Review on anezus Self Healing Sewing Mat: 12x18 Double Sided Cutting Board for Sewing Crafts, Scrapbooking & Fabric Projects by Terry Stubblebine

This review will focus on all breadboard mats at once, which many consider and call self-healing, although in fact they are difficult to cut. Any job that involves cutting anything requires a backing pad. Even for drawing with a compass on a sheet of paper, something is required to put it under the sheet. If you cut wallpaper into strips of equal length, in addition to a ruler and a knife, you need to have either a piece of hardboard or plywood so as not to ruin the table or floor. For quite a long time, the Japanese company Olfa has been producing, in addition to all kinds of tools and accessories for cutting and cutting - knives, scissors, blades, such useful things as mock-up rugs. In addition to the well-known Olfa, other Chinese manufacturers now produce mock-up mats, so I don’t see the point in describing a specific brand of mock-up mat. And the Olfa company itself produces some of its products under the well-known Tamiya and Prym trademarks. These mats are a fairly soft polymer material, the task of which is primarily to protect the work surface from damage. Layout mats are primarily a consumable material and the degree of their wear depends on the frequency of use. They can be called "self-healing" purely conditionally, anyway, their surface is damaged when cutting. If you run the knife over the same place many times, the rug will be damaged in this place. The durability of the breadboard mat is determined by two factors - the thickness of the layer of the specified polymer material and the number of such layers. This is the main criterion for the cost of a breadboard mat. Of course, a thin mock-up mat always costs less than a thicker similar mat of the same manufacturer of the same size. A thin rug has a thickness of 2 millimeters, a thick one is already 3 millimeters. The simplest mat has three layers - two outer layers - protective, difficult to cut, and inside the binding layer - the base is white. When using a mock-up mat, its top layer is, of course, damaged. It is impossible to talk about complete self-healing, the damage still remains. The second useful point from the use of such a mock-up rug is the lower bluntness of the cutting edge of the knife or blade. Needlewomen and modellers have long appreciated mock rugs. For convenience, a grid is applied to the mock-up rugs - centimeter or inch. There are also almost transparent layout mats. The size of the rugs is the most diverse, on sale you can find sizes from A4 to A1. I had a thin mat from Olfa in A2 format - on which it was very convenient to cut roll wallpaper and materials. It is impossible to store a mock-up mat rolled into a tube - it will lose its shape. The dummy rug does not like heating - from heating above 50 degrees, it can also deform, dry out and start to paint. I recommend breadboard mats to all those who like to make something at their desk, cut and even solder. No, you cannot solder on the breadboard itself. But the rug itself will protect your desktop surface from damage. It is always easier to replace a rug or unfold it than to change, for example, a countertop. There are no fibers in the breadboard - you can cut in any direction and its structure will not interfere with the movement of the blade. It is not necessary to apply force when cutting on the mat. Still, the layout rug can be cut, remember this. It makes no sense to buy a rug for the entire work surface, it is quite expensive and impractical. If you are working with small parts - take a mat of the appropriate size A4 or A3. The mat will only wear out the part you use the most. For cutting fabrics, for example, with a roller knife, of course, you need a larger layout mat so that the future pattern fits completely without folds and folds. Model mats are also used as a standard accessory for photography and product reviews. In my reviews, you have repeatedly seen the hero of the second plan - an A4 layout mat. Now I have only two small rugs from an unknown manufacturer at hand, which I showed you in the photographs. The photos show a brand new translucent mat and lightly used green. Scratches on its surfaces from cutting are visible in the photo in my other reviews.