Cutting open boxes and cardboard once or twice is a simple enough job that any good pair of scissors can handle with ease. However, it’s when you need to cut through several or dozens of them that it gets really sore on your hands and wrists pretty quickly. The solution is motorising the entire process, which is what Ryobi has since done.
Their RCT4-120G cordless cutting tool is basically a motorised box cutter, which features a spinning blade and a flat metal cutting guide to ensure a straight and smooth cut. Boxes are what you’ll mostly be using this cordless cutting tool for, but it can just as easily cut through thin plastics, paper, leather, fabric, tape, wrappers, cable ties, and so on.
So, as long as it’s not too thick or tough that could overpower the Ryobi RCT4-120G cutting tool’s blade or motor, or if it can’t fit through the metal cutting guide, you’ll have no problems cutting through them. The cutting thickness limit is about 6.4mm, which is a sizeable margin for most of the things that you’ll likely be cutting with it.
In practice, you can essentially use this in place of scissors, but a motorised version. Thus, saving you from the repetitive and exhaustive nature of needing to work your hands to the bone. Though I get that cutting with scissors, a box cutter, or a knife isn’t that hard if you’re only cutting through stuff every so often and if you’re only going through a couple of boxes at a time.
Although, when you need to go through a lot of stuff at once, it’s very handy to motorise that tedious task and let a spinning 1/4-inch blade and a 270RPM electric motor do the work for you. For £73.99, this might sound expensive for a tool that cuts through plastic wrappers or boxes, but those hand and wrist sores that it could alleviate are worth it in of itself.
Makes Mincemeat Of Anything You Throw At It
For us here at Motor Verso, given that we spend a lot of time working on cars, this has been a major time saver, and it’s made the arduous task of cutting through an endless pile of boxes so much easier. We have loads of project cars, and chopping through cardboard and plastic that new car parts often ship with, and to be able to do so with such ease, speed, and effortlessness, is quite a nice experience.
The Ryobi RCT4-120G cutting tool’s blade is made to be self-sharpening, which is another neat touch. This cordless cutting tool makes mincemeat of any cardboard packaging or boxes that I’ve thrown at it. This is where you notice the biggest difference between it and a regular pair of sharp scissors; being able to slice all day, every day, without your hands getting tired, as it just blitzes through them, with no fuss at all.
Besides the more practical side of things, I can also see the Ryobi RCT4-120G cutting tool being a fantastic addition for DIYers, makers of arts and crafts, or people who want to be more creative with their project cars. Even though it’ll cut through a straight line with ease, you could also get it to cut rather precise and sharp angles on it that’s not always so easily done with regular scissors.
This includes curves or complex shapes, and it could be really handy if you’re using this to cut templates or stencils, for instance, or shapes that you’d like to fill in with paint while you’re adding a decal or livery onto your car. Plus, using the actual tool itself is also fairly straightforward, too. There are only two buttons – a safety switch, and right where your thumb would lie, there’s another button to turn it on or off.
An Easily Interchangeable & Rechargeable Battery
Within the handle, accessible from a screw-on cap at the end of the tool, this is where you can insert the USB-rechargeable 4V 2Ah battery. On the Ryobi RCT4-120G cutting tool, there’s an LED status indicator on the handle that could tell you when you’re low on charge; where a single battery is rated to last just under 30 minutes.
The other awesome thing about this battery, is its ability to be interchanged easily with the other tools in Ryobi’s 4V Lithium line-up, of which the RCT4-120G cutting tool is just one of many in the range. All of the included 4V 2Ah batteries even have a neat indicator light when you plug them in to inform you when it’s being charged… Pulse for charging, and solid light for when they’re done charging.
I do like how these batteries are very durable and small, so you could easily chuck a few of these into your pocket. One thing to bear in mind as well, is that by default, the Ryobi RCT4-120G cutting tool (just like all the other Ryobi 4V Lithium tools) comes included with one 2Ah battery. However, you can get an optional 3Ah battery, which is plug-and-play, but with added battery capacity.
This way, you can work for longer, although the standard 2Ah batteries are long enough for most of what I’ll be using the Ryobi RCT4-120G cutter tool for. Moreover, those 2Ah and 3Ah batteries can even be used as an emergency power bank for your phone. All in all, Ryobi’s RCT4-120G cordless cutting tool is a simple device to understand and work with, yet for what it can do, it does so very, very well.
