Cool Tool: Swingline Guillotine Trimmer

My wife is a teacher and we do lots of printing on card stock and cutting on card stock. For many years I used a paper cutter with a blade that slides down a channel. It worked fine for 1 or 2 pages of card stock, but beyond that the blade was hard to slide and the paper had a tendency to slip, especially when going quickly.

When the blade dulled, I decided to try a guillotine style trimmer. These are the trimmers I remember from my youth in school. The ones in school looked like they could cut wood. This is a home-appropriate version that handles 5-6 sheets of card stock with ease and probably exceeds the 10 regular sheets it claims.

It's also much faster and less prone to movement as you cut. It is more expensive than the sliding models, but for large volumes, it's worth the extra cost.

One caveat, I have no young kids in the house, but I imagine it's a lot easier to injure yourself with this than with the razor models (the blade retracts into a cover when you're not cutting). I'd recommend keeping it well out of reach of small hands and paying close attention to your own hands when using it. — Chris Hartmann

Swingline ClassicCut Lite 12 Inch Guillotine Trimmer: $29