Duplo 618 blade replacement

[ICON]

howdy all, does anybody have experience with sharpening rather than replacing a $2000 cutting unit on a DC 618? Anybody sell rebuilds cheaper than 2K? TIA

 

[chriscozi]

Wow.
Bet the salesman didn't mention that to you.
And it looks like the assembly probably doesn't allow for a shorter, sharpened, blade.

 

[Ynot_UK]

@ICON where are you located? In the UK, Duplo Service at Addlestone are very helpful indeed and prices are reasonable.

 

[pippip]

I can't believe a blade in a cutter isn't designed to be sharpened or at least simply replaced. How many hours of use is expected of it?

Did you buy from new? How long have you had it?

 

[jwheeler]

@ICON , I'm in So Cal as well. We ship our guillotine cutter blades to LA Grinding in Burbank for sharpening. They also sell new blades for every type of cutter, so I'd imagine they can help you out. Try giving them a call: (818) 846-9134.

 

[Wheate]

We went down this exact same issue with our Duplo....after much research we just bit the bullet and bought a new blade, was around $2k CAD. It sucks but man we must have put over a million sheets through that thing before we replaced. That machine pays for itself over and over......

 

[tngcas]

We had to do the same for the blade on our aerocut machine and it was around $2k as well. I need to replace the slitter blades at some point but thinking we will just spring for a duplo instead since the replacement splitter blades will run about $8k for all four sets.

it’s a shame they didn’t think about long term reusability on some of this stuff.

 

[pippip]

Wow, really something to check if ever purchasing one of these second hand.

 

[Ynot_UK]

We don't have an SCC however have often thought about one in the past and always (incorrectly) assumed blade replacement / swap-out would be simple and cheap, like with a guillotine.

edited & removed irrelevant text, after fully reading post #7

 

[ICON]

Thanks for the input folks! I will see if LA grinding has done any of these before...

 

[ICON]

I can't believe a blade in a cutter isn't designed to be sharpened or at least simply replaced. How many hours of use is expected of it?

Did you buy from new? How long have you had it?

its new with 1.3 mil cuts. still cutting but you can tell not as clean as before...

 

[tngcas]

Thanks for the input folks! I will see if LA grinding has done any of these before...

Let me know how that goes. Our blade is a scissor style but I feel like it ought to be able to be sharpened.

 

[ICON]

LA Grinding says they HAVE done duplo blades but not sure of the models, we will wait until it's duller then buy the replacement and experiment with the old one. It would be good to have a backup as we have several of these 618's Thanks for all the input folks!!

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

oh man, we just got a duplo DC-618 last year. how do you check how many cuts it's performed? I'm guessing we haven't even hit 100k yet

 

[Shawnd]

Doesn't take much to hit 100k, 4 cuts per sheet is 25,000 if you are doing 4 up postcards.

 

[cmack]

oh man, we just got a duplo DC-618 last year. how do you check how many cuts it's performed? I'm guessing we haven't even hit 100k yet

The blade should not need replacement until well over 1,000,000 cuts on the DC-618. You probably still have a long way to go. To check the cuts you have to go into the maintenance mode.

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

The blade should not need replacement until well over 1,000,000 cuts on the DC-618. You probably still have a long way to go. To check the cuts you have to go into the maintenance mode.

Thanks cmack. Any tips on how to get into maintenance mode and check that out?

 

[TheRealJohnField]

LA Grinding says they HAVE done duplo blades but not sure of the models, we will wait until it's duller then buy the replacement and experiment with the old one. It would be good to have a backup as we have several of these 618's Thanks for all the input folks!!

Our 618's blade is getting dull after 1.6 million cuts. What were the results of your attempt to get your blade sharpened. Is it possible to remove the blade from the module?

 

[ICON]

Sorry for never replying, never got a notification. Update on cutter. We discovered there were a couple of things going on that we're not actually a dull blade. the most impactful was that residue from cutting pressure sensitive was sticking to the blade causing other cutting issues so we stopped cutting pressure sensitive and we didn't have the problem anymore. We are now finally having real blade issues from wear now at 3,500,000 cuts. I would say a 2k blade is more than worth it! The other bummer was at about 1.5 mil we had a bushing on a slitter fail, the factory fix for that is $900 for two new slitter wheels (can't buy the bushing) and interestingly enough the new ones have an upgraded bushing so they would never have that problem again. the company says that it is not a known defect however, I think it's BS when you change the bushing type and don't offer people an upgrade even at a discount. That said, I was able to fix the existing bushing by melting a piece of plastic from a pen cap inside where the missing bushing was and we've put another 2 million cuts on that thing without my homemade bushing failing and it works perfect, so I still have my back up set of slitters...

 

[TJPrinter]

Thanks cmack. Any tips on how to get into maintenance mode and check that out?

Power off machine, hold down both forward and backward jog buttons while turning power back on. You'll hear a few beeps and see service mode options.