The HOZO Hobby Knife campaign closes today, Thursday, November 12, and it closes big: 3,614 backers have pledged more than $529,000 against a $3,824 goal, a funding run that turned a smarter craft knife into one of the loudest maker launches of the whole season. It closes by a wide margin.
HOZO isn’t a first-timer asking strangers for trust. The Hong Kong maker, founded in 2018, has delivered nine earlier Kickstarter projects, and its bench already runs from the NeoBlade ultrasonic cutter to the NeoSander detail sander and the NeoRuler measuring line. Its community runs past 100,000 users.
HOZO Hobby Knife Set Pro
10-in-1 blade refill set and 20 standard blades · Case unfolds into a cutting station · One-press push-button blade change
Price: $60 $79 (save $19, 24% off)
Where to buy: Back it on Kickstarter
Every maker knows the ritual this knife wants to retire for good.
Press, release, locked
A twist-lock hobby knife asks for two hands and a bit of faith. Loosen the collet, pull the dull blade, seat the fresh one, then tighten by feel and hope the threads hold their temper through the next cut. Too loose and the blade creeps mid-stroke. Too tight and the threads wear smooth.
Press the tail button and the spring-loaded collet opens. Drop the next blade in, let go, and the mechanism locks shut, the same click a ballpoint pen makes when it means business. HOZO timed the swap at under a second, and the inspiration comes straight from that pen: press, release, locked, no twisting anywhere at all.
Two magnets inside the collet catch the blade as it opens, so nothing drops.
There’s no sweet spot to hunt for and no thread to strip. The blade either sits locked or it sits out, and your fingers stay up the handle, away from the edge, through the whole exchange.
The handle’s a full-aluminum hexagonal body, so it lies flat on the bench instead of rolling toward the floor. A raised ring and a textured grip section give your fingers their landmarks, the collet’s stainless steel, and the button’s a nylon and glass-fiber blend. With a standard blade fitted it weighs 23.6 grams and runs 147.5 millimeters long, technical-pen territory. Capped, it stretches to 160 millimeters and 26 grams.
Ten tools share one handle
Six flat blades come first, a family HOZO refined from its NeoBlade lineup. The standard 30-degree blade handles everyday cuts, a long blade takes thicker stock, and chisel, mini chisel, curved, and double-edge blades fill out the six-strong set. Each answers a different cut, from sprue trimming to scoring leather cleanly, every day.
Then the set leaves knife territory. A V-gouge cuts crisp lines and fine detail, a U-gouge rolls out smooth grooves and textures, and a small saw and a metal file round out the ten. The file’s for finishing edges a blade shouldn’t touch, and the saw takes stock that would snap a fine point clean in half.
Cutting, carving, sawing, filing: four crafts through one grip, and the swap between them costs a click instead of a two-handed disassembly at the bench.
Every blade and tool in the family is quenched 420 stainless steel with a 30-degree edge. HOZO skips the oily rust coating most blades ship under, so a fresh blade leaves fingers and paper clean. The non-cutting end is rounded, a small mercy when you’re fishing one out of its dispenser. It also powers the half-cut trick: score the top layer, spare the backing, fold clean.
Compatibility cuts both ways, so here’s the split. The handle takes standard 4-millimeter, 30-degree flat blades from other brands, plus segments from 9-millimeter, 30-degree snap-off blades like OLFA and NT Cutter stock. X-Acto blades run a different mounting format and won’t fit, so a drawer built on them won’t carry over. HOZO’s own refill packs run $9.90, sold through its store and Amazon after the campaign.
The case unfolds into the bench
Slide the case open and flip it back, and the lid becomes a cutting station. The PVC mat measures 133 by 192 millimeters, and sliding and unfolding the case doubles the working surface. HOZO counts four ways to run it: packed, standing, open, and fully unfolded.
It’s a small mat, and the math is plain: big sheets still want a full bench mat underneath.
Storage got the same engineering hours as the knife. Magnetic slots hold each blade point-down so nothing rattles or shifts, and the modular case swaps in and out. Spare blades live in auto-feed dispensers: pull one out and the next pops up, with the translucent housing showing how many are left. Several dispensers click together into a desktop blade station.
Spent blades go into a one-way disposal slot and stay there, sealed away from the fresh stock. The knife pouch and the mat attach magnetically, and a replacement mat runs $15.90 as an add-on in metric or imperial markings, so a worn surface is a swap, not a new case.
The whole boxed set measures 210 by 90 by 28 millimeters and weighs 376 grams, less than a hardcover novel. That’s the quiet win here: the station travels at paperback weight, so a kitchen table, a dorm desk, or a convention workbench becomes the shop. The case carries like a book and opens like a toolbox, and the desk underneath survives the session unscratched, session after session.
HOZOfinity hands the files to the backers
The campaign’s first stretch goal was HOZOfinity, an open-source 3D-model collet system. HOZO publishes the models on MakerWorld, where makers can download them, print them, customize them, and fold them into their own setups. Backers cleared the $300,000 stretch rung early, so the files are already unlocked, a rare move: the maker hands its accessory roadmap to the printers.
Eight of the ten tools also fit HOZO’s NeoBlade ultrasonic cutter. Only the saw and the metal file stay exclusive to this knife.
The audience writes itself from the campaign’s own demos: Gundam and military model builders, 3D printing cleanup, leathercraft, papercraft, dioramas, cosplay props, jewelry wax, scrapbooking, and woodcraft. Any session that stacks three blade swaps in an hour is the session this kit was drawn for.
The ladder, the calendar and the Christmas route
Set Pro is the tier most backers will want: the knife, its case with pouch and cutting mat, the 10-in-1 blade refill set, and 20 standard blades. The Premium Combo at $130, against $219 at retail, adds packs of the seven other blade and gouge types for anyone who burns through gouges and chisels.
The tiers estimate delivery in January 2027. Certification runs this month, ahead of mass production. Shipping on Set Pro is $12 to the US, Canada, and the EU, taxes and VAT included, charged after the campaign ends.
A November 4 campaign update added a holiday route: a $15 priority shipping add-on, picked in the post-campaign survey. That add-on puts a pledge on the December dispatch list, the pre-Christmas route, ahead of the standard January estimate.
Higher up the ladder, Maker’s Essentials pairs the set with a NeoSander for $190, Cutting Master pairs it with a NeoBlade for $289. The All-In Combo bundles both partners for $489 all in. A second Set Pro runs $110 if a bench mate wants in. The knife alone also rides the add-on list at $12.90.
HOZO Hobby Knife Set Pro
Estimated delivery Jan 2027 · One-year warranty against manufacturing defects · Priority shipping and blade add-ons settle in the post-campaign survey · Free replacement for defects in the first 30 days · Ships worldwide from Hong Kong
Price: $60 $79 (save $19, 24% off)
Where to buy: Back it on Kickstarter
Kickstarter charges cards only when a campaign funds, and this one cleared its goal many times over. A pledge placed today goes through at campaign money, before the ladder closes for good.
Then it’s retail money, and the twist locks win another round.
