This is one of those questions that may make the reader question whether I should be allowed near power tools at all. But I’ve been thinking about it for a few days and have yet to see the obvious flaw. This doesn’t mean I’m likely to *do *anything about it; I’ve never been one for “hold my beer”-like stunts. But I’d like to wrap this thought experiment up.
Anyway, I’ve been doing a bit of office cleaning and am the proud owner of several reams of legal-sized copy paper. They were accidentally purchased about seven or eight years ago and we’ve never found a reason to use it. If I can cut it roughly in half I can fill every room in the house with a lifetime of clean scrap paper (legal paper won’t do for scrap. We tried. We got a letter in the mail saying “stop that”).
You can see where this is going. If not, then maybe you too shouldn’t be allowed around power tools.
The reams are all still in their paper jackets, so there is already some structural support to keep them together. I can also bind them (outside the wrapper) with strong, wide tape.
What is paper made out of, besides wood? White glue? Polarbear snot? I don’t see how whatever binders are used in run of the mill copy paper would muck up the blade or machine. And I can’t see how cutting through several inches of paper would dull a blade faster than a similar chunk of wood.
I don’t see why you couldn’t do it. While the saw isn’t exactly made for that, as long as you keep your fingers clear and drop the top to within about a half inch of the cutting surface, the worst that may happen is you end up with a big paper clog and try something else. A table saw is right out, however.
Won’t hurt the saw. It might leave a ragged cut if the paper wants to be pulled out of the ream. Some type of fixture that puts down pressure on the ream to keep the sheets together may help. Give it a try and report back.
I subscribe to the use-tools-for-what-they’re-meant-for school of thought.
While the band saw may work, it could also create paper fuzz and dust that could clog or even ignite! Very unlikely, but shit happens. It could grab and throw paper, scaring you, blocking your view, and taking off a finger while you grab for stuff. I don’t know. That’s the beauty of industrial and power equipment accidents - no one expects anything bad to happen until there’s blood.
Do this instead:
Take the paper to your local printer. He has a large paper shear that will slice through a ream in about 1/3 of a second. Repeat as necessary. Pay the man 5 bucks, or a slice of pizza or whatever. Give him 10 bucks, and he’ll glue them into little note pads.
Note alternate use for bricks and other heavy shit…:rolleyes:
If you insist on using the bandsaw clamp the paper tightly between two boards, then cut through the boards and paper together. You can even sand the cut edges while the halves are still clamped up.
I’ve cut rolls of paper (think wrapper paper but much heavier) on a table saw. It works, but it bucks and does make a mess.
I had some ideas, but I think I agree with whoever said to take it to a printer and have them cut it. They can cut the whole think in one smooth action and it’ll just take a few seconds. Kinko’s charges like a dollar for it when you get something printed so if you go to a mom and pop place and hand them $5 you’ll make their day.
I’ll also second having it padded (with cardboard on the back), it’ll be much more convenient that way.
Of course at that point you’re spending more money then just buying pads of paper so you have to decide how worth it is to do all that.
I agree with the folks suggesting you go to a printer or copy shop and have them cut it for you.
However, to answer the OP, I’ve done basically this. I wanted to cut a compartment out of the pages of a book, and I did it using a bandsaw – basically turning the book into a box. I had to glue up the entry point, but it worked fine. It took a lot of vacuuming to clean up the detritus after I finished, though. As someone pointed out upthread, the paper dust is flammable, and bits of paper all over the floor don’t make for stable footing.
We are probably talking about the same thing but look for a bindery. That’s a place that produces books. A printer puts ink on paper. A bindery turns those papers into books.
A bindery will have speed cutters that will slice through those reams in no time. The speed cutter can be set up for very precise cuts. They are heavy machines. The knives in the machine are extremely sharp and will leave no ragged edge which is what I suspect you will get from a band saw. A bindery sends the speed cutter knives out to be sharpened because any slight flaw in the edge will show up in the cut.
What you want to do is doable. Get on the phone and make some calls. For a bindery it would just be a “throw-off” job where they could make a few bucks with very little effort. Negotiate.
Blast from the past. I actually learned to operate a speed cutter at one time. I still have a scar on my hand for doing something careless I learned to never do again. Thankfully, it wasn’t serious.
I once took a ream of A4 paper to a print shop to get it cut into A5 on a large guillotine.
Really straightforward. Unless you have to travel a long way out of your way it would be a lot more convenient than fussing around with a bandsaw. And safer too.
Definitely this - both the idea of taking it there for the cut, and watching it done. Hugely impressive and powerful machines - usually operated by a pair of buttons that have to be pressed simultaneously - and are carefully placed/spaced on the machine so you would have to go to some lengths not to have your hands out of the way of the blade when it descends.
Is this a whoosh? Why can’t you use legal size paper for scrap? And if you really can’t, why can’t you just fold each sheet in half and tear it in two when you want to use it? How much scrap paper are you using?
I’ve done this plenty of times with no problems. Just make sure to brace it on both sides (or at least, on the bottom) with a stiff board. It won’t be perfectly neat, but it’ll certainly be good enough for scrap paper. And “go down to the basement and just do it” is a heck of a lot more convenient than finding some place that does it professionally.
Oversized paper is a complete pain in the ass. Terrible for fitting on the tiny corner of a table to jot down the name of something, or write a list using the back of a book. Plus, places like the parlour don’t really have large enough drawers to easily accommodate it. We could, if pressed, but this is all about über-convenience.
This quest to find usefulness is pretty much coming from the same place as small scale hoarding. Pretty bizarre mental gymnastics. Tiny, flitting thoughts, but spelling them out is pretty surreal: On the one hand, the though to putting good scrap wood to use to build a sled is great, but then wait, do I really want to use those nice, flat wide pieces on that? No, maybe I’ll find something more important! Am I really contemplating putting the paper in our trunk and driving around with them for a year and a half before I both find a printer and have the time in the day to stop in and ask? Maybe I’ll just move them over to another corner of the office until I decide…
A factory where I used to work had a guillotine for cutting stainless steel very similar to this. The machine operator had to go through a process - Slide a piece of steel into the guides, pull down a clamp to hold it in place, and press the two buttons. The blade came down with several tonnes of pressure and neatly chopped the steel plate.
He was on piece work, which means that if he worked faster he earned more. So he taped up one of the buttons. He could now feed steel in with one hand, lower the clamp, and press the one button with the other…
With four fingers on his right hand reduced to stubs, he lost his job, and the firm was heavily fined for allowing it.
All the local printers I use (I’m talking actual commercial printers with offset presses, not Kinko’s) have basic bindery services in-house. It wouldn’t do them much good to print my handbills or brochures or whatever if they can’t cut them out of the press sheet, fold them, bind them, etc.
I have used a band saw to cut spines off of books (for scanning) before and it works fine. Keep your hands well clear and the worst that will happen is the blade gets jammed or the paper starts to come apart. The sheets will have a slightly wavy edge.
I have also done this with a table saw, using a sled jig, but I wouldn’t recommend it: band saws are much more forgiving.
At the time, I asked folks at places like Kinkos about the guillotine and they told me they would have done it for a price on new paper only. No chopping of old paper or books; they don’t want to damage the machine.
