Current mat board/window cutter options?

[Milpool]

Keencut, Keaton, Hendrickson ... quite a few brands from days of yore. The C&H models were once considered the best built, but still finding parts might be a challenge. There were once three major framing supplies wholesalers in this area. But as warehouses got leveled in order to make space for more condos and office parks, they all got the land sold out from under them, and had to relocate to the LA area hundreds of miles away. Gone are the days when I could drive a short distance for my will-call orders, or else have them deliver to our own Receiving Dept the next day.

And the only way to get good prices on matboard etc is to have a wholesale account and buy in significant quantities. Neighborhood frame shops are disappearing due to higher overhead. I passed the location of one of them a couple months ago which now is a Veterinary clinic - now that is a profitable or, er, lucrative, kind of business! You might even make more on a Pet portrait than a human one.

Keencut is still going.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Nice to know. But not on this side of the Pond, apparently.

 

[GregY]

Nice to know. But not on this side of the Pond, apparently.

Yes, not worth the big shipping charges....

 

[BCM]

You would need to cut a lot of mats to make sense to pay for a good cutter. If you just need standard color archival mats, you might find that outsourcing makes more sense. I use Mat Board Plus in New Mexico (https://www.matboardplus.com/) quite reliable and inexpensive for quantities of 25 of the same size mats. I am sure there are many more such services out there if you do some research.

Part of the reason I want to purchase a new model is that the pricing locally has gone through the roof. I have an old Logan but again, it isn't great. I also use different size windows across my images because I tend to let the image dictate the size.

 

[Bill Burk]

Have been a long term Dexter fan, but curves at the corners are a standard hazard.

Brother in law, (the one whose house survived the Palisades fire), has a wall mounted Logan he picked up for practically nothing when Aaron Brothers closed up shop. I figure he still has it mounted in the garage with his art that survived.

Never saw anything like this before: Found this Leichtung Workshops mat cutter at a garage sale last summer. It’s actually pretty capable.

 

[Hassasin]

It also means having immediate access to the proper mat board, usually leading to inventory, another unneeded expense.

But inventory of mats is not volume consuming and can be addressed with planning. With proper storage they won't change their color or texture. I don't disagree having them done by external service, but when one only needs one or two, it stops being economical pretty quick. Of course quality cutter is not a cheap option at all, especially if one really wants to see span of time when it pays itself off.

 

[DREW WILEY]

My own dalliance with those Dexter and Leichtung devices (a later version of Leichtung)
was frustrating and very brief. There was another brand I tried too - probably a handheld Logan one, not rail-captured.

I regret selling my early Speed Mat. It did all four sides with one set of settings - no need to turn the mat itself; but that version of it used a blade quite similar to Dexter blades, which was effective only on two-ply Museum board. But it did that with such precision and ease time after time, that I should have kept it for that purpose alone. Two-ply was nice for displaying small antique photos, back when Strathmore offered a larger selection of dark neutrals as well as lighter browns and tans, which went well with antique print tones. Nearly all my personal photography uses 4-ply board instead.

 

[BobUK]

My needs are simple, and the basic Logan hand cutter works well for the few mattes that I cut.
Just a hand held holder that holds the blade at 45 degrees.

I did ruin a few sheets of card in my early attempts.
This was due to using a self healing cutting board. The blade tended veer off from the steel rule that was used for the straight edge.
I think the instruction sheet did say to use a sacrificial offcut of card under the board being cut.
Using card, the blade cuts in a straight line. Using the cutting mat results in the blade going off course.

 

[eli griggs]

' I suggest you first get very comfortable matting small photos by hand, rule, simple Logan mat cutter, mat or drafts person cutting surface and new box of fresh razors, before getting a mat cutting machine and cutting anything larger than 16” in any dimension, on good mat.

Always use four ply or gre ater 100% cotton rag board.

Don't suffer use of lesser materials, they beget bad, sloppy habits.

Only when you are comfortable with small and medium boards, should you buy a machine, so you’re able to make a good mat and are able to recognize bad cuts before commiting them to the board..

IMO,
Eli

 

[MTGseattle]

I learned and then cut my first 20-30 windows with an aluminum straight edge that light Impressions used to sell (48" long, cork backed), a logan model 3000 cutter and a couple of C-clamps.
My first pack of museum board cost more than the entire cutting kit.

I very much understand what nice, accurate tools can do for a given task, but the $10 at Goodwill Logan compact mat cutter I have now is fine for my needs.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I have exactly one picture where a handheld Logan cutter was involved. It's my first Cibachrome image - a lovely little thing. I did everything wrong - ordinary cheap acidic black matboard (2 layered windows of it); a vinyl coated board backing (which would have ruined most kinds of prints); the print attached using wavy 3M repositionable adhesive; a frame I cut from beech window moulding with an old fashioned hand mitre saw, assembled with a cheap set of clamps and finish nails, then stained. But there it still is - still looking good on the wall.

