Heavy duty and cuts decently, but you really must press down. I like it much better than our old friction guillotine one. I like having various kinds of blades for different tasks.The only downside we've experienced is that you do have to press down a lot to get it to cut. When you do, it cuts well. I do NOT believe this will do 36 sheets. The most we've done is 15 and that was pushing it from what we could tell.Great replacement for an old guillotine paper cutter. I've feared for my fingers for years, and the cut was terrible. Finally caved in and bought this. One of the best purchases of the year - everyone in the office loves it!So I've used standard guillotine paper cutters and a few other craft oriented rotary cutters before this one. This one is pretty good: it has a few additional features that basic paper cutters may not have. First, it has a removable magnetic bar that you can use to keep your edge placement when cutting many stacks of paper to the same size. The bar isn't perfect: it has some play at the top so that it is up to you to make sure it is perpendicular to the top edge (I use the marks already present on the silver board to make sure it's straight). The magnetic is nice and strong, though, so once you set it it won't move if you accidentally push it with your papers. The rotary cutter is on a bar that locks down to hold papers in place. When you want to insert the papers you lift the clip on the bottom of the bar and it pops up a fraction of an inch for you to slide papers in. This adds an extra step to cutting. Some people might find it irritating since you already have to push down on the rotary cutter to get it to work and this usually holds the paper just fine.The first job I did with this cutter was slicing up standard office 8 1/2 x 11 printer paper, 10 sheets at a time. I did find that I had to slide the rotary cutter one or two extra times to make sure all were cut through. It might be because it was on a bar top so I couldn't push down very hard but I wanted to note this for those with less arm strength.So, all in all, I appreciate that this cutter had extra features but I'm not sure if this is the right cutter for me. I like paper cutters for speed as well as for ease in doing masses of work. Because of the locking mechanism I found this a little slow going and I would have liked the magnetic bar to be more like a drafting machine that is manufacturered to always be perpendicular to the top without being checked. I could see that the hold down mechanism might be really good for smaller strips of paper. It also might prevent those times when the blade doesn't cut through and so the paper gets pulled and the cut is crooked (happens on guillotine cutters). So I might look at other cutters to see if any of them suit me better.2 week edit: I used this for two jobs of about 480 papers each (standard computer print paper, 24lb, one cut each page). It did a good job, and once again I appreciated being able to set the magnetic bar paper stop to help speed things up. However, I realized that I do not like setting the clamp down for each set of papers I cut (10 sheets at a time). Even with the magnetic bar and the clamp I managed to cut a few things crookedly and I'm not sure if I put them in like that and didn't have the paper flat enough or if I had moved things with the clamp without noticing. Just FYI even with a clamp and large flat surface if you're cutting something in half or more than the piece hanging off the cutting end can throw you out of alignment unless you're careful to flatten the end on the cutter every time. So, I researched high end cutters, which edge into the commercial market. Apparently Rototrim is top of the line and Dahle is near second. Their products are almost all metal, heavy, precise, made to last, and expensive. They do have personal use lines that are more affordable. Both of these lines include extra features, such as the magnetic guide and have more user friendly ways to hold the paper down for you when you trim (instead of this clamp system). I ended up buying a I’ve had a number of different rotary cutters over the years and this is by far my favorite. I just got rid of a Dahl (that wasn’t exactly cheap and stopped working after less than a year after issues before that) and bought this to replace it. This is large enough for all of my homeschool and crafting needs, sturdy, holds paper in place well and cuts accurately. I am super pleased with this.It's not generally difficult for me to make purchasing decisions, but a paper trimmer became a glaring exception. I needed it primarily to create labels for a product we make by hand, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make the labels by hand that were up to the standard of the product.With their generous one-item coupons in mind, I checked the on-line catalogs of Joann Fabrics and Michael's Crafts, gave eBay the required cursory look just for price comparison, and concentrated on Amazon for reviews & Prime. I was prepared to drop $25 or $30.I bought this trimmer from Amazon, and that was the right decision for me. Here's why. I needed to see the exact place where the cut would be made. I print tiny registration marks in the labels to help me keep them lined up properly as I change the item specifics in each, and also to show me precisely where to cut. For whatever reason, my printers haven't always placed a print in the exact same place on a page from copy to copy. Once I cut that first line, then the rest can be cut in a stack.That brings me to a second point. The old guillotine cutter I bought years ago only manages a few pages of this 32# 100% cotton stock at once. It takes 2 passes of the cutter head, but with this trimmer, I can cut 20 pieces of that paper at once. The cuts are perfectly clean, straight, and square, and effortless to make.The locking mechanism is both brilliant, and the reason this trimmer works so well, cuts such straight lines. If the lever is raised, the mechanism is unlocked, and paper can be moved around under it. Once lowered, it holds the paper absolutely still while you cut.Many of the trimmers in the $25 to $30 range, and well into the hundreds, have some part of the contraption built into the base in such a way