G3 Skin Trimmer

This thing is awesome. Sometimes a simple tool makes your life better. This is one of those tools.

It’s faster, easier, and more precise.

When I’d gotten a new pair of skins this winter, a friend offered to let me borrow her skin trimmer. Never again will I choose to trim a skin the old-fashioned way of centering, marking, moving, checking, checking again, cutting, moving, checking, checking again, cutting. With the G3 skin cutter, it’s simply center, recheck centering, cut, cut again.

I’d been concerned that the offset might be too large, leaving too much base exposed, but in fact, it’s just the way I like it.

The skin trimmer is a well-engineered tool; I’d been concerned about durability, as I’ve broken a couple of the re-purposed letter-openers that have come with skins in the past. This one has done two pair of skins without any perceptible wear to the plastic. The handgrip fits in the hand, and the cutter head is robust enough.

The finished cut is great. As I recall, cutting with the grain of the skin worked better. The cutter does not excel at thin cuts, but if you use it right, you really don’t need to make any. Getting it started on a narrow taper was a minor challenge, but any leftover swarf can be removed with a razor blade should it occur.

I didn’t weigh the cutter, as the cutter’s weight is irrelevant. It gets the job done.

Thanks, G3, for a great innovation!