Really the hard surface mats keeps the blades sharper longer. You aren't cutting into the mat. The industry where I use to work cut many gaskets and only hard surface mats were used. The blades for that cutting were too expensive to use the self healing mats. I wish I had saved many of the mat pieces that were cut to size, some discarded pieces were over four feet square. I wasn't quilting then. The mats came on flat bed trucks laying flat. Every guy had his workshop tables at home covered in them. LOL