Ditch the pencil and grab your best utility knife. If you’re a tradesman or just particularly handy, then you naturally value resourcefulness. Sometimes we don’t have a tool at hand and need to improvise because the situation demands it. That happens when you use a square nose shovel to remove shingles…or you Today, we’re taking a quick look at the utility knife marking tool lifehack.
Using a Utility Knife as a Marking Tool
We use a utility knife for cutting all sorts of stuff. But have you ever used it for marking a cut line on wood when you don’t have a pencil? That’s one of the things our Pro team threw at us as a quick trick. After we started using this hack, we never really stopped. The utility knife makes for a great marking tool on wood.
Yes, a shallow score mark may be harder to see than a pencil mark, but it’s a thinner and more precise mark, too. And if you’re framing or doing other rough work, making a score mark in the wood is not a problem. For finer work, make the mark either shallow enough to be sanded or part of the waste cut.
Use Your Utility Knife Like a Pencil
Even if you don’t like to use your utility knife like a pencil, you still need a way to sharpen your pencil. That brings us right back to the utility knife! If you work as a carpenter or contractor, it’s a tool you (likely) always have on hand. You might as well put it to work.
Bonus Round Utility Knife Lifehacks
For extra credit, here are a few other ideas our team grabs a utility knife for. Some tasks we do more frequently than others:
- Stripping the insulation from electrical wires
- Scraping off or cleaning up extra caulk
- Removing paint from screw heads
- Whittlin’ when you’re sitting on the porch
We hope you’ve enjoyed this utility knife Pro lifehack. What are some of the non-traditional ways you use a utility knife? Tell us about it in the comments below!
