Foil cutter

At his time I have my foil cut by my supplier. Does anyone have a good source for a foil cutter for my windmill. I need to cut 1/2 dia cores. Also, I see a lot of cutters on ebay but with a 1 inch core shaft. I am wondering if I can retrofit one of those with a 1/2 inch core rod rather than the in they have.

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The ones on ebay take a pvc pipe over the shaft to have also something to cut against, and not cut against direct metal, but most likely a 1/2 inch core would fit. I can try it and let you know. Those are the cheapest cutters available, and are not too bad if you’re not cutting a ton of foil.

Enriquevw - Thanks for the feed back. You read my mind. I am looking at the cheap one and saw a picture with all the printing on of the pipe, like what you see on pvc from home depot. That is what got me wondering about it. I always thought that was a steel or metal pipe shaft. My foil source cuts the rools for free but at times I still have a waste factor and woudlkiketo be able to cut some down at times.

So I tried it but it’s a little tight, it won’t fit. I’m sure however that a competent machinist could grind down the diameter of the shaft and the thread so that it could take 1/2 inch.

You won’t want to run rolls that are much less than 1 1/4” - 1 1/2” wide. The rolls they send you are prob “Slit” not cut. Either that or they are cut with a slow speed cutter. To run narrow webs, the edges of the rolls must be perfectly cut. High speed cutters will melt the edges, or knick them.The knife edge needs to be sharpened very well, or, this is where you roll will break. The rolls themselves cannot be wound too tight or the foil that is cut will not slide over. This is a big factor in edge melt.
If you still want to invest in the cutter, go for it. There are a lot of factors to contend with.

You won’t want to run rolls that are much less than 1 1/4” - 1 1/2” wide. The rolls they send you are prob “Slit” not cut. Either that or they are cut with a slow speed cutter. To run narrow webs, the edges of the rolls must be perfectly cut. High speed cutters will melt the edges, or knick them.The knife edge needs to be sharpened very well, or, this is where you roll will break. The rolls themselves cannot be wound too tight or the foil that is cut will not slide over. This is a big factor in edge melt.
If you still want to invest in the cutter, go for it. There are a lot of factors to contend with.
Which one are you looking at?

Hi ericm, Most of our foil is cut for free by Infinity when I buy it. We also have them reroll it for free. We are working with 200 foot rolls with a 1/2 inch core. I don’t really want to cut my own foil all the time but it would be nice to be able to do so on occasion which would allow me to save on some the smaller width demand foil jobs. Here is a the ebay listing info

https://www.ebay.com/itm/26-5inch-Manual-Gold-Foil-Slitter-Cutter-Hot-St...

i understand. A) this is probably a piece of junk, but, many of these cheap as crap pieces from china can be made to work ok, if, you have some tools and ingenuity.
B) your seller has quite a few negative feedback ratings. many of these it seems are for other products, but, the general theme there, is poor customer service… common from chinese vendors.
send me some info on you, as i see more professional grade cutters come up for usually around $250.00. Consider that by the time you are done messing up “X” amount of foil, then modifying the crap cutter, you may well have that stuck into an inferior unit.
i will help if you want me too.

Maybe you could find an old wood lathe. I’ve been using one for years and it only cost 20 bucks at a yard sale. It doesn’t take much to modify it.

Thanks ericm and Dennis, this was something we felt we need but can get by without. We may still try look around for options and will let you know what we do.