Chipboard kills my blade

I’m interested in learning a solution for regularly cutting chipboard.

I love the look of the stuff, but I’m reluctant to use it because it instantly dulls my cutter knife.

Besides getting a second cutter, is there a solution for this? I was thinking of a higher grade steel knife might help.

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I guess its what we call strawboard over here in England. We used to cut it all down in batches when the guillotine (paper cutter!) operator at our old place reckoned the knife was getting towards the end of its life. If you have lots of regular sized cuts then I guess this is good practice. We always had three blades in stock. One on the guillotine, one sharp and one at the sharpening place. Maybe getting a spare blade or two would help.

That’s my workaround, only cut when you’re prepared to do a blade change. Sharpening is cheap enough around here that even if the blade is not dull I can run chipboard at least once every two weeks and swap the blade out after.

I guess that’ll have to be the solution. I’m out in the boonies so I have to ship my blade.

At $50 a cycle, it hurts to cut the chipboard knowing I’ve got a little bit of life left in the knife.

I was wondering if maybe a different type of steel might help. My sharpening guy recommended a high speed steel knife. Think that might help?

How many sheets of chipboard are you cutting? I do not remember having problems cutting chipboard and it dulling my blade that fast.

Maybe 20-25 at a time. 30pt chip. I’m sitting on a whole pallet of the stuff and I want to be able to sell it!

30pt chip will definitely hurt. Can I ask where you got it?

send it out for cutting down to your press size then die cut it. or see if your sharpening guy has a different angle that may be more durable. durability usually trades off to a less clean cut.

Also, I dunno how big your cutter is, but mine’s 30”. I generally am only finishing jobs up to about 10” or 12”, so I cut chipboard from one side of the cutter and paper on the other. This isn’t going to help you if you’re buying large parent sheets that you need to cut down, but if you’re working from smaller sheets you can keep one side of your blade in good shape and nick up the other side.

Paul

Chipboard often has little flecks of metal in it. Depends where you get it from obviously. But there are sometimes bits of copper or other metals in it. I am told this is what dulls/chips the blade.

It’s Caraustar chipboard but I bought it cheap from a local converting company that had an overage. They’re 24.5x24.5” sheets.

It must have been real fresh when I got it, because it printed like moist garbage. Now that it has been around for a few months it has gotten really nice and dry.

Thanks for the advice. I will have to get a second cutter that’s reserved for chipboard and other funky stuff, and see about having them sharpen that blade at a different angle. Then I’ll die cut the finished edges.

Can’t wait for the good blade to get dull first because people want 5-day turnaround at most. Argh.

drorange

Yes, chipboard will dull your blade, so will paper. I use chipboard to pad the paper top and bottom so there is no damage to it. I use mouldmade and handmade papers generally so it is a lot cheaper to pad and just send out the blades to get re-sharpened, rather than risk damage to the sheets. I am fortunate to have three blades though, that came with the paper cutter, not so easy if you don’t, as they themselves are quite expensive. But might be worth the investment over the long haul.

Gerald
http://BielerPress.blogspot.com

I have never dealt with them, but they seem like a good resource for new knives in two available grades for a lot of different cutters:

http://www.nowthatssharp.com/PAPERKNIVES.htm

A Boardcutter is used to cut chipboard, a guillotine is used to cut stacks of paper. if you cut chipboard on a guillotine you have to be prepared to change the knife often. I used to cut chip on a polar guillotine by the pallet than I worked in an industrial bindery, back than a set of knives (2) was a rule of thumb in usage per pallet. In your setting, I would cut all I need to cut first ( Paper and such) before running the knife down with chip. Don’t cut paper afterwords.