Tools: Round Knife/Circular Knife--not your average rotary cutter!

[labricoleuse]

I am totally a big drooly nerd for fabulous tools, particularly power tools.

I thought i would share some images and info on one i've been using sporadically at work to cut huge amounts of heavy cotton velvet, the Wolf Blazer Round Knife!

Check this bad boy out:


side view


oblique view

Here's what you're looking at there: a circular saw for thick multiple layers of cloth. That foot plate has tiny wheels under it, so you can push it across a table surface using primarily that black handle sticking out the back. There's an adjustable guide on the front (that thing that looks kind of like a golf club) to hold the thicknesses together as they pass toward the blade, and that silver T-shaped handle on the top allows you to get a good grip's purchase on the thing if you need to pick it completely up or steer it two-handedly. Just above the blade you'll see a grindstone, which you can use to resharpen the blade while using it--a lever disengages the blade from the cutting position and moves it up into contact with the grindstones, where it self-sharpens sparkily.

See that pile of heavy cotton velvet folded up next to it? I had just been using the Blazer to cut about 230498234 miles of 1/4"-wide bias strips from it, all stacked up foldy like that. I have to admit, it is one scary tool when it's running, because you know you could very easily chop all your fingers off, so you need to be very careful and anyone using it needs proper training before revving it up. This one is a very old model--newer models have a blade guard that helps operators stay safe while using it.

These things seem to run anywhere from around $800 for a refurbished used model to over $1200 for a new one. Spendy, but man did it ever save me a lot of time and carpal tunnel in busting out that velvet bias spaghetti!




And i'll leave you with a single streetview photo:


cool ironwork in the Garment District

Comments

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous photo! And OMGEEE! BIG TOY. I love equipment like that, especially older versions.

Does it only cut straight lines? Does the blade get hot? That is purely awesome. I wonder if there's video of one on YouTube. It's so primitive and pragmatic looking. Fantastic.

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

You can push it in curves, but the tighter the curve, the harder it is--more resistance and less accuracy. I never touched the blade at all but i'm sure it does heat up with the friction. When i was done i cleaned it out with canned air--i didn't even want to risk touching the blade when it was off and unplugged, for fear i'd somehow cut myself on its edge.

And yes, it sure is pretty big (and pretty (and big))--for scale, it's about 12" tall. I should have stood next to it grinning for a better visual scale reference.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

Fantastic. I think I recall from my days working for Levis that they had to treat the denim so it didn't catch fire in the cutters, they got so hot. Some kind of lubricant, and then they'd wash it all out of the fabric at the end.

I love old equipment like that. I have some visceral response to that green metal and bakelight and those old curved handles. I love stuff from when they made it to last forever. There's something about the weight and form that's meaningful to me; it's so /real/ and it's made for doing Necessary Things. When I bought my serger, I asked specifically for the closest thing to a commercial workhorse, because all the other ones in the shop felt foreign and flimsy after years of using hand-me-down sewing machines from my Mamaw and mother. (And I got a nice little chunker of a machine that feels like a metal brick that goes VRRR!)

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

Which Levis manufactory did you work at, and when? I remember when i was in undergrad at UT Knoxville, i worked at a fabric store part-time with a woman who used to sew inseams at the east Tennessee one (probably closed now).

And i totally know what you mean about old equipment. You hit it exactly describing it as a visceral response. Working with something like this just feels...i dunno, somehow hyper-efficient, like the tool itself is imbued with some kind of expertise.

Wow, that sounds flaky, but you get my drift, i hope.

[mellawyrden.livejournal.com]

Is it heavy to operate? does it have a dead-man type of control (like if you accidentally drop it or lose your grip, it won't go berzerk and run around cutting off limbs)

It's extremely beautiful!!

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

It is not terribly heavy. Due to the wheels on the footplate, i didn't have to pick it up too much, but it wasn't unwieldy--i'd guess it was around maybe 10-12 lbs? I've had heavier housecats.

It doesn't shut off if you drop it, no, so that's something to be extra careful about. I bet newer models do though, the ones i've seen in catalogues with safety guards over the blade.

And yes, it reminds me of like, an old sedan, the kind with lots of chrome and cool taillights.

[juniper200.livejournal.com]

I'd be afraid that it would bunch the fabric in front of it as I pushed it, but I suppose that kind of mess was engineered out fairly early on.

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

That's what that little golf-club-shaped guide is for! You can adjust it up and down so that it just touches the top of the stack of fabric and keeps it smooth as it feeds into the blade. If you don't have it adjusted to accommodate however thick your fabric-load is, yep, it does what you are envisioning and bunches up in front of the blade.

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

That is a sexy machine. Also a scary machine.

Whenever practical, I use older equipment. I like the feel of it. I like the connection to past craftsmen. I like the continuity of trade.

Thanks for sharing.

[zomboy.livejournal.com]

That is a sexy sexy machine. It reminds me of the invincible and super scary chop saw we used to have when I was doing construction. It also was that dull green and metal, and had NO safety features. Also, unlike modern chop saws, it was far to hevy for one person to lift, which meant that it didn't move around on you unless you took a running leap at it while you where cutting, which is good, because with a 21" blade, ungaruded, you don't want the thing moving around at all.

On a side note, do you have pictures of all those shoes you used to have up along the walls of your apartment in alston? I have a friend who works here in the model shop who absolutly LOVES shoes of all types, the more unusual, the better, and I was telling him about them, and was wondering if there might be visual aids available anywhere.