Yesterday I delivered this custom wedding invitation, beautifully designed by the bride and her faithful brother. This job was really fun – a very original design and nice color combination. When I first received the digital files, I knew it was going to require a lot of focus and attention to get the registration *just* right (especially with this tight border).
A job like this also reminds me how important a precise guillotine cutter is for any letterpress printer. I get a fair amount of emails from beginner printers asking me the best way of cutting down a job. Personally I can’t believe people are ever hand-cutting jobs after they print them. I know “hand-cutting” sounds like a precise way to do it, but it’s virtually impossible to cut a whole stack consistently and it’ll give you a few panic attacks in the process.
What are your experiences with cutting jobs down? Any tips or nightmares you’d like to share or vent? Leave your comments below, I’d love to hear them. :)
great job! i was just amazed at how tight that border is!! i am just starting out with letterpress and i am currently hand cutting and it is horrible! i am shopping now for a guillotine cutter so this post came at a perfect time and i agree completely! do you have any recommendations for a good cutter?
Thanks!
For my little home set-up, I have a QCM cutter. They seemed rated somewhere in the middle of the “cheap” tabletop cutters. Better then the no-name ones sold on eBay, while cheaper then the Martin Yale or Triumph cutters. But I’m still having a hard time squaring the side-gauge, which makes it really tough to be useful. It’s frustrating because I know for not much more money I could pick up a used vintage guillotine if I had the floor space.
My frustrations even using a good Challenge manual guillotine leads me to dream of using a good automatic cutter, and reminds me of a trip I took to a print shop in NY that was filled with vintage equipment, Linotypes, vandercooks and windmills, but the one piece of modern equipment was the paper cutter.
I definitely understand the desire to keep costs down. I remember the first few custom jobs I ever printed I hand cut because I didn’t have the money for any more equipment. One of them I ruined, and it honestly made me cry. I never hand cut them again because I realized then that my costs were going to skyrocket if I had to reprint jobs due to cutting errors.
Maybe if you look around in your local area for a print shop (letterpress or offset) who will allow you to rent time on their cutter – though I would assume you’d have to offer signing a waiver in case you got hurt on it. Eeeeg.
Hi – I don’t do letterpress printing, but I’ve done my fair share of custom wedding invitations. Once I started outsourcing the cutting, my sanity level was entirely worth the cost. Plus it saves a ton of time vs. hand cutting.
Great job on the printing – they look lovely! The navy and yellow is so crisp.
The invitation is stunning. I love the design and layout.
Beautiful job!
I agree, cutting down after the job can be a nightmare. I use manual guillotine paper cutter, which isn’t a perfect tool. So, unfortunately, when it has to be just right, I cut each one by hand on the Kutrimmer. Not fun. So I’m thinking about ordering more precut.
Yeah, I think its a no-brainer to get pre-cut paper if you’re working on a press that doesn’t require an extra edge for the gripper bar and you don’t have a guillotine cutter. What kind of press are you working on?
For weddings, we order paper pre-cut. Extra cost, sure, but it’s worth it. For smaller stationery orders I’ll sit there with a paper cutter, put on a movie, and hand-cut. We don’t have the space for a large cutter, plus we’re accident-prone!
Great job on that invitation! That’s beautiful!
I just started my own adventure in letterpress and am being taught by a veteran print shop manager who believes in hand-setting type! We have a guillotine cutter in class in addition to an old style cutter that you have to screw down. Both do so-so work. The lettershop professor recommends investing in a modern day cutter (preferably laser), as it is the most precise for professional looking products!