Thank you all for your thoughtful replies.

I only plan to cut 1 sheet of paper at a time, so I hope that relieves a few worries. I know many of you mentioned smaller cutters or mat cutters, but I really need one that is at least about 52 inches due to the large roll of paper that is waiting for me to open and use. I have a weird sort of heart issue that makes it difficult for me to stand still for very long, which is why standing to cut or fold paper is more difficult for me than most people. I need a cutter to speed up the process.

I did look at the ones in the UK, Brian, but most say that they don’t ship to the US. I don’t know where you went, but you got a really good deal. Most of these cutters plus the shipping cost would be beyond my range even if they shipped.

Frankly, it is straight up annoying how much some of these paper trimmers cost. I could buy a little computer for what it costs to cut paper. I will have to check out some of the local watercolor groups, as Kaylen mentioned, to see if any of them have large paper cutters. However, that requires not just waiting, but also planning ahead farther than I often like to. I’m a little more spontaneous with my painting most of the time.

I did go to Lowe’s and looked for bars similar to what I had seen on these trimmers. I thought I had seen some there in the past, but I didn’t see anything like them this time. However, Indraneel is thinking along the same lines as I am on this because if I can figure out the bar to go across, I would then like to have a little channel below to both help guide the blade as well as keep it from cutting into the table where I would use it.

At Lowe’s, I found some aluminum channels, but the smallest channel was 1/2″ wide. I don’t know what I could do to fill most of it to only leave a small enough gap for the blade to glide through? That is not the only option, however, but it would be nice if they made some with gaps of only 1/8″ or even less.

Now, while I didn’t find the bars that the blade rides along to cut the paper for many of these commercially sold trimmers, I did find some long metal bars that are somewhere between 1/2″-1″ square instead of round. That could work if I could fashion something to go over it that I could then attach a cutting tool to because it would keep the blade from rolling, and keep it stable. It might end up a little crude to look at, but if it saves me hundreds of dollars, that’s fine with me.

I guess my question now is where do I go if I need metal cut? The bars I found were pretty long, so I would definitely need to have them cut down. I might also need another item or two cut or welded or something. Not sure where I would go to have any of this work done. Any ideas? Thanks!

Thank you Kaylen, you are so helpful!

I didn’t realize that Lowe’s could cut down those metal bars. That is good information for the future.

I did some googling to find shops that work on metal in the area, and from my results, I think the best key words are ‘metal works’ or ‘metal fabricators’ – but using metal building shop helped me find them.

I have a little soldering iron, but it seems I have used it for everything but melting metal. It will be interesting to see if it works on this project, but if it doesn’t, I now have an another option to try to adhere one piece of metal to another. – Liquid Nails. I did not know that there was a glue for metal. Nice. That will make some things much easier!

As for the handheld rotary cutters against a straight edge . . . you would think that would be easy, wouldn’t you? I have tried, but I can’t seem to keep the blade against the straight edge, and I often let the blade to wander out even when I am trying hard to control it. I do that with my box cutters, too. Well, that or I find I am holding it so close to the straight edge that I am cutting shavings off of my ruler!

The car idea, however, is fun. I like it! If I could find one large enough, maybe I could adhere a rotary blade cutter to the side of one and make it an armored car? If I could use a couple of straight edges bolted down beside each other, I could create a straight and narrow channel that the armored car could be pushed along to cut the paper. That would prevent me from doing any drunk driving when cutting my paper edges esp while driving a weaponized car.

I’m glad to hear that I am not the only one with a giant roll of paper just sorta hanging around the house – while I continue to buy sheets of paper because the giant roll is too much to deal with. I am more than a bit annoyed with myself, however, because the roll is 154# paper, which I might prefer to work on if I would just break the thing open! I think the other thing that bothers me about this paper is that I don’t want to deal with the fact it is going to be a pain to flatten the paper out. I have a smaller, shorter roll of 90# Strathmore Mixed Media paper that I have cut into many times. I enjoy using the paper, but it is a pain trying to get the curl out of it so it lays flat, and it is nowhere near the weight of the Arches. Wetting the paper solves the problem pretty quickly, but then I lose some sizing. I like a lot of sizing in my paper, so that is not a good option, either. If it is not one thing it is another . . . :rolleyes:

Oh, and just in case anyone considers the Fiskars 24″ ‘Rotary Cutter and Ruler Combo’ . . . Don’t. I bought one about a year ago for about $35 at Walmart. If it worked well, it could be helpful. Unfortunately, the blade skips all over the place. The cutting it does is so spotty that it is a real pain to try to go back and cut the places it missed especially since I want my edges to be clean and not ragged. When I say ragged, don’t think deckled edge. Deckled edges are lovely. Ragged is rough and ugly. You don’t want that.
https://www.fiskars.com/en-us/crafting-and-sewing/products/rotary-cutters-mats-and-rulers/rotary-cutter-and-ruler-combo-6-x-24-195130-1001

I need to go out of town soon for a bit, so it may be a few weeks before I have a chance to really tinker with this. If I ever get a good working model up and running, I will report back. No way to really tell at this time whether the product of my efforts will leave you all oooing and ahhhing, or more likely, hahahahing, but I don’t mind either way as long as it works!

Hi Kaylen, thank you for all the ideas!

I kinda like that rotary cutter. It doesn’t seem to hold up well for cutting big cardboard boxes, but I doubt it would have so much trouble with a piece of paper.

However, that said, I still like the idea of a something closer to the cutters where the paper is clamped and the blade follows a little channel. I have a few ideas, I just haven’t had time to fully flesh them out yet since we are getting ready to go on our trip. One part, however, is like you mentioned – two straight edges bolted down with a narrow channel for the blade to travel along. That part it likely the easiest part once I get some holes drilled for the bolts (although I am wondering about drilling through metal. Maybe I’ll need to take those straight edges to a metal shop to have that don?).

It gets a little tricky from there because I want to have a bar come down with the blade. I am thinking that I may be able to do that with some hinges attached to the bar or the support for the bar. Nothing so big as what you’d use on a door, but you get the idea. Anyway, it is all really rough right now until I have time to get back and wander around the hardware store and see what goodies they have to offer that I can cobble together.

I do know that if I create the channel with 2 straight edges for the blade on a board or support where I can get a good measure of the length of the paper, I could clamp down the paper with clips while I’m cutting, and I might not need to bother with a bar for the blade. We will see. I guess I just like the speed and simplicity of cutting paper on those specialty paper trimmers.

Thank you again, Kaylen, for all your thoughtful suggestions. They are greatly appreciated!