[LargeFormat] Film Cutter (was Big Old Cave)

[Leigh Solland (on Chickadee)]

>Dear Leigh,
>
>     Just the person I want to talk to!
>
>    Tell us more about the film cutter that you made. I want to be able to
>use 6 x 9 sheet film in the dinky little double dark slides that they used
>to make - provided I can get a system together off eBay - but there seems to
>be absolutely now way of ensuring a supply of film here in Australia in this
>size. SO I must cut 4 x 5 sheets somehow.
>
>     Please tell us how you do it.
>
>     Uncle Dick
>

Dear Uncle Dick,

If I were just trimming 4x5 inch sheets down to 6x9 cm, I would use a 
guillotine paper cutter.  Mark the alignments on the bed of it with some 
tape, so you can "see" them with your fingers in the dark.  And keep 
said fingers away from the blade.

My cutter (tm reg, pat pend, op cit, qed) is probably easier to show 
than to describe, but I will give it a shot.  I am going to give the 
dimensions in the obsolete system, because that's how I made it.

Imagine a piece of two-inch-thick wood, a foot square, with rubber feet 
under it.  I will call it the table.  Across it are cut three parallel 
channels, an inch deep and an inch wide, traversing the full width of 
the table.  Along the left side is a wooden fence, 1 inch by 1 inch, 
permanently attached to the table.  The channels run under it.

 There are knobs in the fixed fence that can lock the sliders.Two of the 
channels are occupied by sliders, which are attached to another wooden 
fence, identical to the one just described, except that it can move. 
 This allows the table to be set up for the width of film (or paper) 
stock to be cut.  The sliders project out the left side, as the movable 
fence gets closer to the fixed fence.

The middle channel has another slider, but this one has a cutter 
attached to the end, pointing upward, with the sharp edge facing us.  I 
made it from an x-acto utility knife blade (not the little x-acto pencil 
knives, because it has to be stronger than them).  It also has a locking 
knob in the fixed fence, so it can be set for the width of the cut, 
somewhere between the two fences.  It also projects out the left side as 
needed.

When all is set up and adjusted, I turn the lights off and dig out the 
film.  I pull it over the table, between the fences, holding it down 
snugly over the blade so that it gets cut.  Naturally, one has to be 
careful not to get blood all over the film.  I am still pondering some 
kind of safety guard for the cutter blade, which might also incorporate 
a mechanism to hold the film down over the blade without putting fingers 
in harm's way, but I don't want to scratch the film any more than 
necessary, so I am doing without for the moment.

This has proven successful for cutting strips that will then be cut into 
sheets, as well as for cutting roll film and the backing for roll film. 
 I have made 116 rollfilm, 4 x 12 inch sheets for my ancient panoramic 
camera, and several sizes of sheets (4x5, 3 1/4 x 4 1/4, 2 1/4 x 3 1/4, 
9x12 cm, etc.).  I am planning to make 4-inch rollfilm, 16mm rollfilm 
for my Minolta spy cameras, and might take a crack at 126 and 828 when I 
figure out how to make perforations properly.

I designed the cutter so that it could also be used for cutting the 
strips into sheets, but I find it much easier to do that on the 
guillotine paper cutter.

My cutter is made from cherry wood, and all the fittings are brass from 
Lee Valley Tools (plug), so it is a very pretty piece of woodwork 
besides being a useful tool.

I hope this was helpful.

Regards,
Nephew Leigh