Avery GUA4 A4 Office Guillotine

It came as something of a surprise at Bookbag Towers to realise that our fledgling business actually needed a guillotine. It wasn't just that we fancied it, or that it was a bit of retail therapy – we realised that the cheap guillotine that I'd picked up at the craft centre simply wasn't cutting the mustard. It definitely wasn't doing anything very professional to the expensive card with lots of letters after its name. So - time to invest in something that would do a good job.

We wanted something sturdy enough to cope with the needs of a small business but we didn't need to invest in the type of machine which you'd find in a large office. We didn't need to spend that sort of money either. Finally we opted for the Avery A4 Office Guillotine which was said to be suitable for the home or the small business.

Packaging is appropriate and largely recyclable. The instructions are brief and mainly on the lines of 'lift the guard up and get on with it'. In fairness it is pretty obvious and within minutes of unpacking it was in working order.

Something which struck me immediately and which continued to be slightly irksome in operation is that the blade is VERY heavy but the base and the guards are quite light. In consequence when I cut anything the guard gives a jelly-like wobble and if I'm doing repeated cutting the base tends to wander across the table. You do need quite a bit of space – including the handle the depth of the machine is 22 inches/56cm and 10inches/26cm width. That's worth bearing in mind not only whilst the machine is being used but also when you're thinking about storage.

The cut is very sharp – and with a self-sharpening blade you can do cut after cut without it deteriorating in any way. The maximum number of sheets which can be cut at any one time is fifteen but I found that with more sheets some of them did tend to spread a little and I didn't manage to place the cut quite where I wanted. As with any such equipment practice does improve the result.

The bed of the machine has a lot of guides and I haven't so far needed to cut anything which I couldn't simply line up against the various guides and cut. Even if, like me, you still think in inches you're accommodated. It's time-saving and very simple. Off-cuts fall to the right-hand side of the machine and there's little in the way of mess. A word of warning – if you're left-handed you might struggle to use this machine, although right-handed people will find the blade very easy to hold and to operate.

You do need to apply some force to part of the guard which holds the paper in place. The wider you can spread you thumb and first finger and the more pressure you can apply (it's spring-loaded) the better the cut will be.

Safety is paramount with guillotines. I'd be reluctant to allow a child to use this machine unsupervised as the blade is very sharp, but a responsible person would have nothing to fear in normal use.