We use rotory trimmers both for their neat cuts and for the long life of the blades. Our largest has been in use continuously for 15 years and we still haven't felt the need to replace blades. From another angle, when you start doing general paper cutting, it does a much better job than a guilotine with stacks of paper. It's a Rotatrim model, and it will even cleanly cut material as heavy as mat board, believe it or not.
Posted by Nathan Buck on March 14, 2006 at 3:28 PM
The other day in Costco, I saw a Fiskars brand paper cutter with a sliding blade on a rail. It looked like it would work well for cutting, but could probably not handle heavier stuff, and you would also be limited with the size of photo that you could cut.
Good suggestion on the Fiskars for a light-duty, inexpensive alternative. We have a couple scattered around, and they are fine for single sheets, actually doing a much better job than guilotines on all varieties of photo paper. Our only problem has been with the long rectangular bar that seats under the cutter to provide a cutting surface. These get a groove in them pretty quickly, and eventually you have to press pretty hard to get a nice clean cut. No problem though, because you can rotate the bar, successively using each of the four sides before you have to replace it (and replacements are cheap, as are blades).
Discussion
4 repliesI've been looking around at trimmers for photographs (photographic paper, not Matte) and was wondering if anyone had a preference.
The guilotine cutters are everywhere, but their blades don't look as replaceable (or as easily replaced) as the circular blade cutters.
Thanks for any help,
Alex
Hank's solution sounds better.
Nathan
Alex