old equipment

[Sbrem]

A while back, a question popped up as to what was the oldest piece of equipment anybody had, and ours was a guillotine from 1916. My partner Paul was cutting some scrape cards this morning, so I thought I'd post a real quick video



Steve

[ZooCity]

That was great to watch.  Did you have to move that monster in there originally?

[Frog]

Old printing equipment (real printing, not this screen nonsense) is always cool. Real machinery.

Of course, sometimes, depending on the type of machine, old is relative. Though probably only about 30 years old,
how's this for a funky old heat press? This actually helped actually kept my head above water when, after my fire, this was all I had for a while.
I had loaned it to a friend (whose place hadn't burned down, LOL!)

The heat platen slides in and out, and has no real adjustment. I used to vary the thickness of the pad to adjust pressure.

[screenxpress]

God, those things are awesome and scarey at the same time. 

My father was a large press printer/manager and I've seen a lot of those over the years.

And always the operator was missing something God had given him.

[Shanarchy]

It looks a lot like the paper cutter I learned to cut paper on. Is there two safety handles that both your hands press in and a foot pedal to activate the guillotine?

[screenxpress]

I think they all are, but for some reason, the operators either find a way to bypass one of the safetys or something becomes inactive/broken.

I have a very small (comparative) cutter with the same kind of drop blade (but manual) and I managed to shave off a complete fingernail that took months to heal when I got too close to the blade pulling my hand out.  Yea, it was hanging down a tad.

[Shanarchy]

One day I had a big steel ruler under it (unintentionally). It was about 1/4" thick. It dropped the blade to cut the paper, and it also cut the ruler. Clean cut like it was butter. All I could think of was what if that was someones wrist under there. It really made me realize that machine was no joke. Pretty scary.

[Sbrem]

One day I had a big steel ruler under it (unintentionally). It was about 1/4" thick. It dropped the blade to cut the paper, and it also cut the ruler. Clean cut like it was butter. All I could think of was what if that was someones wrist under there. It really made me realize that machine was no joke. Pretty scary.

Yes, you need both hands and one foot to operate, which of course, keeps you from cutting your fingers off. However, there are those that would tie off one of the controls, stupid enough? Yes, they cut their fingers off, morons...

Steve

[StuJohnston]

One day I had a big steel ruler under it (unintentionally). It was about 1/4" thick. It dropped the blade to cut the paper, and it also cut the ruler. Clean cut like it was butter. All I could think of was what if that was someones wrist under there. It really made me realize that machine was no joke. Pretty scary.

Yes, you need both hands and one foot to operate, which of course, keeps you from cutting your fingers off. However, there are those that would tie off one of the controls, stupid enough? Yes, they cut their fingers off, morons...

Steve

I can't quite figure out what the advantage of defeating the safety on a paper cutter would be, the blade doesn't go any faster. Mine has two levers and a foot pedal and it still freaks me out when I think about the possibility of losing a body part to it even though it has the safety to prevent that.

[Sbrem]

In the case I know, they would set the gate, make a cut, brush the cut pieces off the table into a box. So, he could use one hand to feed the stock forward then cycle the cutter. Until he brushed his fingers into the box... it takes a second of two to feel the pain I guess. I'm a guitar player, so you can imagine how careful I am around the thing. None of our employees are allowed near, nor do they even know how to turn it on...

Steve