Advice needed for cutter purchase

hello!

I am hoping to acquire a large manual cutter, and having trouble figuring out the best choice. I found a Triumph 4700 that is of interest, but wonder if anyone has experience with this cutter? Is it too small? I realize that it won’t even cut the 20x26 parent sheets, so I am stuck getting those cut down for me in advance… however, I have some limiting criteria-

1st: my shop is small: currently in my garage with limited space
2nd: I have a 1.5 year old, and worry that with one of the older models like a Challenge 26” or something that she *could* hurt herself, where the Triumph seems to have a cover unit for the blade, (and a smaller footprint).

Any advice would be much appreciated!

THanks,

Ann

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Hi Ann,

One good thing to remember about paper cutters is that they sometimes have trouble cutting stocks that take up the entire bed… so even if you go for an 18” cutter, you don’t necessarily want to cut 18” sheets on it. Especially if we’re discussing lettra or other cotton stocks.

Although I would love to have an in-house cutter, I currently do not. This does not stop me from ordering parent sheets, as I have a relationship with a local offset printer who cuts down all of my sheets for me. You may be able to cultivate a similar arrangement. Just how much cutting do you see yourself doing?

For small finishing jobs, I have a lot of success setting up a template on a small ingento cutter/shear.

I think it’s good to keep reminding yourself of the dangers of a print shop. I wouldn’t advise you to have a 1.5 year old press devil in your shop…

James Beard
Vrooooom Press
www.vrooooom.org

If you are going to cut 20” wide sheets, then you need at least a 23” wide cutter or so….. but as James pointed out, how much cutting of large sheets are you going to do?

While I’ve got plenty of space in my shop, I have an 18” tabletop Par-A-Gon cutter…. and it serves all of my needs. I get all of my larger sheets cut in half by my paper vendor, and then cut them down further from there. For a smaller shop, the 18” size is about perfect. It’s big enough to trim 8.5 x 11 magazines and so forth…. but not so big that it takes muscles the size of Godzilla to operate it.

About safety: do not think that the Triumph is any better to have around a child than the other machines. Either one can hurt little fingers. While I’ve never had a cuttter accident in my shop, I’ve always been wary of lever-operated cutters….. and keep the blade DOWN when it’s not being used. Even so, I’d follow James’ idea and keep the little ones away from any cutter.

Thanks! I have tried the route of having the help of the offset print shop- but had multiple bad experiences (once had to go dumpster diving for 1/2 my project!)- I just was hoping to work out some sort of arrangement where I could do what I need to at home and not have to drive around and get it done elsewhere.

I think that maybe the smaller cutter would suffice- I do mainly small pieces- but worried that a small cutter would not handle the thick cotton paper well.

What are some specific recommendations for a small, tabletop cutter that could do finish work on the small pieces?

My little one isn’t running around in the shop- ever- but since it is near our house… I just want to be uber-aware!!

THanks again!

Ann