Guillotine Blade/Knife Sharpening

Here at Chilvers Reprographics we are often asked what's one of the biggest mistakes we see made in guillotine cutting operations?

We find ourselves repeating the same thing over again when servicing paper guillotines, "You're not replacing your dull knife/blade often enough". Many owners and operators of guillotines do not truly understand how the condition of the knife/blade affects the quality of the cut.

Its amazing how many times we service a guillotine that isn’t cutting well and all we have to do is install a sharp blade/knife for it to be in perfect working order again. Most operators will continue to cut until they experience problems and only then decide its time to change the knife/blade which is probably way past the point it needed changing. Power guillotines today are extremely strong and will cut through a stack of paper with a very dull knife. What operators don’t realize is how much wear and tear this puts on the guillotine. With repeated use of dull knives/blades you cause a lot of premature and expensive damage to the machine and obviously the cut quality also suffers. This could all be avoided by keeping a sharp knife in the guillotine.

A customer, who was using their guillotine everyday, with stock that included everything from plain paper to card to digital stock was unsure why they were having problems as they had put a sharp knife/blade in the guillotine the month before. You have to consider not only how often and how much the guillotine is in use but also the stock you are cutting, for example if you are cutting grey board then the knife/blade may well need changing daily.

If your guillotine struggles to cut a 1mm off-cut cleanly and the off-cuts are clumping together in 2’s, 3’s, 4’s or more (as shown in the below image) then the knife/blade is not cutting cleanly through the paper stack, this is a sure sign of a dull knife/blade that needs replacing or sharpening.

Guillotine knives/blades can be re-sharpened many times over.  Re-sharpening is cheap so it’s a false economy when compared to the cost of replacing the guillotine.

In summary, the simple practice of keeping  a sharp blade/knife in your guillotine will keep it running smoothly and remember to always keep a spare sharp blade at hand for when its needed. Book a blade re-sharpen here

Don't forget the cutting sticks will also need changing regularly.  We stock a wide range of guillotine blades and cutting sticks, in stock ready for same day dispatch when ordered before 4pm.