Choosing knives, scissors and hand tools if you are left-handed

Most cutting tools are not neutral objects that a left-handed person has to get used to. A good many of them are built with a handedness designed in, and using one in the other hand does not just feel awkward, it changes what the tool physically does to the material.

Once you know which tools have a handedness and which genuinely do not, the problem mostly disappears, and it turns out to be a shorter list than you might expect.

Scissors, where it is real

Scissors are the clearest case, and the reason is mechanical rather than a matter of comfort.

Two scissor blades do not simply close, they pass each other, and they have to be held together as they pass or the material slides into the gap instead of being cut. In a right-handed pair, that sideways force comes from the way a right hand naturally squeezes: the thumb pushes one way, the fingers the other, and the blades are pressed together at the pivot.

Put the same pair in a left hand and every one of those forces reverses. The squeeze now pushes the blades apart. The material folds down into the widening gap rather than being cut, which is exactly the chewed, bent edge that left-handed people are used to and often assume is their technique.

There is a second problem on top of it. With the upper blade on the wrong side, your own hand covers the cutting line, so you are working blind along precisely the line you are trying to follow.

The answer is a pair that does not care. Our 6.5in comfort grip scissors are made ambidextrous, and they are spring loaded, which also removes the repeated squeeze that causes most of the hand fatigue in a long session.

Craft knives, where it mostly is not

Knife handles are better news. A round handle has no handedness at all, because there is no orientation to get wrong. The K1 is a plain knurled round handle and works identically in either hand, as do most of the Excel handle range.

What to avoid is a handle with a moulded finger grip or an asymmetric profile. Those are shaped around a right hand, and in a left hand they rotate the blade a few degrees off vertical without you noticing. On a straight cut against a rule, a few degrees is a bevelled edge you did not ask for.

Blades, where it is real again and nobody mentions it

This is the part that gets missed, and it matters more than the handle.

A double honed blade is refined on both faces, so its edge sits on the centre line of the blade. It cuts identically whichever hand drives it, and it is the reason the #11 and #21 are safe defaults for anyone.

A chisel grind is the opposite by definition: flat on one face, bevelled on the other. That asymmetry is the whole point of the shape, and it means the blade steers. Held with the flat face against your work it pares cleanly; held with the bevel against the work it lifts away. Which of those you get depends on which hand you are holding it in.

So if a chisel blade is behaving differently for you than a tutorial suggests, you are not doing it wrong. Turn the blade over in the handle, or approach the cut from the other side, and it will behave as described.

Direction, which fixes most of the rest

Almost all cutting instructions assume a right-handed reader without saying so. "Cut left to right along the rule" is not a rule about cutting, it is a rule about right hands, and following it left-handed puts your hand across the work and the blade at an awkward angle.

Mirror it. Cut right to left, put the rule on the other side of the line, and keep the waste on the side your hand is not.

Two things that follow from that and are worth being deliberate about:

The rule goes on the keep side. If the blade wanders it should wander into the offcut, not into the piece you are making. Mirrored, that means the opposite side from every diagram you will see.

Cut away from your holding hand. Obvious until you mirror a set of instructions without thinking, at which point half of them have you cutting towards yourself.

What to buy

Ambidextrous scissors, a round-handled knife, and double honed blades cover almost everything. Beyond that the only tools worth checking before you buy are those with a moulded grip, a thumb rest, or a single-bevel edge.

If you are unsure whether a particular handle takes the blade you want, the compatibility chart on our Excel page lists every blade against the handles it fits.