Choosing the right guillotine

As a staple product in the print finishing industry, selecting the right paper guillotine for your business can be an important decision. So how do you know you are choosing the right one for your business?

Knowing your guillotines

With a number of different styles of guillotines available on the market, knowing the difference between manual, electric and hydraulic guillotines, and guillotines, paper trimmers and round corner cutters.

• Guillotines – a paper guillotine is a machine that features a blade sharp enough to cut multiple pages of paper in one go, offering a perfectly straight edge.
• Paper trimmers – Commonly trimmers are the manual version of a guillotine, and are used to trim edges.
• Round corner cutters – as the name suggests, they offer a round corner, in comparison to the straight edges of a guillotine or trimmer
• Manual – manual cutters are those that require a manual force to push the blade into cutting the paper. Such as the trimmers and guillotines commonly found in schools.
• Electronic – like manual guillotines require manual force, the electronic cutter uses an electronic compression to force the blade through the stack of paper
• Hydraulic – usually found in a higher standard of machine, these use hydraulics to cut the paper. They can usually cut larger numbers of pages than the alternatives.

The right size for you
Once you are aware of the difference in guillotines, you can look into the standard of machine you require in order to meet your needs and the demands on your business. Here at AfterPrint we offer a selection of machines, ranging from smaller office machines, these are usually ones that are desktop, or small enough to pack away into a cupboard when you are short on space. Up to the professional range, designed for larger print finish organisation or large scale offices, these include the flagship model from Ideal – the Ideal Guillotine 7260.
When investing in a guillotine, consider the volume of pages that you are requiring to cut, and how often you will have this level of demand. Use that to decide on the standard you will require. For businesses that require ongoing cutting of high volumes, look to automatic machines that can be set to run without supervision. Smaller organisations can invest in smaller machines that might require more manpower in order to keep the cost down.

Here at AfterPrint Ltd, we are on hand to offer you guidance, whether it’s your first guillotine, or you are looking to upgrade your current machine. We aim to guide our customers into buying the right machine for their needs every time. Contact a member of our expert team today for more information on any of our products. You can also head over to our online shop for any supplies.