Martin Yale BCS412 12up Business Card Slitter - Score and Perf

Staff Review

Martin Yale BCS412 Twelve Up Desktop Business Card Slitter Review

Overview:

• The Martin Yale BCS412 desktop business card slitting machine is designed to help you produce twelve high quality business cards from a single letter sized sheet of paper. Plus it also provides you with the ability to score or perforate your printed documents.
• Cutting business cards using the BCS412 is usually a two step process. The machine will begin by cutting your letter sized sheet into three strips that are 3.5" x 8.5". You then take these three strips and feed them back into the machine and it will cut them into twelve 2" x 3.5" business cards. Or, if you print your business cards onto 2" x 3.5" stock you can cut the cards in a single step.
• However, the BCS412 is not only designed for creating business cards. The scoring and perforating features of this machine can be used to create event tickets, occasion cards, tent style business cards and other high quality custom items.

Features/ Strengths:

• The Martin Yale BCS412 can produce up to 375 finished business cards per minute. This allows users to create a run of 500 cards in less than two minutes and a run of 1000 cards in less than three minutes.
• The blades used on the BCS412 are semi-self sharpening. Although they will eventually become dull and need replacement, they are designed for years of maintenance free operation. This helps to keep the amount of money required to maintain the BCS412 to a minimum
• The BCS-412 is designed to cut business cards that are printed twelve up on a letter sized sheet of paper. This cutting pattern helps to maximize the productivity of the unit and yields 20% more business cards per sheet than a standard 10 up business card slitter for the same amount of money. This increased productivity helps to reduce paper usage, printing costs and the amount of labor required to produce your business cards.
• In addition to the business card cutting features of the BCS412 you can also use this machine as a perforating machine or scorer. This is ideal for printers and copy shops who are looking for a fast and easy way to create tent-style cards, event tickets, coupon books and occasion cards.
• The compact design of the BCS412 makes it ideal for locations where space is at a premium. It can conveniently sit on a counter or can be stored away when it is not in use.

Limitations/Weaknesses:

• The BCS-412 is designed to cut a letter sized sheet into twelve business cards. You can make small adjustments to the machine to help ensure proper alignment when cutting but you can't cut custom sized cards or move the slitting blades to alternate positions. You also can not use the BCS412 to cut cards that are printed on any size of paper other than 8.5" x 11" or 3.5" x 8.5".
• The scoring feature on this machine uses a special scoring wheel that can be moved and adjusted as needed. This scoring wheel is designed to crease your document to prepare it for folding. However, if you attempt to use a scoring wheel on digitally printed output it may result in cracking. If you need to crease items in areas that are digitally printed you should test a sample first to see if cracking will occur. If you have problems with cracking you may end up needing to buy a completely separate compression scoring device to crease your documents.
• The BCS412 yields the maximum number of possible business cards from every letter sized sheet. However, the fact that the cards are so close together on your printed sheets means that it is impossible to use this machine for creating full bleed business cards.
• It is also important to remember that the BCS-412 is designed primarily for use with letter size 8.5" x 11" paper. It cannot cut business cards printed on legal sized sheets and has a maximum throat width of 11" for perforating or scoring.

Recommendation:

• The Martin Yale BCS412 is an extremely robust machine that is perfect for small printers, in plant print shops and copy shops.
• It provides the ability to quickly and easily produce your own on demand business cards.
• It even give you the ability to your own custom perforating and scoring.
• However, it is not designed for dealing with large paper sizes, extremely high volumes or for creating full bleed business cards.