 

[Pieter12]

' I suggest you first get very comfortable matting small photos by hand, rule, simple Logan mat cutter, mat or drafts person cutting surface and new box of fresh razors, before getting a mat cutting machine and cutting anything larger than 16” in any dimension, on good mat.

Always use four ply or gre ater 100% cotton rag board.

Don't suffer use of lesser materials, they beget bad, sloppy habits.

Only when you are comfortable with small and medium boards, should you buy a machine, so you’re able to make a good mat and are able to recognize bad cuts before commiting them to the board..

IMO,
Eli

More than 4-ply--usually 8-ply--is quite difficult to cut well. I leave that to the pros.

 

[DREW WILEY]

8-ply ideally needs a pneumatic plunge cutting device, powered by compressed air. The sheer price of it alone will probably discourage most people. And if you do want that kind of thickness between the print and the glazing, you can simply double up two 4-ply window mats of slightly different cutout dimensions, that is, if you're good enough at exact sizing.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I learned and then cut my first 20-30 windows with an aluminum straight edge that light Impressions used to sell (48" long, cork backed), a logan model 3000 cutter and a couple of C-clamps.
My first pack of museum board cost more than the entire cutting kit.

I very much understand what nice, accurate tools can do for a given task, but the $10 at Goodwill Logan compact mat cutter I have now is fine for my needs.

For your own wall that’s fine, but paying customers expect rather more.

 

[GregY]

For your own wall that’s fine, but paying customers expect rather more.

Agreed!

 

[Hassasin]

I think it's important to note: once a quality cutter is used, there is no going back.

Even if only two or three same boards have to be cut, production stops show their value.

Ease with which one can hold down the board, so it does not move, and then running blade through it, getting that tactile feedback how solid it all feels ... it's not that it cannot be done with lesser equipment, it's more about going from "there must a better way" to " so that is how they do it".

 

[DREW WILEY]

I've always bought matboard in bulk. But what does a single 32X40 inch sheet of 4-ply museum board or Alphamat cost retail per sheet these days? $20? Just how many sheets can one afford to screw up before you discover a good professional-quality matcutter pays for itself pretty fast, if you do indeed need to cut a quantity of window mats, or even square up the overall sizes properly.

 

[GregY]

I think it's important to note: once a quality cutter is used, there is no going back.

Even if only two or three same boards have to be cut, production stops show their value.

Ease with which one can hold down the board, so it does not move, and then running blade through it, getting that tactile feedback how solid it all feels ... it's not that it cannot be done with lesser equipment, it's more about going from "there must a better way" to " so that is how they do it".

Yes.....

 

[eli griggs]

More than 4-ply--usually 8-ply--is quite difficult to cut well. I leave that to the pros.

E

More than 4-ply--usually 8-ply--is quite difficult to cut well. I leave that to the pros.

Eight ply is quite thick and high dollar art framing material and I don’t use it because I can’t cut it myself.

If I ever were to frame art/photographs for prime gallery display or sale, I would hire the mat work out. The eight ply stuff I seeing is just too expensive if not bought wholesale.

IMO.

 

[Peter Schrager]

Not answering your question directly but Paula Chamlee from Lodima.org sells and cuts mat board to any size and she does an amazing job...fast shipping
Paula understands artists needs and be very helpful

 

[Rick A]

I have a Logan model 650 Framers Edge mat cutter.

 

[GregY]

Not answering your question directly but Paula Chamlee from Lodima.org sells and cuts mat board to any size and she does an amazing job...fast shipping
Paula understands artists needs and be very helpful

I used to buy Lodima paper from Michael & Paula. I expect their mats great. I find having someone else cutting mats for me to be incredibly inconvenient

 

[MTGseattle]

For your own wall that’s fine, but paying customers expect rather more.

It's all in the measuring and prep. What a nice professional cutter gets you is 100% accurate repeatability. When I've used a custom framer, it has been for large sizes, "special" matting, and the ridiculous number of frame stock choices. If the results meet my expectations, which cutter they used is the farthest thing from my mind.

 

[eli griggs]

It's all in the measuring and prep. What a nice professional cutter gets you is 100% accurate repeatability. When I've used a custom framer, it has been for large sizes, "special" matting, and the ridiculous number of frame stock choices. If the results meet my expectations, which cutter they used is the farthest thing from my mind.

That final cut and handling of the finished mat seals the deal and should be the only check on the worthiness of the job, with the cutter blade and other considerations invisible to the buyer.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Not good to be nitpicky about a fly in the ointment ... but I was a bit disappointed how to see how all the fresh matcutting for the most impressive museum display of AA's life work I've ever seen had the corners of every single window mat a bit skewed (or "hooked" as pro framers would call it). We're talking about tens of thousands of dollars of custom work in that case, for sake of a single brief display. No, the framing itself was never intended as the main attraction, but it was an annoying distraction for something of this level of importance, a mismatch. And I wasn't the only person who spotted it; even some of the general public did, and were whispering.