Playing with new toys

Warning: Massive sewing geek-out about to occur... again

I am sorry... two posts in a row, BOTH about sewing geekiness!  Apologies; but for the other sewing geeks out there, I am sure you would agree this is simply awesome!


One of the machines in our shop happens to be a Lightning 8 inch straight blade cutter.  This is an Australian made machine designed to cut up to 8 inches of fabric.  Which is a LOT of fabric.  This is an amazing machine which has come highly recommended to me by numerous people.

Unfortunately for me, this machine doesn't cope with small lays of fabric, and given most of our batches to date are around 5 to 10 bags, this machine has been sitting forlornly in the corner gather dust.  I haven't been neglecting it however; glancing at it admiringly often, showing it proudly to visitors, and lovingly rubbing it down with oil when needed (gosh that sounds dirty...).  I have often dreamed of the day that I could use it.

And that day has come!

Yup!  Today is that day!  A big lay of Chunky Toads required a more powerful cutting tool, so out trundled the 8 inch Lightning.  Was it good?  Heck yes!  What an experience it was!

It flows smoothly across the table, and is nicely weighted.  It cuts straight lines with ease, and convex curves impeccably.  Concave curves, usually the bane of the rotary "pizza-cutter-on-electric-steroids" simply were not an issue.  Have I fallen in love?  YUP!  It cuts like a warm knife through butter, smoothly and expertly slicing 20mm of heavy weight 1000D nylon like it simply doesn't exist.

Ooh... *sigh*... It rocks!

And to geek it up further... here it is in action.  Over 20 mins of juicy cutting action compressed into 50 seconds.  If only I could cut this quick normally!

Oh yeah, we've got a video camera now, so be prepared to be bombarded with moving pictures!  We are getting oh so fancy now!  Now I've just gotta work out how to edit them better.