Whenever possible, our crew uses “in-line” framing for walls to save lumber (weight from above bears directly on studs, and plates are joined with steel splices). Because this style of framing allows a single top plate, our walls are a little less than 8 ft. tall. The obvious downside to this technique is that we end up having to trim about an inch off the ends of our drywall. This is tedious work with a utility knife, so I bought an edge trimmer for $25. It didn’t work very well, making the job even more frustrating. Forced to come up with something, I screwed together some pieces of 1x scrap to make a cutting guide and attached a couple of “snap-off utility knife blades to its top edge (see drawing). When I slide this tool along the edge of a piece of drywall, the blades cut from both sides, making it quick and easy to remove uniform strips from a sheet of drywall.
—Brian Bush, Dafter, MI
Edited and illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #62
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I'd like to know where you find pre-drilled snap-off blades.
Look at the bottom of the blade. There's a hole there.
You could patent and market that one.