A chisel edge razor blade is better The top is also all die cast, with a self healing mat. Also You will never get a square cut with any razor blade.they are tapered, at the cutting edge. I don't know how they are making them now.but mine is machined die cast metal, except for the handle, which is Polycarbonate rigid plastic, which does not flex.the blade does not flex either. Unfortunately, I don't know of any such razor blades. But if you use the Xuron rail cutter with their flat side, the rail will come out pretty clean on the flat side. If you cut rail with a regular wire cutter (with twin V-type blades), you get two cut edges that are pretty rough and unusable. The solution would be to have blade that was only ground on one side. Therefore, it makes a V-shaped cut in both the piece you're cutting and the piece you're cutting off. Instead, it's the fact that a razor blade is sharpened on both sides. It is true that the cut is not 100% straight up and down on thick stock. I just stacked up some boxes or something (not a big deal). About the only issue I've had is cutting long flexible stock because the cutting surface is pretty tall compared to the old Chopper's masonite base. The rigidity of the handle is much improved, increasing speed and accuracy. When I purchased my own Chopper, I bought the Chopper II. But the handle can get loose to twist or even out of square, so I tended to cut items a little long and then sand/file them to fit for true precision work. It's a lot faster than cutting it by hand.and more precise. For example, say you were cutting strip wood into identical lenth planks for a loading dock.
It works great doing thin, quick things repeatedly. My club has had the original chopper, and I was never impressed with it for real precision work. I don't know if NWSL still offers these Chinese made models, but would recommend one rather than the simpler model. It still works, but the blade isn't held as sturdy as it was previously. In cutting something hard, one of these pins sheared off. The new cast handle had two pins that fit into these slots. The only problem I had with the newer model is the single edged razor blade is held in place with one screw in the middle, as opposed to the original which had screws on each end in the slots. I sold my original model and am told it is still going strong. It was on sale at Micro Mark for around $30, probably 10-15 years ago. The whole thing is much sturdier than the original model. The cutting surface is a replaceable cutting mat. I later bought one of their metal Choppers, the base is cast aluminum and sits on raised legs. I filled it with 5 minute epoxy every once and a while. The only problem I had was the single edged razor blade cut a groove in the masonite base after a while. It was mostly as you described, but worked fine for me for a long time. I assume the new owners of NWSL have changed the Chopper from the original one I bought many years ago. Had I known what it was really like I probably would have opted for another product or maybe their Chopper III, which I wasn't aware of when ordering my Chopper II.Īny others out there with this tool and how you use it? What is your evaluation of the Chopper? Just wanted to rant a little it is hard to find really good quality tools of this nature.
This is now a more substantial assemble but still lacks the accuracy of maintining a 90 degree cut.
To solve the gap under the aluminum backstop, I drilled a hole through the aluminum and masonite and installed a binding head screw down into the sub-base, which pulled the alum strip tight against the masonite. I first made a 3/4" base to mount the whole assembly to using 4 wood screws, one in each corner. Realizing what I had would not work as I hoped, I began to modify the tool. 020") slid under the aluminum back strip? This whole thing is mounted to a square masonite base (1//4") which was also warped.
The chopping arm ( a pc of alum bar stock that flexes) had to be reset to 90 degrees and then the first strip of styrene I tried to cut (.12" x. I am very dissapoined in the construction of the Chopper a molded plastic cutting bar mount and a thin aluminum strip for the guide/back stop. I finally broke down and bought a NWSL Chopper II ($40) hoping to get a good quality tool.