How do Industrial Guillotine Cutters Work?

Industrial guillotine cutters are a fantastic way to speed up the paper conversion process. Thanks to their incredible speed, detailed settings, and reliability, almost any industrial paper conversion operation would benefit from one.

That said, there are very few guillotine cutter operators out there—and even fewer engineers. As a result, these hulking, expensive pieces of equipment can seem like a mystery. Just how do they work, and what makes them so great?

Today, we’re revealing how industrial guillotine cutters operate under the hood.

Exploring The Fundamentals

At its core, a guillotine cutter operates about the way you’d expect: paper goes in, a blade slices that paper, and freshly cut paper comes out the other end. But even simple concepts can create unexpected problems at a large scale. Below, we’ll be answering a couple questions about how guillotine cutters solve those problems.

Q: How Do Guillotine Cutters Cut Through So Much Paper?

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that paper comes from trees. As fragile as one piece of paper might seem, a ream of paper is surprisingly strong. And the more paper you try to cut at once, the more difficult it becomes. So how does a guillotine cutter deal with this problem?

Industrial guillotine cutters have three main mechanisms that help them cut through even the largest stacks of paper: a hydraulic system, a sharp blade, and (sometimes) vibration.

Most guillotine cutters operate on hydraulics, using liquid pressure to exert incredible power as they deploy their blade. And naturally, it pays to have a reliable, sharp blade. But what’s truly interesting is vibration.

Some industrial guillotine cutters vibrate in incredible small, incredibly fast patterns—in fact, they can even be too fast to see with the human eye. This essentially creates thousands of micro-cuts in the paper, which prevents the blade’s pressure from being evenly distributed across the entire stack of paper. As a result, even blunt blades can create incredibly precise cuts.

Q: How Do Industrial Paper Cutters Work So Fast and Reliably?

Some industrial paper cutters can cut hundreds of sheets of paper at a time, making their output speed incredible high. And while that might be impressive once, it’s doing it reliably that really matters. So how do engineers accomplish both?

Well, the main obstacle to reliability is making sure nothing unusual happens. If you’ve ever had an annoying paper jam in your printer, imagine what that might look like at an industrial scale. That’s why uniformity is so important.

Industrial guillotine cutters ensure uniformity of paper by using a combination of clamping, maneuverable arms, and fencing. The clamps hold the paper down while the arms adjust it and the fencing ensures it stays within the proper area.

Improve Your Paper Cutting Process with JM Equipment

Are you looking for new, reliable ways to improve your paper cutting process? If so, our experts at JM Equipment are always here to help. For more information, click here to contact us today.