Cutting mat - Olfa or Birch
 

I am about to buy a large 24 x 36 inch self healing cutting mat.
The new Olfa mats are 1/16th inch thick while the Birch are 1/8th of an inch thick.
I usually steer clear of Birch products but I bought a smaller 18 x 24 inch Birch mat years ago (at least 6 years) and it is still in great condition. I was prepared to pay for the more expensive Olfa but I now discover that they are now only half the thickness of the old ones.

Would you recommend the new 1/16th of an inch (1.5mm) thick Olfa or the 1/8th of an inch (3mm) thick Birch?

I've never heard of Birch cutting mats.

I got a Riley Blake double thick mat that's printed on both sides. It is so soft, little bits break off all of the time. And my fabric gets pushed down into the cracks and pulls the threads.

I've also used the big white mats, and they are terrible.

I really love my Olfa mats!

Are your Olfa mats the 1/8th of an inch thick ones or the new 1/16th of an inch thick ones?

Sorry haven’t heard of the Birch product either and only found an Aussie site when I googled.
My Olfa mats are all OLD and working well, out of curiosity I measured their thickness and they seem to be 1/16th” of an inch.

I purchased two of these mats back in 2016 and have been very happy with them. The only issue is that the mats are exactly 36" wide, so the grid on the mats only goes up to 35". This actually works better for me, because my cutting table is exactly 36" wide, so a mat that has markings up to 36" will hang off the table just a little bit. I like that the mats are two-sided, so I can flip them over to have a different color if my fabric isn't easily visible against the color on one side.

1/16th or thinner.

I now have a Marte11i mat and it seems to be kinder to my rotary cutter. Previous1y I had an O1fa and it 1asted a 1ong time.

I couldn’t find on google where they were changing to a thinner product, where did you get that info. On this current link olfa describes it as 3.0 = 1/8”
https://www.olfaproducts.com/olfa-rm...tting-mat.html

I have one by Lori Holt/Riley blake and was surprised at how thick/soft it ish. I find myself pushing too hard into it and won't order any more (I have multiple color mats for my vision problems.)
Martelli or Olfa or Fiskers for me.

and if you don't shift/turn your mat around all the time a large one is not costeffective because you won't used 75% of it.

I got creative grids mat it was expensive but seems very nice. It has markings on both sides, one side is supposed to make it easier to use the GE design rulers. (Stripology rulers)

They don't sell the thicker ones anymore:

https://olfa.com/products/olfa-rm-mg...ng%20workspace.

This link shows that the 3mm ones are discontinued:
https://olfa.com/collections/profess...en_cutting_mat

My local fabric shop has it advertised as 3mm but when I asked what the actual thickness of the mats in store was they realised they are now 1.5mm thick. She's changing their website.

Well like I said in my previous posts….my Olfa mats are OLD but they show on my ruler as closer to 1/16th than what you mentioned as 1/8”.

I recently purchased a Martelli mat. I cut out a bunch of squares and saw that they all weren't the same size. I thought it was me, a friend came over and used it, same thing happened to her. We got out a few rulers and measured the inch marks and some were off by 1/16 th of an inch. Then we used a yard stick and a measuring tape and discovered it wasn't 36" long either. I have called Martelli and am waiting for a call back.

good grief! They get a lot of mentions as good mats in this board. I hope it is a one off problem and they are good to deal with.

We probably never noticed because so few of us use the mats for measuring cuts. Sure fire way to wear out a mat.
I use my rulers and the fabric could be anywhere on the mat. The only markings I ever use is to refer to the measurements across the bottom if I want to be sure I have enough fabric.
When I go back upstairs I measure my mat measurements ;)

ok, measured my martelli mat with three different brand 6.5" rulers. The seems to lay perfectly at that measurement...but within the rulers the martelli 1/2" measurements seem to be just to the left of the cutting lines on the rulers.
Were I to use those lines I think my cuts would be about 1/16" off each cut, on the too big side.
But as I said I'd never use mat lines to cut with.

I'm new to quiilting, and I use cutting mats that are made for general crafting (not sewing specific). I haven't had problems with those. I've compared all of my quilting rulers (creative grids, omni grids) to my Alvins and they are spot on. However, it seems to me that for quilters, there might be a demand for a cutting mat with no markings at all.

I don’t often use my cutting mat lines to cut on but I definitely like and couldn’t do without the lines.
I line up folded fabric on them before I cut. Cut angles. Check selvages are square against them. Check blocks are square or triangles are triangular. Etc etc etc.