Swingline 9612 SmartCut Rotary Paper Trimmer - 12 Inch Cut Length, 30 Sheet Capacity, Heavy-Duty Commercial Paper Cutter for Office, School, Crafting & Document Preparation

The Accucut trimmer features a measuring grid to allow you to line up your papers, and a clamping lever to allow the device to hold them in place when you trim them. You must hold the papers as you clamp the lever to assure that they do not move out of place while doing so. The side of the device with the trimming wheel has a plastic shield, and the papers come out underneath it. The edge of that shield is precisely the distance from points on the bed that are indicated on the measuring lines.When you trim the papers, the edge of the shield gives a clear indication of where the papers will be cut. The wheel will move precisely along the edge of it, and the smooth mechanism allows you to trim pages with a simple forward motion. You also have the ability to run the wheel over the papers again to touch up the edges if you did not get them quite right.That raises the question why you might not have gotten it right. The answer also touches on the experiences of those who thought that the device was off by about 1/8 inch. First of all, the instructions are pretty bad. They show you six boxes, each with a picture, and give no real explanation of anything. The picture that corresponds to moving the blade mechanism shows a palm rested against the right edge of the handle, pressing down and pushing it forward. The device is spring loaded, so the blade hovers above the paper feed slot. It must be pushed down to contact the papers. It also glides along a track, so it must have enough play to do so smoothly. If you grab the handle and try to wiggle it from side to side, you will find that it has enough play to do so. If you observe the blade area, you will see that the blade can come down with a gap between itself and the plastic shield. On the other hand, you cannot lean into it and get the blade to go past the shield so you do not run the risk of cutting your papers too short. If you press down as shown on the instruction page, the blade will rest against the shield as you glide it, and trim precisely. If you don't press down as indicated, you might end up trimming off slightly less than you had intended. Another pass with more attention to blade position can clean things up.A big problem is that there's nothing instinctive about proper use. It seems as if you should merely be able to press down and glide it with nothing else to worry about. Unfortunately, pressing down as indicated may not be what users would be predisposed to do, and it's ridiculous for them to need to read instructions in order to glide something from one end to the other. If this trimmer is for personal use, or for less than precise trimming, those things won't matter. I can't say how likely it is that you will get things right from the beginning. I'm left handed, and lining up the right edge of my right palm, pressing down and gliding forward would not have been my inclination. The handle seems to be one that can be grabbed, with the thumb leaning over one side and the pinky leaning over the other. If used that way, chances are that the blade will not travel along the shield, unless you give a moderate clockwise twist as you push. Using the left hand would make it even more likely that you would have a gap and your trim would leave your paper bigger than you wanted.On the other hand, this trimmer can be used with the trimming edge on the left side for left handed users. Placing the left hand with the left edge of the palm lined up with the left of the handle will allow you to glide the blade assembly forward and make a perfect cut. Aside from the minor issue of the clamp being on the far side, having a circular blade means that it makes no difference whether you keep the blade assembly on the left or right side. Drop blade cutters with a handle on the right side are strictly right handed, making it far more difficult for left handed users to get clean cuts, and turning them around would not be an option. Unfortunately, there's no mention of left handed use whatsoever in the instruction manual, turning a potential advantage for many users into a disadvantage.If you look at the instructions and use the device as documented, you will get clean, precise cuts. If you don't, I can't blame you. It's reasonable to assume that what the picture means to show is that you need to push down and glide forward rather than doing it literally with the palm positioned exactly as shown in the illustration. Although the trimmer works as designed when used as designed, the company has nobody to blame but itself for its poor execution and instructions. There is nothing in their FAQ on the website about this (Why am I trimming off less than than what the ruler shows?) and it seems as if Customer Support should be able to explain this to users. I didn't need to contact them, but I suggest you read other reviews to get a balanced perspective. I understand why there must be enough play for the wheel to move smoothly, and tightening things up to eliminate any play would not have made sense. Unfortunately, the result is a great product that can be easily misused.2.0 out of 5 stars I really was looking forward to using this trimmer, but,The Swingline SmartCut A510pro Commercial 15" Heavy Duty