A Cleaner Cut in Hartford

You never realize how important a paper cutter is to your in-plant until it breaks down.

That's something Mario Maselli learned very quickly in September when his shop's old MBM Triumph 721-06 LT cutter stopped working. Production in his three-employee in-plant at the University of Hartford soon backed up.

To get by, he called on a fellow in-plant manager, Phil Duffy at nearby Trinity College, who let him use his shop's Challenge 305 cutter. For the next three weeks Maselli, Print Services & Procurement Manager at the Hartford, CT, school, loaded his car with jobs and trucked them the four-and-a-half miles to Trinity.

"Three weeks felt like three years," he admits.

While running Trinity's Challenge cutter, Maselli couldn't help but be impressed with the machine.

"I fell in love with it," he admits.

So after asking other small in-plants for suggestions via a listserv and talking with his equipment supplier, A. L. Larsen Co., he decided to purchase a Challenge Titan 265 hydraulic cutter. With a maximum cutting width of 26.5˝ and a 4˝ clamp opening, the cutter boasts features like programmable electronic clamp pressure control, low-pressure pre-clamping, computer-controlled backgauge and unlimited program storage capacity. Changing blades is much easier than with the old cutter, Maselli says, and the quality of the cutting is far better.

"I see a much cleaner cut," he testifies. "We put it through the wringer as soon as we got it and it really held up."

Most of all, though, he's glad he doesn't have to load jobs into his car any more and drive across town.

"It's been great," he says.