Cutting business cards

[postnetnc133]

We are a small shop and dont do a ton of business cards but for BCs we have a table top business card cutter but it cant do full color bleeds because there is no gutter cuts.

For those that cut business cards on a guillotine/hydro cutter what is your process for cutting them? In what order/side of stock do you start with?

I just cant imagine cutting business cards on a cutter because of the amount of cuts it takes.

I also am not confident in our cutter to be 100% on so when you stack all of the cards together they look nice and clean cut not all different sizes because the cuts were not 100% dead on.

We have a triumph 4700 which does what we need for other jobs but we dont do a ton of cutting to justify going out and buying a newer better cutter but when it comes to doing full color full bleed business cards we tend to send this out of house which i would like to keep in house if it is worth it ya know.

[Al Ferrari]

The only requirement for a guillotine cutter to cut bleed business cards properly is that it be able to cut down to 2 inches as an "inside" cut. Automation of the back gauge is highly desirable, but not imperative.

I did it for many years on a 30 in Challenge with manual back gauge. It simply took care to set the 2 and 3.5 inch distances carefully. Maintaining a sharp knife is also recommended. Simply arrange the sequence of cuts so that in each case, all of the 2 and 3.5 inch cuts are done while the back gauge is still at the same setting, rather than returning to that setting repeatedly in the sequence.

You will have to develop your own sequence of cuts, observing the gripper and side guide reference sides. Spend some time working this out, save it and then always use the same sequence. If your cutter is not programable, then carefully write the steps down.

Good luck.

Al

[EdgeCreativeSydney]

Well business cards are almost always cut using a cutting form, it normally cuts the cards in one direction only. Then it is finshed off on the guilo. This is the process most large printers use