Such excitement – a little parcel dropped through the letter box a few days ago. I couldn’t recall ordering anything so, like a child on Christmas Day, the envelope was soon removed.
Out fell the Colonial Mat Smoother. This had been sent to UKQU from EQS, and thence to me, with a request to review the product.
Not wanting to give it an easy ride, I got out my lovely old cutting mat which has truthfully seen better days. So let’s see how it does!
The Mat Smoother looks rather like a disc of sharpening steel on a plastic handle. The blurb on the packet suggests that it will remove the tiny strands of wadding etc that become lodged in the crevices of your cutting mat – thus stopping the self-healing process. It will also smooth knicks and burrs.
The technique is to smooth the disc backwards and forwards across the mat, especially in any area that has fibres lodged or has rough areas. You then need to wipe it over with a clean damp cloth or its sister product – the Colonial Lint Magnet.
Running my hand over the mat I could really feel all the roughness. You can see it is well used, a bit stained, and you can even see some fibres that are lodged.
You need to use a bit of “elbow grease” (but not too much – I am after all lazy at heart!) and then a quick swish over with a clean damp cloth and it was ready to test. Look at all the “stuff” that was released!
I am really impressed with the result. The mat is visibly smoother, and running my hand over it, it really feels so much smoother. It seems as though I am getting a “cleaner cut” too – I had reached a point where my rotary cutter wasn’t cutting cleanly – almost like it was catching some resistance, even with a new blade. It seems to cut “like a hot knife through butter” so I am thinking that the mat smoother has done its job and there are now no knicks, burrs or fibres.
It scrubbed up pretty well!!
Thank you, EQS and UKQU.
do you know the retail price of this item please?
I did a search for it and in the UK Quilt Direct has it for £19, Amazon has it cheaper. I didn’t bother searching further than that.
thank you
Great item but very expensive which is disappointing.
I think I would view it as money sell spent as it would prolong the life of the mat. It really made a huge difference to my much loved, old and abused mat!
Thank you. Interesting review. Good to know it works.
It really did work well – the difference in the before and after photos is stunning!
Lucky you Sheena to get such a useful product to review 😉 Nice blog and looks like you really put this item through its paces x
Hi Ingrid – yes, I really did!! No point trying it out on something that didn’t need the work! Thank you for your nice comment. Much appreciated.