that the scale and/or grid is missing which makes cutting a narrow strip from a narrow strip impossible. You can do that with this trimmer, and the entire base is both intact and visible, though the portion directly under the locking mechanism is somewhat obscured by it.The only other trimmers I saw with metal bases like this were made by X-Acto, but they lacked a sophisticated locking device for the paper, and they only cut a few pages at one time. I didn't want plastic.The single con is the magnetic bar that's intended to be used for making multiple cuts of the same size, and the way it relates to the Slimer-green "light-gathering acrylic" guide. First, since my labels are about 1.275" wide and the guide is about 2" wide, the magnetic bar can't be brought close enough to use. Second, the magnet is quite strong, and that's good; it prevents accidental movement. It's also not so good in that the bar doe not have any mechanism to stay square, and must be manually squared each time it's moved. It takes a little effort because you need to fight with the magnet. I solved that by removing the magnet.I like well made tools, and I have some of my grandfather's who passed more than 30 years ago who also invested in good tools during his life. I've skipped meals to buy well crafted tools, and I scrimped to get this one. Quality tools last, and they pay back much more than they cost over their lifetime of service. There weren't any shortcuts taken in the fabrication of this tool so far as I can see. Seams & corners meet perfectly, and the craftsmanship in general is impeccable. I feel comfortable in recommending this trimmer to anyone who's serious about their work. I wish I had another star to give out every hundred reviews. If I did, this would get it.I have the 18”. I use it to cut 2mm mdf and 2.5mm greyboard for crafting. It cuts the greyboard with hardly a thought but the mdf (chipboard, artists board, call it what you will) takes a lot more effort anything from 15/20 passes. However it cuts accurately and pretty cleanly and, importantly, squarely. I tend to get bevelled edges with a Stanley knife and safety ruler despite my best efforts. It takes up a lot of desk space in use, but it’s not too heavy so easily stacked vertically in a shelf or on the floor against a wall (where mine lives) to free up space. I’m very happy with it.Updated - So a couple of weeks later. A new project required cutting 2mm mdf, which had to be accurate to the mm (previous cuts had been less critical so I hadn't picked up on the accuracy) and found that it's actually 1mm short. I measured and double checked everything, and liaised with others who use this cutter, and in the end I discovered its the magnetic guide itself. 2 things. 1. It has play where it sits on the top and bottom bars, so I ended up masking taping the area that clips onto the bars, and it now fits snugly. 2. But the main thing is that the guide isn't square. It sits perfectly on the cutter bed, but then slopes very slightly outwards toward to top, so that the thicker the material or pile of paper, the more margin there is for error. I have included 2 photos taken against a right angle ruler which I hope shows the problem, one with the guide resting normally on the ruler and the other on its side. Either way it shows a gap that wouldn't be there if it were square. Now that I know that, I use the right angle ruler to measure and butt the board against, and use the guide to hold the ruler steady. It now cuts accurately no matter the thickness. Down to 4 stars because I (and others before me it seems) shouldn't have had to do the quality control research for the manufacturer, far less find a workaround. I was going to return it, but now that I know the problem I'll keep it, since otherwise it's a good cutter.I invested in this to perfect the colouring book I'd made for my littlest sister ? It certainly did what it said on the tin! It sliced through 10 sheets of thin card plus 2 sheets of 300gsm gloss card with no issue at all.It takes a few slices up and down but it's not physically difficult whatsoever and it made quick work of this book, plus a couple other books I'd made with the same thickness! I popped the book in as is, which is 4mm thick when closed. I'm pretty confident it could handle thicker stock, too!The magnetic ruler is pretty awesome and the whole guillotine didn't slide about on my smooth wood table. The way you clamp the blade ruler down before use holds your work strongly in place, but I'd recommend holding it down yourself too to ensure maximum precision.I've only used it 3 or 4 times thus far so I can't comment on durability over years, but I should hope for the price and based on how sturdy it seems right now that it's gonna provide years of smooth.like.butter ?Clamps 30+ pages at a time and cuts through all with a few swipes. The fluorescent ruler makes it easier to line up the cutJust what I needed for cartonnage - see picture - thick greyboard cut easily - cant think how I managed without itI purchased this trimmer from Amazon Warehouse Deals. It had the tiniest scratch on the bottom of the unit so I got it for just under $100. To me, this was a perfect deal and I was genuinely excited to start trimming! Sadly, the paper guides at the top and bottom of the unit were slightly off square, you could see it with bare eyes... This caused all the cuts to be off by 2 mm.If you just need to cut blank paper to the same size and don't need cuts to be precise, this trimmer will definitely do the job. It is heavy, doesn't slip and you can cut several sheets in one pass (I did 6 sheets of 24 lb paper). The problem is when you have printed material. You can immediately see that the cuts are askew. The 15-year-old X-Acto guillotine that I wanted to replace with this trimmer actually does a better job.Another issue with this trimmer is the paper guard. It is so wide that it prevents you from properly cutting anything under 3 inches wide. You can do it but it certainly won't be comfortable.Some trimmers allow you to easily fix the paper guides being off-square by adjusting a few screws under the unit. Unfortunately, this is not the case with this trimmer. I ended up returning it and will save up to get a Dahle 550 instead.