Customer Reviews

QCM 1200E Stack Paper Cutter

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I needed a heavy duty cutter, but didn't have heavy duty funds for one.

This was by far the best price. Joe had excellent customer service. He wrote personal emails to answer my questions and meet my needs, he even called me the day before Thanksgiving when I was freaking out.

As far as the cutter goes, it is perfect, does exactly what I need it to, and better. I am so glad I got it. I can cut 210 page catalogs, and several packs of paper. It will help me with my business in many ways.

Joe, you're the best!

I'll start by saying that I'm spoiled by those $25,000 electric cutters with digital displays as I used to work for a printshop. So using this manual stack cutter is a massive downgrade for me. I know I'm not supposed to compare the two, but I just can't help it. So bear with me. First, the good things. It does cut a stack of paper. That's about it. Now the bad. The measurement marking is not accurate, so naturally the sliding guide isn't accurate either. The side guide and the sliding guide are not exactly perpendicular. I'll just assume the side guide is straighter since the sliding guide has to constantly move. The clamp and the guillotine blade will sometimes shift the paper stack, so you'll have to be very very careful. In short, it takes a bit of practice to make this cutter usable without destroying your stuff. For cutting jobs that don't need to be extremely precise, this will do the job in a pinch.

I have recently started my own small print shop after many years working in bigger shops. I'm used to pretty nice, powerful cutters, but I can't afford that.

I bought this because of the price and the need for a stack cutter. This will work for you but you have to be extremely fussy about how you set it up and how you load the paper. You must clamp it very tightly to minimize blade draw, (draw is the pulling of the paper out of the clamp, by the friction of the blade and it results in an uneven, crooked, cupped cut).

To minimize the draw, you have to cut very small lifts of no more than ½ inch. The clamp is strongest in the center, so you might want to cut in the center whenever possible.

Considering what a 'real' paper cutter sells for and the space it takes up, this is a convenient compromise.

It takes some practice to overcome it's shortcomings, but for the price, sometimes that's what you have to do. It definitely isn't a set it up and cut away type of machine. You'll have to work at it.

I think it is worth the money and seems fairly well made.

If you're first job to cut needs to be precise, you'll want to practice on some junk stock. Not the cutting, that's easy to figure out, but how you need to load the paper, how to get it to cut where you need it to cut, and how tightly you need to clamp the paper.

If you don't practice, I can almost guarantee you you'll mess your first job up.

We make Wedding invitaions etc. so we need a precise cutter. The QCM started out OK but after 3 months no longer makes precise cuts. Cutting a stack of 1/2 inch card stock always results in cuts that are slightly off. If you aren't that fussy it's fine but some times we are cutting after printing full bleed images and no matter how carefully we line up the cuts they come out slightly off and we have to throw out the job and restart. This is a low end product made in China. The quality if the steel, the joints and controls are not made to last.

I make wedding invitations (and other invitations too), so I have to cut a lot of card stock at one time and it needs to be pretty precise. As far as cutting power, I give this cutter 5 stars. It slices through my stacks of paper easily and leaves a nice, clean edge. For precision, I give it 3 stars. Even after squaring the back piece that forms a perpendicular line to the blade, I still get slightly crooked cuts. It's almost as if the holes that hold this piece in needed to be slightly bigger so I could adjust it more. I have to really play with my paper to get it straight. My other complaint is that the measurements on the cutter aren't completely precise. If my ruler says I need to cut 7", the sliding gauge needs to be placed about 1/16" less than 7" to get the proper cut.

Regardless, this is a WHOLE LOT BETTER than using a craft cutter. I just have to take my time cutting and do a little futzing with the measurements.

Are there better ones out there? Maybe. But the price is pretty good for this one and overall, I would say I am pretty happy with it.

The seller shipped it EXTREMELY fast. I give them 5 stars.

