Comparing Cutting Tools for Print and Play Game Projects -- 2022 Update

foreign [Music] hey folks Martin here and I'm back with another one of my print and play uh tutorial videos although this one isn't really going to be a tutorial it's more of a comparison so here's a setup I um I'm a whole bunch of laminated card sheets that I produced yesterday for my current build of a print and play game called escape from ismoth which is on BGG right now and I will put a link in the comments below so I figured since I actually have to cut these sheets anyway then why don't I take this opportunity to use a different tool and method to cut each sheet show that procedure and then afterward talk a little bit about the pros and cons of using that cutting method and then we'll kind of wrap it all up at the end and summarize uh my opinions about each cutting method and then maybe I'll rank them as a personal rank thinking and hopefully that might help you out in making your decision about what you're going to use to cut your print and play card sheets so without further Ado let's get to The Cutting okay so the first uh stop in our tour of cutting implements to be able to cut your card sheets I'm going to use a handheld rotary trimmer in this case my Fiskars handheld rotary trimmer a cork back metal ruler the reason why it has cork is because that allows it to adhere or to not slip as you are laying it down on the surface to be cut and of course our self-healing mat in this case this is my Alpha rather large self-healing mat alright so I'm going to go ahead and position my camera and start cutting the sheet [Music] foreign [Music] my first impression here as I take a look at the cards that I have produced using this method is that they are pretty pretty good um so here's the thing right um I mean the sheet has cutting guides right you see these guides over here on the um x-axis and y-axis let me get closer so that you can see what the cutting guides are and um what I try to do when I'm cutting is I try to stay to cut within the bounds or within the margins of the sheet and I don't um try to cut the cutting guides um and that was hard to do with this method because it's not very um easy to tell because of the rotary nature of the blade where it's actually going to stop in relation to the edge of the paper so it's very easy to overshoot kind of that Mark and cut off the paper just go right through the edge or undershoot undercut and not cut all the way um to the edge of the component or the card so that was the drawback of me using this now the advantage is that um it's very precise right as long as you're careful and you line up your ruler you're very very it's very very precise in terms of how it lines up with the cutting guides as long as you're able to preserve The Cutting guides one other drawback of this style for me is that it requires a little bit more effort to be able to use like you can't really use it sitting down you have to stand up at least in my case I have to I feel like I have to stand up all right next up we're going to try to use what's called a or at least what I call a guillotine cutter to produce this next sheet of cards and so let's get started [Music] foreign [Music] so let's take a look at the cards that I produced using this Guillotine or swing arm cutter so the first thing I'll mention from a Advantage Advantage standpoint is that um there's very little effort required to use a swing arm cutter um especially a good one right um because especially if you're only cutting one sheet like this um it's pretty fast and the cuts that I produced are pretty well aligned now in terms of drawbacks sometimes it's tougher to align your thing that you're cutting with this Edge where the blade is going to pass such that if you can see here on some of these cards I have a little bit of white Edge or White Strip right there's another one there there's a minor one there now um this isn't serious enough for me to want to redo these cards but it is something that I'll call out at least in my opinion it's a little bit harder to get very precise very aligned Cuts using a swing arm or Guillotine style cut style cutter the other thing with this style of cutter is um of necessity it's going to cut all the way through from the start of the paper all the way to the end of the paper so it will cut off your cutting guides so if your cutting guides are not designed um to uh still have a little bit remaining after you cut off most of it with the um with the guillotine cutter then it's going to be more of a challenge for you a little bit harder for you to um align exactly where you're supposed to be cutting and get that accuracy and precision now um propose opponents people who are fans of swing arm Cutters or Guillotine Cutters say well you know you just have to be more careful and that's true if you are more careful um you can get better aligned Cuts with a swing arm cutter I'm just saying that it's a little bit more challenging in my experience um all right so here's the next sheet that I want to cut today and here's the next cutting tool that I'm going to demo for you so this is called the fist cars rotary bypass paper trimmer and