Color Coded Fletcher 3000

  • Thread starter Thread starter RonEggers
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RonEggers

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I used a C&H glass & cardboard cutter for about 18 years before wearing it out. Then I bought a shiney new Fletcher 3000. This is a great tool, but I was unaccustomed to the turret system of switching between glass, cardboard and plastic cutting. I was constantly trying to cut fomecore with the glass cutter or, worse, glass with the cardboard cutter. Finally I color-coded the turret with craft acrylics and small brushes so that I would see green with the cardboard cutter, yellow with the glass cutter and red wth the plastic cutter. I wish I could say I never use the wrong cutter, but it happens a lot less often and when it does, I feel really stupid!
turret.jpg
 
Ron,
Clever fellow. Now if you can just come up with a system that will insure that the turret head is sufficiently tightened so you don't use all three heads on the same piece of board in rapid succession.
 
Just so the screw that holds the mat blade onto the turret is tight enough that it doesn't drop into the bin of glass scraps at 4:55 on Friday, because it is impossibly shorter than any other screw in your entire shop, and is in fact different then the screw that holds the plexi blade. And L-J soesn't stock them locally so it won't be on your Tuesday delivery. They can ship the 26 cent item from Minnesota for $6.00, or you can get one from United for the same deal, but if you order over $100 from them there's free delivery in your area. So four days after you lose the thing you'll have 2000 Thank You hangers and 3 Dozen rolls of ATG.
 
So your framing tip is perhaps to keep a couple of extras of those screws in the shop vault, just in case? One of the reasons I replaced my old C&H wall cutter is that way too many pieces of it had dropped into the garbage can below it, never to return. I probably built a whole new cutter out of parts from the local hardware store. You know, the Six Million Dollar Wall Cutter!
 
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