The Plan 'A' ribbon cutter was intended to carry two rotary knife blades,
but the design had tolerance flaws due to it's origin in hardware store
parts.
The Plan 'A' ribbon cutter was intended to carry two rotary knife blades,
but the design had tolerance flaws due to it's origin in hardware store
parts.
The Plan 'B' ribbon cutter is shown at the left, and is based upon
the Ufla brand rotary knife available at fabric stores.
Many thanks to Lief Aden in Sweden for recommending this product to me. A 2" diameter Teflon-coated rubber floor protection disk was cut into strips, and the strips epoxied to the bottom and cutting side of the sled. The two strips at each end of the sled are the bearing surfaces that inferface to the straight-edge during cutting.
A 'shoe' or cutting mask was carved out of a piece of the Teflon-coated rubber to fit over the cutting edge of the rotary knife. The intent of this is to keep the ribbon material being cut from being pulled up from the cutting mat during the passage of the blade. The knife edge is adjusted to extend 1-2mm through the Teflon mask during cutting. The inner and outer edges of the mask were built up with epoxy for rigidity and strength.
The alignment of the rotary blade to the cutting axis required that the mounting board for the knife handle be slightly offset from it's being parallel to the cutting axis.
Part 5a - The Razor-Smoothed Poles.
Part 5b - The Cutting Bench & Micrometer Straight Edge.
Acoustic Line Source Research - Table of Contents.
