North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Rob Halgren <halgren@msu.edu>]

> Hi,
>
> There are all types of razor type knifes.  Box knifes are just promotional 
> knives supplied to stores (or they
> were) to open boxes.
>
> What I think of as a box knife is called a box cutter.  I may be wrong in the 
> reference.  Here is an image of a
> box cutter;
>
> http://www.promoheadquarters.com/box%20cutters.jpg

Those are pretty fancy box cutters, although I think the one with the 
blade held perpendicular to the handle is actually the paint scraper 
configuration.  We always had plain aluminum ones.  I spent far too many 
years of my formative years stocking shelves.  I don't know where you 
can find those cheap box cutters retail.  They are about 4" long, and 
maybe 1/8" thick, and just wide enough to fit a single edged razor blade 
inside.  Fits well in a back pocket, like a pocket comb.  It is a darn 
good tool for opening boxes.  I wouldn't use it for grafting.  I have 
several rather impressive scars from box cutter incidents, and that is 
using the tool in its approved manner.  Don't cut wood with it.

I think Gordon means a utility knife, although I wish he would have told 
me that trick when he taught me how to graft... I have five or six 
utility knives, I probably wouldn't have sprung for a good grafting 
knife.  You can get utility knives anywhere.  Usually black or silver, 
maybe 5" long, the blade retracts into the handle, and you can store a 
few of the blades inside the handle.  3 bucks at Home Depot.  However, 
and I'm reasonably annoyed by this, if you buy replacement blades at HD 
you get royally ripped off.  Sears sells 100 replacement blades for 
around 10 dollars.  I seem to recall spending the better part of 5 
dollars for 10 blades at HD.

Rob

--
Robert G. Halgren, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics Specialist
GTSF - Michigan State University
http://genomics.msu.edu
(517) 353-7236    -   halgren@msu.edu