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Growing out of your old guillotine paper cutter?

You may be noticing that you have to divide your paper stacks into three or four piles so you can cut them. Or your paper cuts have a rough, uneven edge. If so, you are probably using your guillotine cutter for more than it was made to handle. If you are consistently cutting more than 10 or so sheets of paper, it’s worth the upgrade to a stack cutter. With one of QCM’s stack paper cutters, you’ll be able to cut up to 360 sheets at a time. A manual stack cutter is similar in operation to a guillotine. A spring mechanism helps the operator exert the force needed to cut through thick stacks of paper. QCM has stack cutter offerings that vary in price ranges and capacities to fit any budget and need.

Bob posted a while back about the 1200E & 1700E, two great guillotine cutters from QCM. QCM has come out with two more cutters in the same family, but with some upgraded features.

The 8200M & 8700M have the same solid construction as the other QCM manual stack cutters with steel and anodized aluminum components, plus their limited lifetime warranty. The 8200M & 8700M can both handle 360 sheets per pass, and have slightly larger base sizes and paper widths than the other two QCM models. The 8200M is comparable in price has a slightly larger cutting width than the 1200E, and the 8700M compares the same with the 1700E.

Here are side by side comparisons from qcmcorp.com:

Final Synopsis for the Accubanker AB-230 Money Counter

I trust that everyone had a lovely holiday and is happy to finally relax!

I wrote a few weeks ago that I had bought my wife the Accubanker AB-230 for a charity event that she was planning for our church. (How I Chose The Accubanker AB-230)
She had been gathering money up until the big event last week, and didn't want to have to count it out by hand. I bought her the Accubanker AB-230 only after she convinced me that she would also use it for our kids' sporting events and other church fundraisers. So last week was the big day. It was a great success - she had decorated our home and had dinner served. She collected just over $10,000 in donations, which is double what they expected.
She used the Accubanker almost everyday up until last week, and it worked fine every time. She used it for both cash donations and checks. It never jammed or had any other problems.
I hope someday that an affordable bill separator will come out too, because separating the bills in to $1s, $5s, $10s, $20s, etc. can take a long time too.

QCM Review: The QCM 8200M & QCM 8700M Stack Cutters

About six months ago I gave my friend, Clark, an old guillotine paper cutter that I wasn't using anymore. He's a freelance artist by trade, and recently he has gotten into desktop publishing as a hobby and to present his work to potential customers.

So today he called me for advice because he thinks he has "outgrown" the old cutter - or trimmer - depending on who you ask. He's spending more time with different types of printing lately, and doing more detailed and difficult work. He wants something that can handle larger volumes, higher quality paper, and possibly other materials such as leather.

The cutter that I gave him (one of those old, warped wood based guillotines) isn't cutting perfectly straight and isn't wide enough for some of his paper anyway.

I'm writing here the advice that I gave him over the phone today, because I think it applies to nearly anyone who may have "outgrown" a guillotine cutter.

I told him to look into stack cutters, and my top choices right now are both from QCM - the QCM 8200M and the QCM 8700M heavy duty paper cutters. Both have a safety lock on the blades, so they won't make any unwanted cuts on you or the paper. And, they're both made with galvanized steel bases.

I told Clark to get the QCM 8700M online, and not to pay more than $600 or so for it. But for most people I would recommend the 8200M because it can be found online for under $300. Clark frequently needs to trim paper wider than 12 inches, which is essentially the only difference between the two.

The 8200M will trim over 350 sheets of 20 lb. paper at once, but only up to 12 inches wide. The 8700M weighs a little bit more, has about the same 350 sheet capacity for stack cutting, and can handle paper up to 17 inches wide. So if you rarely need to cut anything over 12 inches, you can't beat the 8200M at almost half the price.

With either of these stack cutters, they're roughly the same price as a guillotine, but can handle about 10 times the amount of paper at a time - that's 350 sheets compared to 30 or so sheets at once with a guillotine of equal cost.

Find a QCM stack cutter.