Logan 650-1 Framer’s Edge Elite 40 Inch Mat Cutter for Framing, Matting and Hobby Use

Good product for the money!

Artwork

Update: its been almost a year now with this mat cutter and I have to say its total garbage especially now that they have raised the price back up to almost $800. Mine is falling apart so I'm looking into other brands to replace this one. Logan makes a higher end one that likely solves some of the issues but after my experience with this one (and some of their lower end cutters) I no longer trust the Logan brand.This could have been a great mat cutter but little bad design decisions make it hard to really recommend to anyone unless they know what they are getting into. First I'll say I run a print shop and we mat about 20 prints a day. We have three mat cutters, all different models.The good:* if you accept that you are going to need to mod it, then it can be mostly fine and get the job done for medium-high volume production work. The rail with attached dual cutting head design is far superior to the lower end models (like the Artist Elite) in terms of accuracy and the production stops mean you don't have to pencil mark the back before cutting ... assuming you mod the squaring art first.The bad:* The little arrow stickers are the chepest stickers ever invented. Mine fell off within a week.* The thing to the left of the cutting head the green and red arrow stickers go on can become loose with no obvious way to tighten it (perhaps if the rail and cutting head are removed there is a screw(?) this can become annoying* Many of the places you can make little adjustments, you can't make them enough to account for manufacturing tolerances - so again you may need to modify the thing.* The ruler for the bottom production stop and top production stop are completely different. One has inches on the left, the other on the right. The ruler on the bottom one has the emphasized markings in strange spots instead of every 1/4" so it takes a lot more care than it should setting the production stops.The ugly:* The design of the squaring arm should be outlawed in US legal code.* Its non-removable without unscrewing it with a hex screw (my 1970's Bainbridge mat cutter's similar squaring arm can be removed using a thumb screw). The design of this one ensures you have to use an actual screw that will be flush with the top of the arm - so no easy removable when not being used.* This screw is its only real anchor point onto the base. Square the arm. Now touch it. Its now out of square. There are some little adjustment screws in the slot for the arm - but they are just screwed into the bare particle board so they are good for one adjustment before a bump on the squaring arm strips their holes out. Out of the box, be prepared to square your mat cutter after every. single. cut.* the straight cutting blade is just help in with pressure between two smooth plates - meaning no matter how hard to turn the knobs to keep it in, sometimes it will violently rip out of the cutting head. If you get any resistance at all than stop and check the blade, it may be coming loose.* If you can't break down boards to a state with properly squared corners, you may as well forget everything else you do will be crooked after that.* sometimes the blade in the straight cutter, when changing the depth, gets into a stuck state where the blade is alongside the depth mechanism. This is a pain and probably somewhat dangerous to deal with.Mods:* The big one is fixing the squaring arm situation. You can either create an extra support similar the higher end model (long term solution) or use shims in the channel along the squaring arm (short term solution)* I had to mod the little thing you press down on the top production stop because the ruler glued to the top is too far off for the amount that you can adjust it.* I haven't yet, but I've got to figure out a way to keep the blade in the straight cutter better. I think even just roughing up the plates that hold it in will help - but there is also some weirdness about the possible angles you can insert it at.

I have used many Matt cuter’s this is the best.

Precise cutting and very easy to operate. Blades last a long time. Have owned this for several years with no complaints.

I'm replacing a Logan 301 Compact Classic. (I just couldn't make that on steer straight because the aluminum rail that the cutter slides against wasn't rigid on that model. Also the width of the cut depended on how fast you pushed the cutter.) Over 15 years old so maybe they changed to more sturdy material since.) I generally can't stand framing because of all the measuring and problems with getting cutters to steer straight. So I decided to give this a try because the blade holders are attached to a rail so they can't go in any other directions and because it can cut foam core down to size.Although Logan makes the point of being an American company with manufacturing near Chicago, the packing material in my box was a newspaper in Korean. It was excellent packing however.Generally I am pleased with my first experience with the cutter although it isn't totally perfect. The blade holders just aren't designed very well for such an expensive piece of equipment. In a game where fractions of millimeters make a difference, it is really hard to get the blades installed at all, let alone get one positioned exactly where it needs to be or to match where it was for the previous blade. This is particularly true for the straight cutter. The blades in both cutters are held in place by a single set screw, with tightness controlled by a knurled knob. There's a lot of potential wiggle room with this design so the blade could gradually shift position with multiple cuts. Furthermore, the knurled knobs are a disaster for anyone with arthritic fingers.The production stops are a wonderful idea and mostly seem to work. It is hard though to be sure what the measurement really is going to be until you cut something and measure it. I guess that you get used to it and with experience you know how much extra to leave so that the measurement will be exact according to a different ruler.Be aware that this product is very heavy both because of the heavy weight that holds the material in position very well and because the base is MDF board. It is also 48 inches long and with the long squaring arm installed, 40 inches wide. So to store it anywhere except on a dedicated table, you have to take off the squaring arm. This is unfortunate because it is held in place by a screw that doesn't look to have a lot of longevity to it. This is the set screw that determines how long the measurements are going to be along the squaring arm. So it is pretty important to have a reproducible installation but the design doesn't provide that. If you can leave it set up, that would be preferable.