The day my guillotine cutter decided to quit mid-shift

Last Thursday I was trimming a stack of 40 text blocks for a client order and my old guillotine blade just seized up halfway through the cut. Made this awful grinding noise and stopped dead. Took me an hour to figure out the main drive belt had snapped clean in two. I had to finish the job by hand with a sharp knife and a straight edge, which was slow and left some uneven edges. Got a new belt ordered from Grainger for 18 bucks, but it won't be here until Tuesday. Anyone else ever have a machine fail right in the middle of a big job?

2 comments

2 Comments

jana_ellis953d ago

Just wanted to gently point out that you probably didn't need to finish a whole 40 text block stack by hand with a knife and straight edge. If the belt snapped on the downstroke but the blade wasn't stuck in the material, you could have just lifted the blade manually with a little pull on the drive arm. Most guillotines have a manual release lever or a crank wheel on the back that lets you raise the blade by hand without any power. I've had my own cutter lock up on me before, and it took me way too long to figure that out too.

river_hall442d ago

Yank that manual release lever next time, it'll save you a ton of hassle. Most of those old cutters have a release somewhere near the back or side that lets the blade float back up. Just gotta find it before you spend an hour with a knife.