Knives are a staple item used daily by all trades. However, their everyday nature doesn’t mean they have to employ an everyday design. We catch up with ToughBuilt to find out why its range is literally cut from a different cloth.
Innovation and ToughBuilt go hand in hand. The US manufacturer of hand tools and jobsite products was born out of a desire to help professionals work stronger, smarter and faster.
It began by drawing on the experiences of its team, many of whom had worked in the trade, its own observations and on feedback from professional users to develop intelligently designed jobsite products with an inventive twist. And the company hasn’t stopped inventing since.
“ToughBuilt has never been interested in designing and manufacturing ‘me-too’ products,” Matt Handley, ToughBuilt’s European Head of Marketing, comments.
“A determination to challenge convention and to push the boundaries has always been central to our approach. We are proud to be a disruptor brand and where we can’t reinvent the wheel, we’ll certainly do our utmost to improve it.”
Quick thinking
Arguably, few product lines demonstrate ToughBuilt’s commitment to rewriting the rulebook more than its knife range.
Knives may be one of the oldest hand tools known to man with a history stretching back 2.5 million years, but that hasn’t stopped ToughBuilt taking a tried and tested design and enhancing it to pioneer truly next generation solutions.
The latest hand-tool invention in the range is the ‘Reload Knife’. This new product enables the user to maximise their productivity by reducing the amount of time and effort required to change blades.
It features a removable ‘quick-eject’ magazine which can be preloaded with five blades ready for immediate use and there is space for a further 10 blades to be safely and securely stored behind a snap shut door.
Once the magazine is loaded into the knife, a safe release button allows the knife’s existing blade to be removed quickly before a fresh blade can be driven into position with the slide of a thumb. The entire process takes just seconds.
On top of this, the magazine can be dropped clear of the knife using a simple one-handed trigger operation, allowing a new magazine of fresh or different blades to be reloaded with speed and ease.
The magazine also features an integrated indicator with three positions which makes it easier to identify what type of blades a magazine contains at a glance.
ToughBuilt’s Reload Knife is supplied with two magazines and a pack of five versatile straight blades and five ultra-durable hook nose blades. The magazines can be also used with most standard sized aftermarket blades and with additional blade formats such as hawkbill, serrated, and curved.
Like all ToughBuilt knives, the Reload Knife has been engineered from the ground up to be ToughBuilt in name, and in nature. As a result, and again like all the other products in the range, it is backed by ToughBuilt’s 25-year guarantee, which applies to the tool only (rather than the blades). To enjoy this peace of mind, you simply need to register your purchase using an easy to complete online form on the company’s website.
Pioneering world firsts
The introduction of ToughBuilt’s new Reload Knife comes shortly after the launch of the manufacturer’s world-first 2-in-1 Scraper Utility Knife, which combines a utility knife and scraper in one tool, with the flick of a button.
“The ToughBuilt Scraper Utility Knife was one of our proudest innovations of 2021,” explains Matt.
“It can be used as a utility knife to cut all manner of materials or as a scraper to remove paint, sealants, putty, adhesives and labels from surfaces like windows, mirrors and tiles. Plus it has a paint can opener and carry loop at the bottom. Our brand new Reload Knife is the perfect follow-up product in this category.”
Wide and varied range
The wider ToughBuilt knife range also includes firmly established and popular products such as a Folding Hawkbill Knife, a Tradesman Knife with sheath and an Insulation Knife, also with sheath.
Without exception, all of these products employ a heavy-duty construction using premium grade materials and benefit from innovative features to increase their ease and effectiveness of use.
“Our unrelenting focus on delivering new innovations in a category like knives reflects our desire to offer the professional user the maximum possible benefit of our forward-thinking approach,” says Matt.
“A leap forward in capabilities on a product used every now and then is great but when you can pioneer new advances on a tool used every day by every trade, the gains in productivity and efficiency really stack up.”
He concludes: “Ultimately, it has a cumulative effect where even small enhancements can make a massive overall difference.”
Watch a demo video of the ToughBuilt Reload Knife here
