Changing the Blade on an Ideal Guillotine // Adventures in Bookbinding

Today I'm going to show you how I change the blade on this Ideal 4205 guillotine. I've been asked many times about how to change the blade on an Ideal guillotine so I thought I'd demonstrate in a video. In a Q&A video I addressed the question of trimming book edges by suggesting that used Ideal guillotines can be a good investment. I've had a series of these over the last decades upgrading when I can. These are very high quality machines, they're heavy enough to do a good job but are still transportable without mechanical help. I recommend waiting for a later model that has all the modern safety features such as guards, two-hand operation, blade changing tool and easy to change cutting stick. The new version of this guillotine sells for about $5,000 and I bought this one for $250. It was in rougher shape than I thought from the photos but mostly cleaned up with a day's work. It had all the tools such as the blade changing tool and a spare blade. That would be the most I'd pay for one in this condition. Without the rust I think $300 would be reasonable. The heavier version with the screw clamp you might go as high as $600 for a very good condition version with a spare blade. A spare blade is a nice luxury. Thanks to my friend Gladys I upgraded to this 4205 last year and it's at least 10 years old. The hardened steel rod that the back guide runs on is the first thing that rusts and this one was almost seized. I had to pull all the mechanism off to clean it completely. This was the time consuming job. The light surface rust I mostly got off with soapy water and a green scotch pad. You should expect any secondhand guillotine to have a dull blade. The blades are also called knives. You shouldn't try and sharpen a guillotine blade yourself. It's far too dangerous and the steel is extremely hard. It needs to be ground at a professional facility that deals with large commercial knives or blades and saws, not by the bloke that over grinds your kitchen knife or hair scissors. I'm going to follow Ideal's instructions as closely as I can. I normally do it very slightly differently and I'll explain this difference when we get to it and why I do it and why it's okay. A guillotine has the potential to cause you life-changing harm. Even if you watch this video, it's important you read the manual yourself and understand it before starting work. There is a link to the manual in the description. I'll start following the instructions from page 27 to change the blade. The blade lever is lifted fully and the front guard lifted. The blade is now locked and can't be lowered. They suggest checking the cutter stick at this point. The paper clamp has to be lifted to do this. To remove the cutting stick, lift it at the end and pull it out. The cutting stick is the hard plastic which the blade cuts into. Because it's plastic, it doesn't dull the blade. The cutting stick is square and symmetric from end to end, so it can be rotated four times and flipped end on end once. It can be used a total of eight times. I only change it once the bottom sheet starts to cut ragged. They last a long time in a small bindery. Mine is showing just a very fine line in its current position, so I put it back the way it was. But before I do, I check the area under the cutter stick to make sure no scraps of paper have fallen into it. Compressed air is the best way to clean it out, or a long bristle paintbrush. The tools I just showed you are the standard ones that come with the guillotine. The blade changing tool is the most important one. I start by removing the two blade screws either side of center with the supplied tool. If you don't have this, you'll need an Allen key the correct size. I don't think it matters, but in the diagram, the paper clamp is down at this point. On page 29, it says attach the blade changing tool to the blade and screw tightly, and now remove to remove. Then it says place the blade into the blade carrier and screw it into place. We'll only have one blade carrier, and that has the spare blade in it. So I'll take it into the bindery and do the swap. Now the instructions say take the exchange blade carefully out of the blade box and screw it to the blade changing tool. It says blade must be covered. Danger. Risk of injury. Warnung. Verletzungsgefahr. And this is the most dangerous step, so be careful. I should also point out that Ideal is a German company, and in Deutschland, the company name is pronounced Ideal, but despite many lessons and effort, I don't sprechen Deutsch, so I'll stick with Ideal. I should have got a close-up of the blade changing tool. There is a wide strip of hard felt that the bevel of the blade is pushed into. The felt extends past the edge of the blade in a way that makes it maybe impossible to cut yourself while the blade is attached to the tool. Okay, back to the instructions. After placing the blade to be exchanged using the blade changing tool into the blade carrier, push to the top and to the left. I find the instructions on page 33 a little bit cryptic. It says push the blade changing tool to the top with your hand, first lightly tighten the middle blade screw with your other hand, and then both blade screws left and right. I think what it means is with your left hand, push up on the blade changing tool just to get that hole aligned for the middle screw. But I've never really had to do this to get that screw in. Then remove the blade changing tool by unscrewing the grips. Then lightly tighten the remaining two blade screws on the elongated holes. On the bottom of page 34, it says turn the knob for blade depth adjustment completely to the right. Now I normally don't do this, because what this is doing is lifting the blade up so it can't cut down onto the cutting stick. Well, after the blade's been ground, material's been removed, so it's not going to reach the cutting stick anyway. I figure you may as well start from that point rather than going all the way up and then having to come back down again. But for the video, I'll follow the instructions and you can see light shining under the blade and it won't cut paper. Continuing on to page 35, it says open the clamp by moving the clamp lever to the right. Remove all tools and place sheets of paper along the entire cutting length. Lower the blade lever as far as it will go. Press the blade holder lightly and turn the knob for blade depth adjustment to the left until the paper is cut along the entire width. Finally, it says move the blade lever up and secure it, which means just check that the latch is engaged and it won't come back down. Lift the front guard and tighten the five screws. I do a final test cut on a strip of paper and then I trim the edge of a book. It cuts like a hot knife through butter, almost no force required. Well, for that small book anyway. I hope you found something useful in today's video. As always, I really appreciate you hitting the big thumbs up button. If you're able and want to, you can support the making of more videos like this through Patreon or with a one-off contribution, and the details are in the description below. If you want to be notified of my future videos, please hit the subscribe button. Until next time, cheerio!