it's by far the uh kind of most expensive um cutting tool that I have in my Arsenal this is about 130 dollars as I recall um so you call it a rotary bypass trimmer because if you look in there you see there's actually a rotary blade very similar to the rotary blade in the handheld rotary paper trimmer that I was using earlier so let's set up and then let's see how we use this Fiskars rotary bypass trimmer to cut this next card sheet [Music] foreign [Music] let's take a look at the cards that we produce using this Fiskars rotary bypass paper trimmer so at first glance I would say that they're slightly more um precise in terms of cutting alignment than the um the guillotine or the swing arm cutter although I do notice that I have um some cards here that have a little bit a strip of white where I passed the uh the blade so um that leads me to the uh pros and cons of this cutter as I see them um the advantages of this cutter are it requires I think even less effort um than the guillotine cutter or the handheld rotary trimmer um to get to to produce the cuts right so it's it's very very easy to use requires a little effort um the main drawback for this one just like the um swing arm or Guillotine cutter for me is that it's a little bit tougher to line up your cutting guides with the uh the channel where the blade is going to pass and so that can lead to um you have to be more careful and you have to exert more effort to get um good alignment perfect alignment with your cutting here um but if you can afford it this is a great option I think um and I'm very happy to have it and if I'm cutting a lot of cards then this is probably going to be my go-to it's also good for cutting um thicker materials so um 1.5 millimeter two millimeter tiles I could also use this I have the option of using this Fiskars rotary bypass paper trimmer okay so here's um what I'm saving the best for last uh in my opinion okay this is the and you've seen me use this before in other videos this is called the Fiskars shortcut portable trimmer and unlike the Cutters that I've used previously this doesn't use a rotary blade and it doesn't use a guillotine style blade it uses just a straight edge a very small straight edge underneath there and then it just you slide so I call this a slide style trimmer so you slide this blade down this Channel and then that's how it produces the cuts now the other thing that I like about this is that I don't know if you can see it in the video but there's actually a guide wire right down the middle of this channel here where the blade is going to pass so you can use that guide wire to line up with the cutting guides on the sheet that you're going to be cutting and that's how you can produce more accurate cuts by lining up the guide wire with the cutting guides so without further Ado let's go ahead and cut down this sheet into cards using this Fiskars shortcut portable trimmer foreign [Music] so let's take a look at the cards that I produced using this um Fiskars shortcut portable paper trimmer so offhand I would say that in terms of aligned Cuts cutting the blade passing where exactly I wanted it to pass I think this was the easiest tool for me to achieve that so I would put that definitely in the advantage or the pros column because of this guide wire that I mentioned right so this guide wire as I said makes it really easy to line up where the blade is going to cut with the cutting guides that are printed on the sheet and then the other thing is that um of all the four different Cutters that I've taken a look at in this video this is the only one that actually makes it very easy to lift the blade and then set it down inside the margins of the paper so that I can actually cut with precision and start inside a margin stop inside the margin and thereby preserve the um cutting guides that are around the edges of the uh of the sheet so this is the tool that makes it easiest to preserve cutting guides so that you can line them up with the guide wire and follow now the Envy the other nice thing about this for me is that it also requires the least effort to be able to use it's very very easy to use I can actually be sitting down as I'm cutting which is helpful if you're cutting a lot of cards right I can just take this move it in front of the TV put it on a TV tray and then just be cutting cards while I am watching TV or that sort of thing so it um takes a lot of the drudgery out of um the procedure of producing a lot of cards now the drawbacks for this one it's very light duty uh I wouldn't use it to cut more than two or three sheets of laminated cardstock in fact two was probably pushing it I don't use it for that purpose so it's not going to cut a lot of things and it doesn't cut thick materials but it is it's also uh pretty cheap so that's another thing I'll put in the um in the advantages category of everything all the cutting tools I've shown you today this is the cheapest one so uh that's another nice thing about it okay so let's summarize wrap it all up and um see how I would rank these uh four different cutting tools that I showed off today and how they stack up against each other so at number four um I will place this