490 Manual and 10491 Auto-Retractable Metal-Handle Utility Knives are best suited to cutting carpet. We recommend using these knives with our 10525 Ceramic Utility Blades (Pointed-Tip) for this application, as the pointed tip on the blade pierces tough-to-cut materials more easily. 

Best Construction Worker Utility Knife

In general construction cutting applications, any of our utility knives will work reliably, safely, and easily. It’s just a matter of handle preference. If you prefer a metal-handled utility knife, choose from our 10490 Manual Metal-Handle Utility Knife or the 10491 Auto-Retractable Metal-Handle Utility Knife. Both feature an onboard blade garage™ to store replacement blades. Both use our Utility Blades in rounded-tip, pointed-tip, or serrated edge models.

If you prefer a lightweight glass-filled nylon handle, choose from among our 10550 Manual, 10554 Auto-Retractable, or 10558 Smart-Retracting Utility Knives. All of these knives use the Ceramic Utility Knife Blades, with both rounded-tip and pointed-tip options.

If you like having a pocket knife always close at hand, choose from among our Folding Knives, either the 10562 Folding Utility Knife, which uses our Ceramic Utility Knife Blades (rounded tip or pointed tip) or the 10495 EDC Folding Knife, which uses our Box Cutter Blades (rounded tip or pointed tip).

Regardless of which utility knife handle you prefer, rest assured that with Slice safety blades, you’re choosing a safer utility knife; a knife that will be the best utility knife to keep your hands safe while you work.

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