The Neccessity of a Mat Cutter

Since I began pastel painting in ernest I have completed 24 paintings. I have framed three of them, one for my brother Michael, one for my daughter Amber and one is hanging in our entryway. That leaves twenty-one paintings that are sitting in my portfolio case that Amber and Eric bought me for Christmas. Just the cost of matting 21 paintings is mind boggling.  After spending $50,00 just to frame one of my paintings before Christmas I found how expensive it is to have mats cut at retail or cutom outfits. Just having mats cut at Arron Brothers or Michaels is pricey, there is no such thing as a deal. Most pictures today have an inner and outer mat and a 9X13" picture fits in a 14X18 stock frame. I have had a couple of mats cut for me at Michaels and they cost $26.00. If I were to mat all of my pictures with two mats I would be looking at an out of pocket expense of $546.00! The cost of frames would run at least another $500.00 or more. Needless to say, I will not likely mat and frame a couple of my early pictures, but the bulk of them will be matted and then I will have to choose which ones to frame for a show.

I began looking on the Internet for mat cutters and found that a reasonably priced better quality cheap mat cutter was going to run my $349.00 so that is no small investment. Then I began looking at chat sessions on mat cutters and found that most  people that had purchased the one I was thinking of buying were having fits with it and some said it was a piece of junk. Oops, this required some closer scrutiny and more research and more visits to discussions by artists and photographers about mat cutters. I found several good sessions and the two mat cutters that received the most praise were the C&H brand and the Fletcher brand mat cutters.  Of course I began checking prices on this equipment and found that the Fletcher cutters ran in the thousands of dollars, and the C&H mat cutters were in the $850.00 to $1600 range!

Wow, it is obvious I do not want a troublesome piece of equipment, and I can't afford a cadillac either. With that in mind, I began looking for used mat cutters and found a company back east that sold mat cutters from frame shops that went out of business. Those expensive cutters were still very pricey and close to $1,000 used but after checking week after week, I found a used C&H cutter that originally sold for over $1300.00  for $395.00. I quickly bid on the cutter and found out the next day that I had won the cutter for the $395.00 bid. Well that was exciting, and they asked me to deal directly with the seller, a lady in Minnesota who was selling some of her framing equipment to make room for things that sold more readily. We chatted on the phone and closed the deal and the mat cutter will be shipped this week.  I received an email from the lady saying she had found the original instruction book and also the stops for the cutter and  extra baldes. I was pleased to hear that, and asked if it was possible to get some matting material thrown in with the deal.  She and I spoke on the phone again and she said she will send some matting material and foam core to mount the pictures on. She will use the materials to pack the cutter in a box. It will be great to get some supplies, but even better to get the cutter. That will be something to look forward to setting up in my workshop.

When it arrives and I will install it on my 4'X8' drafting table, thenI can begin cutting mats for my paintings. That will be the first phase, and the next phase will be to search the web for deals onframes!