Andrew King’s Go-To Knife – The 25mm H-1 Extra Heavy-Duty w/ Rubber Inset Utility Knife
During my day job I am a building engineer for commercial buildings and do tasks relating to HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and more. I really dip my toes into every type of job/trade you can imagine, which requires me to utilize a lot of tools. One hand tool that I always need to have on hand is a good utility knife. I am left handed, which means that not all knives were designed for me, and I prefer a heavy duty knife, which is why my go-to knife is the 25mm H-1 Extra Heavy-Duty Rubber Inset Utility Knife.
The 25mm H-1 Utility Knife has a rectangular shape making it easy for me to flip it around and use it left handed. A lot of other knives require a little more maneuvering to make using them comfortable in my left hand. The shape of this one makes it comfortable to hold in my left hand and still be able to move the dial, and it fits best in my pocket. The handle of the H-1 has a good grip with rubber on it, which makes it easy to have a strong hold on the knife even when your hands get sweaty from working. This is an important feature for me because I often use the H-1 at work when I’m working with the water softeners at my buildings. They are down in the basement where it’s very humid and hot, and I am often needing to add salt pellets and check on them, the rubber on the knife’s handle makes it easy for me to maintain a strong grip when slicing open the big sacks of salt. The 25mm H-1 Utility Knife has a tough, Silver Snap Blade and stainless-steel support channel, so it doesn’t corrode, making it the ideal knife to keep on hand in that type of environment.
I also use the knife to help me complete electrical and plumbing jobs in my buildings. The blade comes in handy when I need to score paint to get outlet covers off cleanly when people paint over it, in order to perform maintenance on the outlet. It also helps me to cut zip ties holding wires together, or to easily remove electrical tape. When completing plumbing work I use it to aid in work on supply lines, and cut gaskets and PBC tubing, which requires a strong blade.
As a side hobby I love to get my hands busy with some wood working projects. I was recently installing shelving in my closet and the 25mm H-1 Utility Knife came in handy when I needed to trim the shelves to fit inside the closet. The shelves were NDF laminated boards and I needed to be able to trim the plastic piece on the face of them to fit. The extra-heavy duty knife and 25mm blade cut right through the front trim, and helped me make easy cuts to fly through the project. During almost all of my woodworking projects I use the blade to score the board before I cut, so I have a good line to base my cut off of, increasing the precision of the cut.
If you’re looking for an extra-heavy duty knife to keep in your tool bag for a number of jobs, this is the one. There aren’t many materials that this 25mm H-1 Extra Heavy-Duty Rubber Inset Utility Knife can’t handle.
Andrew King Bio
As a building engineer you'll find Andrew King bouncing across several job fields. He may be doing plumbing repairs today and drywall, electrical or painting tomorrow. Outside of work he is a hobbyist woodworker and a tool reviewer. He loves spending time with my kids, a steady flow of caffeine and watching baseball. Follow Andrew on Instagram and YouTube, and check out his website for his latest tool reviews.