Ideal Guillotine

Ian, I operated a very big powered guillotine in an institutional bindery for a time. It had very good safety features as well as incredible holding and cutting power.

One thing it was badly lacking, though, was some way of identifying the nature of the material it was about to cut. Not once but twice I managed in the nick of time to stop another operator from performing a cut when he had carelessly left a steel rule across the cut line before placing his stack of paper on top.

Does the Polar Mohr you mention have a metal detector for the cut line? If not, do any guillotines have one?

Bill

the guillotine in my video actually tried to cut through a steel ruler and it shattered the tungsten blade about 4 inches in length

blades are about £1200 so expensive mistake

ruler survived

never seen any wrong material detectors on any paper cutting guillotines

I worked in Reprographics many years ago and my old boss told me one of his previous employers had a large power guillotine for cutting paper plans. Some plans however were printed on Polyester which could not be cut on the machine. One day an operator mistakenly tried to cut a large stack of Polyester plans and my boss said it put a ripple in the blade.

Amusing that in a small French town called Montmorillon in the Vienne they have several of these on display dating from the 19th century. The town was a centre of the publishing trade. Not the sort of guillotine you associate with France normally! Town well worth visiting, they also have a museum of typewriters and mechanical calculators.

There used to be a proper guillotine in Halifax up Gibbet Street. I don't know if it's still there I haven't been for a long time

Ian Parkin:

Excellent video; I winced a bit when the operator's fingers went near the line of cut!