Director, Peter Coulson says Widia-Schoenenberger are world leaders in the manufacture of tungsten carbide paper cutting knives. The secret is that the company makes its own carbide offering three different types using a process which includes the use of diamond grinding tools to grind the cutting surfaces of the knives to a minimum surface roughness.

The company manufactures knives in standard carbide, in a longlife grade of super-fine carbide which doubles the life of the standard blade and in a megalife grade, a high tech product from a super-microfine carbide grain. The latter variant, suitable for paper only, achieves four times the tool life of the standard knife, resulting in vastly reduced operating costs.

There are four types of knives available – guillotine, trimmer, rotary (circular) and crosscutting knives. The range achieves a significant improvement in cutting quality as a result of reduced dust accumulation.

Widia tungsten carbide knives have been manufactured in Germany for more than 40 years and the company has recently joined forces with Schoenenberger to market a combined programme of tungsten carbide knives worldwide.

John Carvill at Allen Calendars Ltd in Auckland says the knives are marvellous. Since his company installed them in their guillotines in August they haven’t needed to be sharpened, he says.

“We’ve had them in for about 10 weeks now and they’re still going strong. Other knives we’ve had, have had to be sharpened every week or so, so it is definitely a cost saving.”

Dave McGee, of the busy Commercial Print Ltd label printing firm in Wellington agrees, saying they’ve used Widia knives for some years now because they “last the distance.

“For a label converter, the guillotines are critical to our operation working continuously in excess of 4500 hours a year and they never miss a beat,” he says.

“Even though the initial outlay is more expensive than other brands, the fact that they don’t need sharpening or replacing very often makes them very cost effective because there’s much less down time,” he says.

“We’ve currently have one in that has been installed for three months and it hasn’t had to be sharpened yet.”

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