Card Cutter

[Misjief]

Hi All-

I have a old heavy duty paper cutter that I picked up at a good will and I love it. Nothing better for cutting cardboard and foamboard for a prop.

However it doesn't do cards all that well... It is a little too big and clunky for delicate work like cards. I was messing around at Walmart and saw that they have a small Xacto 9" fixed blade guillotine for 15 bucks and a Xacto 12" rotary cutter for 20 bucks. I think the rotory is the way to go because two new blades is all of $4. They also have a corner cutter for $4 bucks. I saw a simulaur but specialized kit for cards and they wanted over a hundred bucks to it, the big difference being it came with templates for various cuts. I figure you could easily make your own plates (Some foamboard, washers and a couple of stupid strong magnets ought to do it!)

I already have a can of roughing fluid and a brick of bikes.

For $25 and some change I could set up shop and really go to town making gaff decks. I think the biggest factor is the cost of the cards themselves.

To make a Svengali deck you need 52 Decks! LOL The split deck is pretty kewl but again I'd need 52 decks to pull it off.

I could make a mene-tenkle deck but I think if I do so I would rather use the roughing principle rather then L/S one so I don't need a cutter. I split cards so rarely I could probably make do with my old clunky cutter. I made a ton of differing Svengali decks out of my cheap Fantasma decks but in the end I am not sure how practical they were.

So I guess I am trying to figure out if it would be worth the investment? Any ideas or comments?

-misj-

[haroldross]

misj- I have used both of the cutters you mention. The blades really don't last long when using card stock. For the mass production work, the heavy duty cutters are much better. I have a really large one and a smaller one. The smaller on works great for trimming cards. For the corners you need to go to a craft store an buy a corner punch. The 1/8" corner size is about right for playing cards. The 1/8" size is very hard to come by at a reasonable price. For a smaller number of cards, I use a nail clipper and sandpaper.

To make your own Svengali deck, you can buy a '52 card force deck' at most magic shops. That might run you $8 to $12 for the deck but that is still cheaper than buying 26 decks unless of course you need that many decks.

Conradi was one of the first to make a Mene-Tekel style deck and he just had the duplicate pairs with no R/S or L/S. Burling Hull was probably the first to market the Mene-Tekel deck with L/S. If you make a Mene-Tekel type deck using the R/S instead of the L/S, the deck is called, I believe. 'Pop Eyed Popper Deck'. I have even made a Mene-Tekel style deck using both R/S and L/S. Again, it has another name but I can't recall it.

[Misjief]

H-

I just bought both a mene-tenkle deck and a pop eyed popper. I really like both of them. I presented the mene-tenkle deck as a mentalist trick in which they would pick a card and stick it in the deck, I'd then flip through the deck and fish their card out based on their "mental imprint". Pretty simple but it had people going.

The Pop Eyed Popper is another great deck ... I simply treat it as a forcing deck but it is more like a svengali then a mene-tenkle deck in that the gaft is the same repeated card rather then a mirrored one. (The mirrored pairs was new to me!)

I got a hold of a couple of mentalist books by Phantini and he has quite a few trick decks in there. I don't recall what all is in there. LOL

My big cutter is really heavy and I think it is out of alignment in that you have to pull the blade to the left to get a even cut out of it. And the top edge of the ruler is chawed the last couple of inches, for larger projects it is great but for cards it is a bit rough. So you don't think the xacto ones are worth the investment then? Ok. Thanks

-misj-

[MRmagic591]

ithinkyou should defo try out the svengali deck.... it might be right for you!