A clay blade is the tool you reach for most and think about least. These are long, thin steel blades for slicing canes, trimming edges, cutting clean straight lines and lifting finished work off the tile without distorting it — jobs a craft knife does badly because its short edge drags and its point digs in.

Rigid blades hold a dead-straight line. They are what you want for cutting cane slices of even thickness, trimming a slab square, and any cut where a wobble would show. The stiffness is the point — the blade goes where you put it and does not follow the clay.

Ginger Davis Allman bought one of these from us and had a short verdict on it: “this blade is a rigid Cernit blade I just bought from Blueberry Beads, and it’s ultra-sharp. Excellent.”

These are genuinely sharp. Sharp enough to cut you badly before you have registered touching them — Ginger Davis Allman’s standing warning on ultra-sharp clay blades is worth repeating. Check which edge is the cutting edge by eye before each cut rather than finding it by feel, keep the blade somewhere it cannot be picked up blind, and keep it away from children.

Wipe them dry after cleaning. Steel this thin will spot if it is left damp.

Ginger Davis Allman surveys the whole category — blades, slicers and the tools built around them — in Polymer Clay Slicers — An Overview at The Blue Bottle Tree.

• Cernit reference: CE908C
• Type: Rigid
• Quantity: 2 blades
• Material: Steel