Swingline ClassicCut Pro 15" Guillotine Trimmer - 9115

Staff Review

GBC Classicut CL310 15 Inch Guillotine Paper Cutter Review

The GBC Classicut CL310 is a traditional guillotine style paper cutter that is designed for home office or small office use. It has a 15 inch cutting blade for cutting longer materials and has a 12 inch wide cutting table to help you easily handle your documents.  It is designed for trimming everything from tissue paper to foamboard, matboard to cardboard.  This innexpensive guillotine cutter is sold through office supply stores and online.  This review will provide a quick overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the GBC CLassicut CL310.

Features / Strength:

• The CL310 has a nice 15″ long cutting blade that is ideal for cutting lager papers. It is great for scrapbooking since it can easily handle the 12″ x 12″ scrapbook papers and is also very precise. It is a popular choice for crafters, scrapbookers and small organizations.
• The CL310 has several important safety features that are essential for a guillotine style paper cutter. It has a latch to keep the blade locked in the down position when it is not in use. It also has a tensioned spring mechanism that prevents the blade from falling when it is raised in the upright position. Finally, it has a purple metal finger guard that will help to prevent you from accidently sliding your fingers under the blade during the cutting process.
• The Classicut 310 has convenient measurements on the cutting table to help you line up your documents. The measurements are set approximately 3 inches down from the top of the cutter to help you keep your cuts more accurate and it also has convenient lines on the cut table to help you align your documents. The measurements on the CL 310 are in both metric and imperial so that you can cut based upon centimeters or inches depending on your preference.
• The blade on the CL310 can be both sharpened and replaced. This means that if you find that the blade is getting dull you can simply take it to a local sharpening company and they can renew it for you. After you have sharpened your blade a few times or if it becomes nicked or chipped you will need to replace it. Replacement blades are available and cost considerably less than buying a new paper cutter.

Weaknesses / Limitations:

• The CL310 does include several important safety features that are necessary for a guillotine cutter. However, there are a couple of safety concerns that I noted with this machine. Notably, the finger guard is placed almost a half inch away from the cutting blade. This means that it is possible to insert your fingers from the blade side of the cutter and still do substantial damage. If you are careful this shouldn’t be a huge concern. However, it is something to be aware of.
• The CL310 does not have a paper clamp or a backstop to help you align the paper. This means that you need to hold your paper in place during cutting and that you have to visually align the paper each time you go to cut a new stack. This makes any type of volume cutting or precision cutting work very tedious. Some larger guillotine cutters have these features and might be better suited for organizations that do a lot of cutting.
• Overall, the construction of the CL310 is good. However, the cutting base is made of chipboard and the quality of the blade is not nearly what you would find on a comparable trimmer from the Ingento line of maple trimmers. The Ingento maple trimmers have solid maple cutting bases, are heavier and use higher quality blades and metal components.

Recommendation:

• This cutter is ideal for scrapbooking, creating craft projects and for use with other light volume applications. In fact, my wife owns one and uses it for creating her scrapbooks.
• It is not ideal for high volume trimming and prevents some safety concerns in an office environment where liability may be a concern. Additionally, the construction is not as durable and is not designed to hold up to volume applications or for use in a school setting.