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RA4 Roll Paper Cutting Methods

natec300

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New York
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I'm interested in purchasing rolls of different types of RA4 paper for color darkroom printing. Would anyone have recommendations for an electric paper cutter? I cut down paper by hand and it's very time consuming since it's all in complete darkness. I know labs have huge paper cutters but trying to find a method that's accurate and no so time consuming..
 
If you’re willing to put in some time to get it set up, there’s a company called Krexil down in New Jersey that makes a CNC paper cutter based on 3D printer components.

I have one and really like it, the only “issue” is it’s got an OLED display that is really bright. I just taped some rubylith over it and cover it up with a towel when I don’t need to look at it.

The owner is really responsive and helped me work out the kinks of setting mine up. He did have to ship me a modified cutting wheel, so I’d recommend sending him an email before buying outlining your use case.
 

I would be very interested myself in talking with this group , thank you for posting, is there a website for them or email?
Bob
 
Thank you very much Aidan! Noticed you sell cut sheets any chance you can DM me? Wanted to ask some questions on your process but since I'm new to phototrio, it won't let me DM others for Spam reasons
 
I have to ask, how do you all usually cut down rolls? I've heard some stories of people doing it manually, but I hear there is or were some roll cutting machines people have gotten their hands on?
 
KyleMika said:
I have to ask, how do you all usually cut down rolls? I've heard some stories of people doing it manually, but I hear there is or were some roll cutting machines people have gotten their hands on?
Click to expand...

I just cut with a paper cutter in my darkroom, and put them in bags and cartons in my freezer. There were paper dispensers in the market in the old days, but those are quite hard to find. Also, they are limited to certain roll sizes. It us always quite an operation to cut about 700 sheets, but they will last for a considerably long time then
 
The pro labs do it with automated XY (both dimensions) computerized cutters. These are expensive and seem to have maintenance issues, but they cut cleanly. Cheap warehouse roll paper cutters, intended for various roll widths of Kraft and butcher paper, would seem to be quite inappropriate for photographic paper use. They're messy enough just with ordinary wrapping paper.

Guillotine style cutters can be used for cleanly cutting photo paper; but you'd want to count your fingers when the lights go back on! Dahle makes several quality grades of them.

I have a couple of Rotatrim dual-rail pro cutters. These are safe to use in the dark. One of them is 48 inch width, which I have mounted flush to a large laminated table surface equipped with a precise 90-degree angle stop, as well as with a precision positional length bar stop. A manual feed roller system sits just beneath the front of the table. I'll admit it could be tricky cutting down big 40 inch wide rolls of Cibachrome and various Fuji papers in the dark; but that's how I did it, and will keep doing it. It sure beats a box knife on the floor!

I have a variety of light-tight paper safes nearby, up to 30X40 inch capacity. The remainder of the big roll gets wrapped back up in its light-tight packaging, which is put back into its original box until I need to cut more of it down.
 
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KyleMika said:
I have to ask, how do you all usually cut down rolls? I've heard some stories of people doing it manually, but I hear there is or were some roll cutting machines people have gotten their hands on?
Click to expand...
I've moved your post as well as a few replies to it to the present thread where it fits better. It pays to use the search to see whether people have asked the same question, which in this case is indeed so (and more than once).

I've used three systems, personally:
1: A regular rotary cutter (Dahle etc.) lined up with a DIY jig that held the roll and a bar (length of wood) taped to the table by means of a stop to get the right length. This worked OK and I could build it from scraps.
2: Basically the same concept, but a commercial product that was made in probably the 1980s or so; this was essentially a box with a spindle on one end that the paper roll went onto, a guide in the middle and a roller cutter at the other end.
3: A proper paper dispenser, which is essentially a metal, light-proof box that the paper sits in with a motor that feeds the paper through a slit to the outside world at the set length, and a (manually operated) roller cutter.

The paper dispensers as mentioned in #3 used to be common in photo labs, but most of them have been scrapped. They pop up very rarely on the market, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to wait for one comes around.

See also the posts of @Aidan Sciortino above, who has linked up with a US/NYC firm that makes dispenser/cutters for various applications and he has had good results applying one of those machines to the application of RA4 paper cutting.
 
If your easel options are flexible, you can make good use of slightly oversized/slightly off square or not straight cut sheets, that can then be be printed with larger borders and trimmed to size afterwards.
 
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