Question Keencut

[Chaos Chief]

Newbie here. Is a cutter bar worth the investment as a start up? Keencut Simplex or ARC TE? Our table is 5x10. A portable cutter seems flexible, but a table mounted cutter seems awfully convenient. The Simplex appears to cut thicker materials.

 

[DPD]

Newbie here. Is a cutter bar worth the investment as a start up? Keencut Simplex or ARC TE? Our table is 5x10. A portable cutter seems flexible, but a table mounted cutter seems awfully convenient. The Simplex appears to cut thicker materials.

It depends on your business. I went without one for years using hand cutting of posters. I always told myself that when the day comes where I have a huge - and I mean huge - amount of posters to cut then I would purchase a cutter. That day came a few years back. When it happened I went on ebay and Craigslist and waddyaknow, right in my backyard someone going out of business. Had the cutter, stand and accessories. Snagged it at a fraction of the cost of a new cutter.

Do I use it often? Not really. I used it for the one job for which I purchased it and it was really handy speeding things up for me. I still cut some things by hand because by the time I set it up to cut I could use a ruler and razor. I do use it sometimes.

If you're just starting out your equipment purchases should reflect 1) the business you are chasing and 2) your need. You can't build it hoping they will come. Hope this helps.

- denis

 

[Humble PM]

If you're cutting anything thicker than a 16th, then yes. Clean square edged cuts. I inherited a 1600mm big bench with an original Javelin Cutter, when I joined our company. Great for PVC and foam board, and at a push, have used it to cut Dibond (bought a Steeltrack for better productivity).
Printer, laminator, bench, cutting system.
Bench mounted means you can apply more force for tougher substrates (and not pick up a "floating" bar, by the wrong bit of the blade holder), and most of the bars allow you to dismount them, so you can make longer two part cuts.
In the UK, spares are readily available, as is very good customer support. I'd be surprised if spares aren't available left pond, so as long as the bar hasn't been abused, a second user model can be easily refurbished.

 

[Pewter0000]

We've got a 10' titan cutter beside out 5'x10' table lengthwise, and we use it almost daily. It's been great to just keep everything neat. I use it to separate all of our jobs that are going to have different substrates, make a big roll smaller for laminating. Just fits well into our workflow.

We just recently snagged a tall Keencut from a shop going out of business, and although we don't use it as often, it's a good tool and does a great edge on an alupanel. Makes corroplast go pretty quick. For our small shop, it probably wouldn't be worth buying for full price, so we got lucky.

 

[iPrintStuff]

I love our keencut for doing foam boards, corrugated plastic etc. Saves a bunch of time and is very easily mounted to the table. Which makes a huge difference too.

Never liked it for cutting posters though. Always feels a little awkward/slow. We have a couple smaller ones for doing stuff like that. One has a little waste basket.

Then any larger runs we throw it into the flexa cutter. So don’t do many posters at all on the keencut. 10/10 for substrates though.

 

[Humble PM]

Never liked it for cutting posters though. Always feels a little awkward/slow. We have a couple smaller ones for doing stuff like that. One has a little waste basket.

Yep, a Stanley/utility blade isn't right on the cutting bar, Rotatrim or scalpel for thin paper stock, even with a cutting mat under the blade.
I'd love a foot pedal option for the cutting table, or just one of the new models with the one sided lift and hover. But, I can accurately take less than 1mm off a 1400 wide photo print from 5mm kapamount with a fresh blade. I'd need Just the Right Amount of Coffee to do that with a scalpel.

 

[myront]

We have both a tabletop Keencut and a wall mounted cutter. One way or another we get it done. The tabletop does require some routine tweaking once in a while but love it otherwise. We leave it loose so it can be moved off the table. Gotta have somewhere to eat our birthday meals!