Rotary Trimmer - 9615A the Swingline SmartCut A510pro Commercial 15" Heavy Duty Rotary Trimmer - 9615A: Is an alarming disappointment. Here's why: But first as a retired professional photographer, and spending many days of darkroom time, I've either used or owned some of the best rotary & guillotine trimmers the market has to offer over the past 42 years. And in a non biased opinion, based on experience and professionalism, and the trade, I too believe that 'Rotatrim' is the rotary trimmer by which all other trimmers are to be compared too class by class. That statement is more fact than opinion. However, Rotatrim also cost about twice as much too class by class, but worth the cost if perfection is your goal day in and day out.The two reviewers below mine gave a five star review, and I too wanted to be part of that membership, but can not, sadly, do so and remain faithful to honesty and the facts as I see them so other reviewers can read both sides, and as to why I'm about to be rough in my review about the Swingline A510pro style, paper stock use, rotary trimmer. My purchase of this product was to be based on the criteria that I needed something with a small footprint, light weight for portability, not overly expensive, and with respectful accuracy. Unfortunately, I purchased little of what I needed or wanted with this product.One positive that the Swingline Smart Cut Pro A510 has is: It appears to be well built and should have been applied to real commercial grade products. Instead it's not very well thought-out for a professional's needs. The negs are many: There are too many safety features for a marketed professional and commercial product. After all, it's not targeted as a kiddy tool with those marketing claims.The trimmer's safety features with a light weight base get in the way of safety. It has been said that the only dangerous knife is a dull knife, and that's so true. As you think about that comment, let us look at the *plastic safety feature for the blade on the cutter assembly. To make a cut you need to push down to engage the blade out of its safety device to allow the 45mm rotary blade to slice through your project all the while pushing through in one fluid motion. Even practice won't help in maintaining consistently accurate cuts here with a light weight base because everything moves. Let us see, push down, while pushing forward and maintaining even pressure, and then get an accurate cut to boot. Wow, it does magic tricks too. In reality, however, the cutter assembly has a jerky and somewhat sticky motion on its slide bar, and then leaves a convex center to the cut. A square rule easily shows this result. The cutting bar probably has flexed to get the unwanted convex cut, and that's caused by not getting the one fluid motion in the cut, and practice does not make perfect here because it's out of your control when it's caused by the product's design. You'd do better with a hand held rotary cutter or X-acto knife, straightedge, and a self healing mat. (*Note: I have great admiration for modern day plastics.)The trimmer also has visual safety issues, and accuracy problems too caused by the ibeam shaped slide bar. First, due to the ibeam for the rotary cutter, and the push down blade safety release design, you can not see the blade to make minuet accurate cuts. So the safety now becomes an unsafe problem due to the blade being hidden inside the trimmer's safety. Since you can not see it from the front of the trimmer's work table, you need to rotate the table 90 or 180 degrees to view the blade from the back because the ibeam blocks the view from the front. But wait, the blade is still retracted up into the viper's jaw. I know the solution, push the blade down so it can then be seen. Oops! It cut your finger, but you now know where it's at--just don't move your finger, so man up, and leave it there so you don't lose your mark after all of the sacrifice of your pain.Because of these issues, and to make accurate cuts (haha), needing to rotate the trimmer's platform base 90 or 180 degrees to see the cutting blade, the trimmer, then, is not accurate enough nor the measuring marks minuet enough to make such critical cuts, and do so safely. So much for an alleged professional and commercial cutter.An open blade is a safer blade for a professional and commercial product. Does your steak knife have such a plastic safety device, an open razor for your face or legs, an X-acto knife, a surgeon's scalpel, the switchblade in your granny's purse, or a Cub Scout's pocket knife in your child's pocket? If you cannot see the blade at all times it's an unsafe blade!Much of Swinglines products don't have the high quality of years past, and it's due to global competition. I'm not picking on Swingline because of that per se, but many of their products are now poorly developed and overpriced. Their other series cutters are half the price and might be a better choice, at least the reviews are very positive.This product is a perfect example of trying to keep their bottom line in the black. Their marketing department has displayed this with their exaggerated claims by coming up with creative marketing techniques and claims such as they did for the professional and commercial A510 pro when the product is nothing more than an over priced home craft cutter with excessive and annoying safety features that get in the