Guillotine cutter or this um swing arm cutter so on the plus side it's easy to use it's um very little effort to be able to cut items um on the minus side it's for me the toughest to get uh the most aligned uh Cuts knowing exactly where your blade is going to cut in relation to the sheet of cards um which is what I generally find myself cutting most of the time the other thing is that you have to be standing up when you're using it I mean you could use it sitting down but I don't know just because of the the way the arm is and whatever I prefer to use it standing up so long story short um this is a great option but for me it's number four um swing arm cutter so what would I consider number three so this actually surprised me when I thought about it but number three is I'm going to put my my beloved um and I love this my Fiskars um procision rotary bypass trimmer um at the number three spot um this is easier to use uh than the um swing arm cutter it's also slightly okay I have to be honest the drawback is it's just as challenging to know exactly where the blade is going to pass um so it's harder to get very precise Cuts with this one and it pains me to say that because I love this so much um and I'm happy to have it and if I'm cutting a lot of cards I have to produce a lot of cards in a short amount of time I will still use this one um but I have to be honest and say that it's harder to get very aligned very precise cuts so number two uh of the ones that I've talked about today I'm going to put a handheld rotary cutter uh metal cork back ruler and a self-healing mat which you can't see right now because it's underneath the camera lens um why number two let me make this clear this system is I think the most precise um if you want the most precise way to cut print and play components cards and whatnot then for me there's no better option than a rotary handheld cutter a metal cork back Rule and a self uh ruler and a self-healing mat um you can align your Cuts with a great amount of precision this tool especially when you keep the blade sharp um requires it can cut through pretty much anything and uh the other nice thing about this is if you're cutting thick materials that require a lot of precision so tiles and Boards uh and things of this nature then this is what you want to go to now the drawbacks of a system like this is it does require a lot of skill and a lot of practice to get to learn how to use properly I remember that when I was learning how to use these things it took me just forcing myself to use these over a period of about 20 or 25 different print and play builds before I finally felt comfortable enough using them so um there's a learning curve and you know and and some people are actually concerned that there's a safety issue I will say that uh that you could potentially uh cut yourself while you're using this I will say that if you learn how to use it properly then there's very little danger of that but I will acknowledge that some people feel that you know something like this a setup like this is a little bit more dangerous but the most accurate but also requires a lot of effort to use probably the most effort just because there's you know you have to manually align the cuts yourself you have to be standing up you have to be standing over the workbench those types of things so most accurate but also a lot of effort to use so for me number one in terms of ease of use accuracy great balance between I am going to select my Fiskars shortcut portable trimmer um you've heard me talk about this before you can use it while sitting down the guide wire that's here in this channel makes it very easy to line up where your blade is going to cut to the edges of the cards and you can take this in front of the TV you can plop it down there you can be watching a show and you can be cutting your sheets that way um so for me this tool features the best balance of ease of use and also accuracy let me be clear it's not quite as accurate in cutting as a rotary paper trimmer but this is a this requires a lot more effort and preparation and practice to use so if you want something that's easy to use you yet also very accurate I recommend the Fiskars shortcut portable slide style paper trimmer now I haven't mentioned the biggest drawback of this slide style paper trimmer is that the blade can get dull after a while so you have to purchase Replacements or have replacement blades in stock and when the cut starts when the blade starts feeling dull when the cutting starts requiring more effort you have to replace that blades but bottom line Fiskars shortcut portable trimmer to me is the best balance of accuracy and ease of use and the other thing I will mention is that of the four tools that I've shown you today this one is the least expensive one so that's it that's my um Roundup of uh four different styles of cutting tools for your print and play projects I hope that that has been helpful for you until next time this has been Martin thanks for watching

Channel: Martin Gonzalvez

Views: 1,891

Keywords: Print and Play, Board Games, Boardgamegeek, Gaming

Id: _LCLpYaVBcY

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 04 2022