18 Silhouette Pen Holder Blade Hack Tutorial

You were promised you a Silhouette Blade Hack on Monday, when I used the ‘hacked’ pen holder for the DIY Planner tabs, and I shall deliver! In other quick news: Yay for staying on top of my goals/resolutions this week with three posts this week!!.

Alright so you see, I’m a huge fan of recycling. Reusing stuff not only helps the planet but makes one feel less, well wasteful. We’re no strangers to repurposing- from using doors as shelves, to using cardboard as chipboard, to making over some tired directors chairs.

Now you may be asking yourself, “but there’s pretty sketch pens, specific pen holders, a sharpie pen holder, and even transform a sketch pen holder to fit different pens, why should I follow your hack?”

Because if you’re like me, you like to repurpose what you have lying around, in this case dull blades. That or you have a teeny-tiny personal vendetta (which may or may not have involved a mini-meltdown) when you burned through your VERY FIRST blade. You know, during your frustrating learning curve-- aka trying to figure out how the dang machine operates! Newbies, the trial period is totally worth the struggles- pinky swear!!

Enough of my rambling, let’s just jump into the tutorial, mmk?

Supplies:

• Dremel + some nifty accessories, we have an accessory kit
• Dull silhouette blade
• Safety glasses
• Clamp

Yep only four items! You can totally substitute the Dremel for a sawsall or any sharp, yet durable cutting tool you have lying around paired with a drill and drill bits. Oh and for those of you intimidated by power tools, I promise once you get over your fear of power tools/sharp objects, you can TOTALLY accomplish this! Or just find a friend that isn’t a scaredy cat afraid to dig in.

Instructions:

1. Ratchet your DULL blade to zero and then keep turning until you have a small gap (see photo). Remove the ratchet (the thingy with numbers on it) and the white piece. Do this by twisting REALLLY hard until the ratchet comes apart (I had a little help from the beau). Save the ratchet piece. Please be careful, even though the blade is dull, still proceed with caution.

The blade should look like this:

Note: Some older silhouette blades don’t have this capability to remove these pieces as such so you may have to improvise and wear a little more protection (like long sleeves, maybe even a rubber apron ha!) incase pieces fly.

2. Clamp your silhouette blade to a workbench leaving the sharp end, where the ratchet and white piece used to be, extend past your work bench.

3. Using the Dremel’s cutoff wheel, cut through the black casing where the ridges end (see photo below). Be careful as the silhouette blade is being removed as the pieces may fly.

4. Using the Dremel’s high speed cutter accessory (or a drill bit close to the hole’s diameter), carefully drill a hole where the blade used to be. This will enlarge the existing hole to fit various pens. Replace the ratchet cap.

5. Since the Dremel is such high speed, it may begin melting the plastic. If so, simply use a small screwdriver (ours was included with the Dremel kit), or dowel to scrape out the excess plastic.

That’s it, folks! Really, it’s just that simple. It only took 5 minutes max. Gosh, it took me longer to take the photographs, that’s how quick it was! You’re now set to experiment.

I found that medium-fatty pens, like pictured, fit best.

You can also use narrower pens, a slight modification is in order. I haven’t tried this yet but you could line the hacked pen holder with thin craft foam. Attach the ends of the foam with a little glue- creating a ring and you should be able to remove it when switching pens.

I plan to dissect my blades make a few extra pen holders as soon as my blades run their cycle. You know, for projects that require multiple pens.

So, what do you think of the hack? Do you have a few dull blades lying around? 

P.S. We were not paid or perked from Dremel; the beau simply had this ridiculously handy tool since he was in high school.

My little disclaimer: I cannot be held liable for hurting yourself or others when attempting to recreate this tutorial. Please use your beautiful noggin and wear the proper safety equipment. Additional disclaimers can be found here.

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