Cutting the spines off of paper workbooks

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
We have this weird situation where my wife (home hospital teacher) needs to digitize a bunch of paper workbooks from a library at a school program that is being shut down. They are inches-thick paperback full-size workbooks. She has been hand box-cuttering the spines off, which of course is a ton of work, so they are loose sheets then running through a multisheet scanner/copier to turn into a PDF for use later since we don't have a place to store the workbooks.

There has to be a better way to quickly slice the spines off but being thin paper seems tricky and a potential for a mess. I'm thinking... band saw, with a heavy board or something on top to keep them flat? Ideally only cutting in 1/4" or something.

[yes, we realize how rediculous this is, the county won't pay for access to just get the digital versions]
 
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mbalbritton said:
Take them up to a print shop. They should have a guillotine cutter. It’ll knock them off in a flash. I always love running one of those. Extremely satisfying to watch. And will leave you with a clean edge. A table or band saw will rip through the paper and you’ll have all those edges intertwined and have to separate them individually.
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Guillotine is the answer
 
mbalbritton said:
Take them up to a print shop. They should have a guillotine cutter. It’ll knock them off in a flash. I always love running one of those. Extremely satisfying to watch. And will leave you with a clean edge. A table or band saw will rip through the paper and you’ll have all those edges intertwined and have to separate them individually.
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Ron said:
Guillotine is the answer
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How thick can you cut w/ the guillotines?
We have one at work and its good for like 30 pages max.
Some of these workbooks are thicker than a ream of paper.
 
RatLabGuy said:
How thick can you cut w/ the guillotines?
We have one at work and its good for like 30 pages max.
Some of these workbooks are thicker than a ream of paper.
Click to expand...
I feel like the one you're talking about is the office machete on a hinge? The ones they are talking about or at least the ones I've seen are hydraulic with 2" thick steel tables
 
mbalbritton said:
Take them up to a print shop. They should have a guillotine cutter. It’ll knock them off in a flash. I always love running one of those. Extremely satisfying to watch. And will leave you with a clean edge. A table or band saw will rip through the paper and you’ll have all those edges intertwined and have to separate them individually.
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This. I used to help print church bulletins. The shear could go through a team of paper with no problems.
 
I think a bandsaw would do the job. but a print shop might be cheaper than buying a bandsaw.

Just incase you need a bandsaw with a large assortment of blades! lol

This is for sale in the misc section on this forum
 

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RatLabGuy said:
How thick can you cut w/ the guillotines?
We have one at work and its good for like 30 pages max.
Some of these workbooks are thicker than a ream of paper.
Click to expand...

I used to cut 6” stacks of paper and ours wasn’t a big machine.

What’s more impressive than the thickness it’ll cut is when you can shave the edge of a stack and take off 1/32”

IMG_4880.jpeg
 
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My wife used to make book apples for the kids teachers for Christmas when they were in elementary school. She would sit down with a template and a razor blade for hours cutting. I came in and saw this one day. I told her we would try the band saw on a thrift store book. She used the template to draw it out and I cut them out in 30 seconds. Super clean cut with no pages mashed or anything. I've probably cut a dozen over the years. They cut super clean and pretty on the bandsaw.
 
NCJeeplover said:
My wife used to make book apples for the kids teachers for Christmas when they were in elementary school. She would sit down with a template and a razor blade for hours cutting. I came in and saw this one day. I told her we would try the band saw on a thrift store book. She used the template to draw it out and I cut them out in 30 seconds. Super clean cut with no pages mashed or anything. I've probably cut a dozen over the years. They cut super clean and pretty on the bandsaw.
Click to expand...

I made a few of the apple books too. Was easy work with a bandsaw.
 
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