New Gear: Logan 301-S Compact Mat Cutter

I guess it’s official — I’m cutting my own mats.

Beck and I went to Hobby Lobby, looking for some precut mats for my big show coming up in a couple of weeks. I didn’t really like what I saw, and once Beck asked if they had mat cutters, I found the Logan in my hands. Add to that a 40% off coupon, and I escaped for about $65 for the cutter — nice price and well, well within what I was willing to spend. Beck was even able to get some scrap matboard for me to practice with… for free!

I watched the video that came with it, which had one little lesson for my machine, and then set you loose on the world. Five minutes of training — woo hoo! 🙂

I cleared off the workbench in the shop, got things set up and started practicing. While I can already tell that practice will improve my cutting, I was real pleased with just how well things went. I’m sure to the ultratrained eye, my cuts aren’t as clean as they should be, especially in the corners. For me though, they look great!

So what does that save me? Well, a precut mat for an 8×10 image is about two to six bucks, depending on where I get it. I can get a full 32×40 matboard for six bucks (three bucks when Hobby Lobby has them half off). The math’s not hard to figure out from there.

This is a nice next step for me, and I’m sure it’ll give me something else to spend gobs of time on!