Spent the morning in the studio cutting cards and booklets.

Our paper cutter was made by Westman and Baker, a Canadian Company. They went out of business around 1923.

Perhaps their equipment was too good and they hadn’t built in obsolescence like companies like, Apple, Ford, Facebook and just about any successful company. It is never about making things that last anymore. It’s always about selling more stuff.

I’ve used plenty of high tech cutters. They are easier to use, but don’t do as good of job and they break down, until you relent and buy a new one.

This cutter has been around. My father used to sit me on it in the back shop of The Lake Windermere Valley Echo newspaper and job printing building.

Even then I used to ask he put the blade down.

Later we used it in our printing business. It was the only cutter we ever had and served us well.

Now it sits in our studio. It doesn’t get used like it once did.

This cutter depends on feel. The pressure on the paper and the way the blade feels as you draw it down over the surface of job work. I can tell instantly if I am creating a burr on the spine of a booklet or cube of business cards.

To work with this reliable tool is very satisfying.