I have been looking for a paper cutting solution for my business. I know you need to spend money to get quality but an electric cutter would be cost prohibitive for our new business. We needed to precisely cut fairly small quantities of 12x12 card stock (stacks). I checked out the Martin Yale Premier W12 at $80.00, which claimed to cut 14 sheet of regular 12x12 paper but had a safety clasp that ruined the paper it was cutting so I returned it and moved up to the Martin Yale Premier AC150 Stack Cut Pater Trimmer @ $199.00, thinking that I need to spend more to get a better solution. The AC150 was suppose to cut 40 sheets of 12x12 but again amazingly ruined every sheet I cut. I'm still trying to return that badly designed product, but Martin Yale wants to charge me a restock fee.

Then I discovered this QCM-1200E Heavy Duty commercial Stack Paper Cutter. This procuct is excellently designed and very much like the kind seen in a commercial printer's shop. It cost a little more then the crappy Martin Yale product but it is a far superior quality product made of heavy metals. When you remove it from the box you can feel the quality. No wooden part, no plastic handles and the price was just right at around $240.00 . This baby cuts with the quality of an electric so it's the next best thing to spending 1000's on an electric. I recommend this with no disappointments.

I needed a stack cutter for my home based business and this was my pick. For the price, for the good reviews, it seemed to be just the thing.

I asked the seller to ship it ASAP - and they did, got it in just a few days UPS ground. THANK YOU! I am happy to report that the cutter is doing the job just fine and I can recommend it.

A few points: First, this is not made in the USA but China -despite posts to the contrary. 2nd, assembly is required and the directions are less than stellar but you will figure it out. 3rd, mine came with some rust on the silver portion of the lever arm. Not a big deal to me but for others maybe so. Figuring out exactly where the cutter will cut the paper is a little tricky but suppose I will master this in time.

You could go out and spend $70 for a board that cuts 12 pages and lasts a few months. Comparatively, this is a much better way to go.

An excellent product for the small printer or office. Easily and perfectly cut side and top edges of 80pp books and several smaller pamphlets, with precise and accurate cuts every time. Mine is a reconditioned unit, selling for about 50% of the new unit price. The equipment is like new in all respects, with a new blade, and arrived very carefully packed. I understand the blade will provide around 1000 cuts before resharpning is necessary; this total will likely depend on how many pages each cut. This is a manual unit, but it is very easy to set up and operate, and requires very little pressure to make the cut. Highly recommended.

After struggling for years with cheap desk top paper slicers, I decided there had to be a better solution. My budget and available space was small, so manual operation was the obvious way. This device is awesome! It precisely cuts through stacks of card stock and paper with little effort. No more hours and inconsistencies of cutting a few sheets at a time. I should have gotten one years ago.

AND, it is one of the few products still made in America!

I have had this cutter for a couple of years now. I have never owned a similar cutter so it is hard for me to know how this one compares to others. But my feeling is that this is a decent cutter, and fairly priced. But it may not be the most accurate, the most durable, or the easiest to maintain.

We have used this cutter quite a bit, mostly for cutting stacks of paper about an inch or less thick. It cuts nicely, especially when the blade is new. It becomes harder to cut as the blade gets dull. Avoid cutting plastic or staples, as this will dull or damage the blade. (We learned the hard way.) We could not get the blade sharpened to the manufacturer's specifications locally, so we ended up buying a new blade.

My biggest gripe is that the metal seems to be cheap, and breaks easily. The sliding paper guide broke when the thumb-screw was repeatedly overtightened. Use your fingers, not a pair of pliers to tighten the screw. (Again, we learned the hard way.) Now, the set-screw that attaches to the paper-clamp-down wheel to the shaft has broken. Apparently, we overtightened the wheel one too many times. I suggest you tighten the wheel with just one hand, and don't use all the force you can muster.

The other thing we have found is that it is tricky to install a new blade and get the cutter adjusted for continued cutting. The instructions on how to do this leave something to be desired. And it is just hard to get everything to work exactly as it should after you have taken the cutter apart and put it back together.

One comment about accuracy: The sliding paper guide does not sit perfectly squarely with the back-stop. This makes it a little bit harder to make sure your paper is seated squarely relative to the blade.

The good news is that I have found the folks at QCM to be helpful at troubleshooting. And they have even replaced broken parts at no charge (I had to pay for shipping.) A serviceable and economical cutter, but maybe not the world's finest craftsmanship.