What a difference a blade makes....
 

Do you change blades or sharpen blades on your rotary cutters? And how often??

I change blades. I should change them sooner than I usualu do.

The answer should be when it starts to be harder tocut fsbtic - when the get dull.

Some things seem to dull bades more quickly than others.

Usually when I am starting a brand new big project, I replace my rotary blade. I figure that if I am using $150 - at least - on fabrics, then it is worth the couple of dollars for a new blade. Same thing with my needle, new project, new needle. And large projects have the needle replaced during also, sometimes more than once.

There's no set time frame. When it's a struggle to cut or when I have to go over a spot twice, then it's blade change time.

I only change them when I absolutely have to do so. And that might be a couple times a year. I'm not sure what's wrong with me.

I don't try to resharpen as I have read it really does not work that well. I replace when it gets hard to cut-not too often. My last blade lasted for 6 or 7 quilts. (45mm Olfa).

Yes, it does make a huge difference! I've just changed mine after having to use more and more pressure for quite a while... Frugal me just wanted to keep on using the old one - but now that I have changed it, it cuts sooooo smooth!

I used to rarely ever change them, but eventually it started cutting such jagged lines that I was wasting fabric, so I caved and bought new ones. Oh, wow, was I ever happy!!! Since I do a lot of small pieces for applique on my quilts & basically only use my scissors to cut the backing fabric, it ends up that I change it out for every yard or so of quilt. Soaking my cutting mat helped them last a bit longer. Wish I'd known that trick earlier on since some of the cut marks don't come out (prob also due to using such a dull blade that I had to apply a lot of pressure to get my cuts).

I figure I change my blades on about the same schedule as my needles -- every 8 hours or so of use.

Oh, and btw, I have a 28mm Olfa. It came in some quilting kit I got years back & I haven't seen the need yet to move up to the next size, but that probably affects how often I have to change them since my blade has to go through 2-3x the number of rotations of the larger rotary cutters.

Probably not often enough -

I agree, me too !!