On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 01:14:19PM -0400, Igor PDML-StR wrote: > > Hi All, > > I don't do much paper cutting, and when I do, I use either a good knife or > a generic guillotine-type paper cutter available in the departmental office > or elsewhere. > I am considering buying a simple inexpensive one for myself. > I haven't used "rolling" cutters (I believe they are frequently called > trimmers?). I see that they could be a bit more versatile if there are > multiple types of edges (wave, straight, etc.), but then you'd need to > change the "knife head", probably very frequently (?). > > So, my question is: > What are the pro's and con's of both types of cutters, especially in > application to the photo paper?
I've never had much success with the standard side-arm guillotine cutter. For one thing, they are designed to be used by right-handed people. Besides that, though, I've found that there's a tendency for the paper to shift during the cut (so you end up cutting not quite along the line that you wanted to cut on), or for the blade to twist away from the platform so you end up tearing the paper slightly rather than making a clean cut. In each case the problem gets worse the longer the cut you are trying to make, and the more items you have stacked up to cut in one operation. If you're only trying to cut two or three items with a cut smaller than 6" you should be ok, but trying to make an 11" cut through 10 sheets of paper can be a problem. If you're only cutting a single sheet of photo paper, and it doesn't have to be precisely cut to sub-millimeter accuracy, you should be OK with either the side arm guillotine or one of the cheap roller cutters - I tried one of those as well, but didn't find that it really offered me any improvement (I didn't need the versatility of being able to make wavy-edged cuts). I eventually gave in to temptation, and bought myself one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Rotatrim-RCM24-24-Inch-Professional-Trimmer/dp/B00009UTIP It's not cheap, and it's not absolutely perfect, but it's pretty close. The quality of the cut is ideal - as you move the cutting head the paper is held tightly, so the cut is clean even when cutting multiple sheets of cardstock (although I usually try to cut at most three sheets if I'm cutting 65lb stock). The only problems I've had is that it's a little hard to know exactly where the cut will be made when trimming off margins (although if you err on the conservative side you can just shift the paper and cut again - the cutter will happily shave off a sliver of paper of a quarter of a millimeter or so), and the alignment of the paper guide on the left hand side is just a hair off - maybe 1/4 of a mm difference between the two ends (~1 part in 1000). Oh, and one other thing - the screw that locks the stylus (the thing that slides up and down the paper guide) looks as though it's metal, but it is in fact made of plastic. I found this out the hard way when the stylus slid off the guide and fell onto the floor when I was moving the cutter; the impact broke the head off the screw. But Rotatrim happily shipped me a replacement part at no charge, even though they're based in the UK. I don't know how long the cutting wheels last - I've had mine slightly less than five years, and with occasional use over that time it still seems to be every bit as sharp as it was the day I purchased it. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
