Logan 450-I Artist Elite Mat Cutter
For a while I was content buying frames with mats at Michael's and just forcing my digital prints to then fit within that mat's open space. However, once I got back into film photography, I ran into a problem. The modern mat openings are often not exactly the right proportion for a film image. This meant I now had to cut my own mats in order to get that hole to show the image I wanted to display.
The Logan 450-I Artist Elite Mat Cutter has a list price of nearly $300. I was incredibly fortunate to find it for under a tenth of that cost as a closeout item at Michael's. If I hadn't, I'm not sure I would have found it in my budget to buy this. Even at the online discounts I see on the web, that's still quite a lot of money being charged. Two of my friends already own mat cutters so I could have borrowed theirs - although that becomes inconvenient for a variety of reasons. So I'm very glad to have my own and glad it ended up being in my budget range.
The unit is awesome. It's sturdy. Everything seats and stays put. I'm confused by the occasional review I read where they say all the parts are made of plastic. Maybe they have a different version than I do? Mine is definitely solid metal and is very sturdy. We've cut a number of mats with it and it's smooth and easy. The system is incredibly easy to use and makes precise cuts. We won second prize in a photo show recently with a mat done by this cutter.
The unit is fairly large. We're going to have to put two bookcases together to create a flat space for it to lay without being in the way. There aren't many other places we could put it. But the mat cutter pretty necessary for us to have, given our interest in photography and art shows. So if space to store it is our only issue, that's really not too bad.
Highly recommended!
We purchased ours with our own funds, in order to mat our photos :).
Buy the Logan 450-I Artist Elite Mat Cutter from Amazon.com
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