How to Cut a reem of paper perfectly and fast!
I am the Goldielocks of paper cutters. Not that I want to be, I just am. When I was in 4th grade, way back in the 60's, I was put in charge of cutting the paper for my class. Using a guillotine cutter, I managed with very little help to cut everything from Manila art paper to the beautiful white lined paper for our English class. I loved it, the paper, the cutting, the glory and the fame of it all. I think I wore a crown when I was on duty. So that is when it started. Since then, having worked in my fathers printing business and my own dabbles in paper works I have cuts tons of paper! More recently I began selling paper and needing to cut into the preferred sizes used by card makers. So while I had 4 very good cutters including the Genesis Trimmer, not one of them cut through a hundred sheets of 90# card stock in one swoop! So I went on the hunt. I looked at "stack cutters" on web sites, watched videos, talked to my printer friend and checked with other paper arts people. The printers solution was a 1800.00 dollar machine( I did use my inhaler with that suggestion) and my friends hadn't heard this type of cutter. So I went over to ebay to see what they had, and they had a lot! I read about 50 'feedbacks' and watched the auctions. I did a buy it now from the seller ep320, received instant communication and a tracking number. (Now I have no affiliation with this seller and I am not receiving any kick back, nor am I trying to advertise. I just want to pass on information about a product I am very happy with!) So within the week I received the cutter, packed very nicely and weighing in about 30 lbs!! My husband opened the box and assembled what needed to be assembled and I think he said that took about 5 minutes.
Here is a photo of it on my work bench. This is the model which handles 12" or less sized paper. The machine itself is about 14x20 and 8"high not including the lever you see. The surface is a beautiful black shiny enamel. The green thing is to keep the paper stack straight and lined up and it stays put because there are magnets on the under side. The machine is all metal. 
The stack of paper is lined up using the grid on the surface and then slide under the blade housing. you can see the red blade stop in the picture above. In the picture to the right you notice the round hand crank, by turning this crank you lift or bring down the press which will hold the paper stack in place. one that is secured, you simply bring down the large lever and the blade will slice through the paper like butter!
In this view you can see the blade down.
Here I have about 75 sheets of 130# Chipboard. The specs say you can cut 400 sheet of 20# paper. I haven't tried to but it doesn't look to me that 400 sheet would fit in the blade housing, I would say 250 no problem. Here however I have quite a lot of chip board. I was able to slide it into the blade house, lock down the press, with ONE pull on the handle I was able to make a perfect Cut! 
There was only two cons, and much of that was me, but I will share my blunder. The lower base of the grid is in inches and the upper part of the grid is marked off in metric. Which is fine except I didn't realized this affected how straight the cut would come out. about 100 sheets of card stock later I realized I was eyeballing the two grids and using the green thing to line up the paper with the off measurement! The Second con is, the crank handle is made of plastic and I am afraid it is going to snap. I tend to baby it. I highly recommend this machine for cutting larger projects, I cut in 5 minutes what had been taking me an hours to cut. I cut as few as 5 sheets and they cut just as well, I won't use this machine for anything under 8 sheets. It is very heavy duty for the home studio, sturdy and easily put together. The communication from the seller was great. the price: an out standing $ 89.00 Shipping was reasonable too. I am going to list the link for the auction, that way you can check ep320's other listing. Check it out
Later on I will tell you about a fabulous adhesive I ran across that is wonderful and Cheap!!
Thanks for stopping by!
Ginny
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