I used to do all my seams with a fixed cutter and never changed my blade until it tore. Switched to a rotary slitter last month when I hit a stubborn backing on a job in Tulsa, and the control is night and day. Anyone else notice their seam quality drop when blades get dull but they keep pushing through?
Nine years of pushing through with a fixed cutter and I figured a dull blade just meant slower going, not worse seams. Ran a job in Tulsa last month where the backing fought me the whole way, and swapping to a rotary slitter made the cut track so much straighter on the same material. My seams were ragged for months before that and I blamed the tape, not the blade. Guess I was wrong about dull blades being no big deal.
Tulsa job, huh? I ran a fixed cutter for years and swore dull blades didn't matter much, just push harder and deal with it. Then I watched a guy run a rotary slitter and the seam looked cleaner on the same material, so yeah, I was wrong about that one.