Fletcher Mat Mate Oval Circle Mount Cutter

[Justintime]

Does anyone use one of these? Is it any good? Or is it better to look for a Fletcher 1100?
Thanks.

[Not your average framer]

The Fletcher Mat Mate is only a basic hand held oval mount cutter with a couple of shape pins which enable you to secure it in to position on to a piece of mount board. It uses and trailing cutting blade and as such can result in a slight tilting of oval relative to the edges of the the piece of mount board. The magnitude of the tilting effect varies according to the dimension of the oval being cut. If it is using the same blades as the Fletcher Terry 1100, then these are the Dexter 3 blades, which are ferfectly adequate for the less dense variety of neutral pH cream core mount boards, but become blunt, nuch more quickly on many of todays higher density mount boards.

The solution to correcting any tilting of the oval, if it is noticeable is the use a slightly larger piece of mount board and trim it to the required outter dimensions after cutting the oval. I did at one time ask Lion which was the most popular between the Fletcher Terry Mat mate and the very similar Logan three step oval cutter and they sell more Logan cutters, even though the Logan cutter is more expensive. I am not aware of why this might be and I doubt if there is much difference in the results produced by either one. However my understanding suggest that the Logan is made of an all metal construction, whereas the Fletcher may not be of all metal construction. Don't just take my word for this, as I may be wrong about this. Another consideration to consider is the cost of the Logan blades is much more.

It is a fact that the Fletcher Terry 1100, is a very accurate oval mount cutter and is not based up on the trailing blade principle, but uses a mechanism which accurately steers the cutting direction of the blade. It is claimed the the fall out piece from cutting the oval will accurately fit back in to the cut out either way round. The old Magnolia oval cutters and the old C & H cutters also used a mechanism which accurately steers the blade as well and you could make similar claims about them as well, but you can still get the spare parts for the Fletcher Terry, which is certainly not true of the Magnolia and I'm not sure about the C & H.

Having said all that, there are still plenty of the Magnolia and C & H cutters being used today and they do turn up from time to time as secondhand. Oval cutters don't really get used anywhere near as much as normal straight line mount cutters and it's probably a fairly safe bet, that even well used, older ones will not be showing any significant signs of wear. My first oval cutter was an old Magnolia cutter and to be honest, I can't remember much about it after so many years, but I cut quite a few oval mounts with it and it was O.K. The mount board clamping mechanism on the Fletcher Terry is superior to the Magnolia, but that is only my personal opinion.

I still have my old Keencut oval 6, which is still popular with many framers and these often turn up secondhand, or there is also the earlier Keencut Rondo which is less stylish to look at, but the mechanism is basically very much the same as the later Keencut Oval 6 and these come up for sale quite often as second hand. Obviously the Keencut Rondo, being the earlier model tends to sell for less as second hand that the Oval 6, but as long as no bits are missing, it's probably worth considering as well.

[Justintime]

Thanks Mark, that's all useful advice.

[Not your average framer]

All the oval mount cutters that I have ever had have been second hand and I've just upgraded from time to time as the opportunity came along. I have not encouter any which were not able to be reccomended to others.