Dahle Vantage 18e Paper Trimmer, 18" Cut Length, 15 Sheet, Automatic Clamp, Adjustable Guide, Metal Base with 1/2" Gridlines, Guillotine Paper Cutter

I bought this from Amazon Warehouse and wasn't expecting a like new unit but was surprised when I opened the box. It arrived poorly packed in its original, albeit beat up box, but was in perfect shape. It had been slammed around in the shipping box too but it had no damage.I'm not using this for cutting paper, but to cut 1/42" wood veneer for large scale parquetry projects. As such the cutting edge has to be perfectly square to the fence at the top of the unit. Although some reviewers had issues with it being out of alignment, this one was right on the money. The fence is adjustable if it's out of alignment.The unit cuts very well. Making hair thin cuts has been a breeze with this unit, better than the sharp edged guillotine trimmer that I had been using. I've used it with heavy weight paper with the same results. I've not tried cutting 15 sheets as advertised, so I can't say if it can do it, but when it's not pushed to capacity it is extremely accurate. My final test was to cut two pieces of heavy paper stock and then put the cut edges together to see how straight the cut is. The cut is perfectly straight.Using the trimmer is a little different than some other trimmers. The blade will drop until the paper clamp contacts the table, so you have to swing it up to almost vertical to keep it out of your way when setting up. The clamp isn't aligned to the blade and it has a lot of movement side to side, making it difficult at times to keep your paper aligned if it isn't against the top fence. I've learned that holding a finger or two down on the clamp helps keep it in place while cutting odd pieces. The swing blade is curved and isn't as stiff as a standard trimmer, so you have to pull it straight downward without pushing the blade away from the fixed blade or you'll get ragged cuts.All in all, this is a good trimmer for craft work as well as light duty office use. It's built like a tank so it will take some abuse, but light enough and thin enough to store easily. And the cut quality is excellent.

This paper cutter is excellent! It's heavy and heavy duty, durable, it's designed well and cuts paper so smoothly. It's easy to use once you get the hang of latching the cutting arm. I'm very pleased with my purchase! Highly recommend!

This 18" cutter is beefy and accurate. It will make good accurate cuts in challenging materials. It cuts mat board cleanly. It will cut 15 sheets of copy paper. It will cut thin laminating film and thin dry mount film. The latter two are challenging because some cutters will cause these to fold over between the guillotine blade and anvil blade rather than cut. (this is the problem that drove me to buy this new cutter) A guillotine cutter should never be used on foam core. I tried foam core and it will work if you put it face down. The back edge of the foam core will be a bit rough but the (face down) top edge will be clean.The design is interesting and different from other cutters. The guillotine blade is very thick (5/16") steel and bowed (see picture 2 showing the blade all the way down). The blade has a 1/4" lateral bow; at any point in the stroke the blade is only contacting the anvil at one point. This is an exaggerated version of the bow in a scissors. Other cutters have do not have boldly bowed blades. This bowed blade design really seems to work very well.As I mentioned the blade itself is massive. Other cutters have heavy blade handles and thin steel blades. On this cutter the actual blade is 5/16" thick and the anvil is 1/4" thick steel. The blade is not actually all that sharp. If you grabbed the blade it would not cut your hand or finger, but it cuts paper, mat board, and films very cleanly. I suspect the bowed design is part of the ability to make a blade work extremely well without needing to be super sharp.The blade and paper clamp will remain up in any position. This is very handy for paper positioning. You can slowly lower the handle to get the clamp to engage, remove your fingers with the blade staying up, and then complete the stroke to do the cutting. You will not need to use a shoulder to hold the handle up while positioning or clamping the paper.I was able to trim very tiny slivers off of a photograph as one needs to do to correct slight boarder errors. A 1/32" sliver was easy and I could even manage almost down to almost 1/64".The base is steel which is nice. It about the right balance of weight to keep the unit stable and light enough to carry. An added plus is the magnets stick if you are doing some fancy paper positioning or want to hold a drafting triangle to the board. (Want to try cutting Octagons perhaps?)I am not excited about the scale or grid. The scale is 1/4" and the grid is 1/2". I prefer a much finer grid and ruler. Obviously you can use any ruler to supplement the scale on the cutter.. I found it easy to print off a grid and scale to my liking with a large format printer and double stick tape them to the base. If that is too much trouble for you, then you might just get a big sheet of graph paper that has a grid to your liking and stick that on the base.

I purchased this paper cutter to replace my paper trimmer. The blade is not sharp I thought it would be in order to cut paper. It cuts paper and card stock very well. It says will cut 15 pieces at a time. I would only cut 10 or less. Also take into consideration the thickness of the paper, the thicker the paper the less sheet. When trying to cut 15 sheets I have found that the paper looks chewed so not a clean cut. With less it will cut nice and clean. I love the grid aspect, the guide, and the brace on this trimmer. This is why I selected this one. Not totally satisfied with my purchase but not so much where I will return it. The brace is not straight but it will hold the paper kinda still. The guid is flimsy. It connects to the top of the cutter and the plastic is flimsy. The material needs to be stronger or attach at the top and bottom. Still a good purchase but I will only cut 10 sheets or less.

This paper cutter replaced an old plastic Swingline cutter. The blade had dulled. No matter how much I adjusted the tension on the blade handle, it tore the paper as it cut. The new cutter is metal, heavy duty, and has a better paper adjustable measuring guide. Great feature is the hold down strap that keeps the paper firmly in place as the blade cuts. That alone is worth the price. The unit is heavy with rubber feet so it doesn't move when cutting. I recommend and would buy again.