way of safe productivity. Moreover, when companies do this kind of marketing they must believe we're Homer Simpson, rather than the astutely savvy, self educated shoppers that we are, and that's due to our shopping has moved from the mall to the Internet, as we now have to buy our products hands off. They know this. Just prudently read their product descriptions and notice all of the information they carefully leave out. Stuff that seems trivial, but critical for us in making informed decisions, and this is why we need each other's detailed reviews on the product itself, and our personal opinions and experiences about the product pro and con in our reviews because everyone wins. Just don't allow sales people to manipulate our thinking as they spend billions each year, with money out of our pockets, to do just that. The manufacturers, vendors and merchants, and us--the consumer--who makes it all come together as a win, win for all... We rule, not them, so take control and tell them what we want by not allowing them to tell us what we need, and maybe we'll stop being fed junk when we want quality at a reasonable cost. Like it can be and once was.I hope this review will aid others in the quest for good purchasing knowledge with informed balanced decisions.I fixed the above problem by returning the trimmer under Amazon's great returns program and purchased the Dahle 440 14-1/8" Professional Series, High Capacity Rolling Blade Rotary Trimmer. For me, this is in the range of criteria I set (the cost was $44 more than the $110 I set, though, but on sale at MyBinding). I'll do a review on this product after I've used it more thoroughly, and I'll try not to rant (grin). It works really well, very smooth cut and easy to use.I purchased this to use at work for cutting thin plastic sheeting off of large rolls. It does the job very well. It has made a few thousand cuts so far and is still doing great even with the original blade. I would have given it 5 stars but there was an issue that I had to fix right when it arrived. When using the grid that's painted on the surface of the cutter, the cuts were not straight. It took several pieces of wasted material to diagnose the problem. I disassembled the entire cutter and that's when I realized the grid wasn't painted straight on the cutter. The only way I was able to see that was by removing all of the parts from the base. The grid was clearly not square with the base so I sanded the grid completely off and painted the entire thing gray without a grid. I use the plastic edge of the cutter as a guide to make square cuts which works fine for what we use it for. If I was cutting something and had to use the grid as my guide then I would have had to either return this product or be okay with having crooked cuts.OverviewI use this for cutting printed photographs to proper size for mounting/framingI print a lot of photos (Epson Surecolor P800) and started matting and framing my own to cut down on the cost of using an external service. I use fairly heavy papers, including some cottons...and the cutter always leaves a nice clean line.I use the integrated scale as a guideline, but find I have to eyeball things a but to split the line where I want it. It used to bother me a bit, now I don't even noticing myself doing it. I always cut one sheet at a time, so I can;t comment on using it for multiple thick sheets.My only beef...given the aspect ratio of DSLRs (and the fact that I use a 17 inch printer) I sometimes print of 17 by 25 inch paper (to get a mounted 16 by 24 print) It would have been great if the cutter accommodated 25 inches...still not a deal breaker.If you pat attention to the blade and the mat underneath the blase...you will always get clean cuts Pros-big enough for most of my jobs-clean cuts every time-simple clamping method does not damage delicate papers (like Baryta)Cons-would be 5 stars if it was 1.5 inches largerRecommendation – Would buy it again and would recommend<---Click below if you found this review helpful--->Very precise/accurate trimming. The paper clamp is an excellent idea. Some reviews of related models have complained there's no way to see exactly where the cutter will run. It's possible I misunderstand the problem but find no difficulty so, here's my observation on that issue ...1 - For raw stock such as photo paper the marked guides are very accurate and I simply use those to size the material. I can totally trust where the cutter runs for this purpose.2 - If I need to trim precisely along the edge of a photograph (for example), the blade runs against a clear plastic guide which extends slightly beyond the blade rail. I can easily see the edge of the photo there and simply place it under the edge of the guide for a perfect trim every time. Maybe the other models don't have this feature or my needs differ from others. Anyway, FWIW, and hope that info is useful to someone.It was a father's day present for my husband - I gave it to him early. He buys rolls of photographic paper so that he can print things the size he wants them. He's very happy with this cutter. Sharp, smooth edges.trabaja muy bien pero no corta muchas hojas solo de una o dosAfter I have tried many paper cutter, this is the one. It does what it is suppose to do. I am an artist ''Wall deco in 3 D'' and I have to cut leather and this is just perfect, it even cut cardboard paper.