Tru Cut Trophy

Framerpicture · Post by **Framerpicture** » Fri 01 Feb, 2008 6:45 pm

For those of you who are looking for a CMC don't forget to look at Tru Cuts new low cost two head machine.

http://www.trucut-trophy.co.uk/

I've run a Tru Cut Alpha for a few years now and its a great work horse. Its designed and manufactured in the UK and when you need help tis only a phone call away - nothing is too much trouble.

Grahame Case · Post by **Grahame Case** » Mon 04 Feb, 2008 7:35 pm

had a look at the trophy first thing on Sunday, they wouldn't entertain our requests at cutting our own boards we had brought along to try out on CMCs

it just looked a bit clunky and poorly designed, fair enough its a double headed mount cutter, it looked a bit bulky too, with a large space all the way around the actual board of about half a foot. the button clamps seemed over engineered, and "ugly", actually the whole thing was ugly

the cut quality wasn't too impressive, perhaps the machine needed calibrating, but you'd expect it to be working to the top of its game for Spring Fair...

to adjust the blade depth is difficult and laborious too, it involves unscrewing the head and manually adjusting the blade...

i often support British built products, but this time sadly i think it has let the side down badly.

but each to their own, i don't want to bias anyones decision.

kev@frames · Post by **kev@frames** » Mon 04 Feb, 2008 7:50 pm

Uglier than a Wizard! never

Grahame Case · Post by **Grahame Case** » Mon 04 Feb, 2008 7:51 pm

no, seriously, it looked shed built...

kev@frames · Post by **kev@frames** » Mon 04 Feb, 2008 7:59 pm

so which one did you decide on in the end? Is it between the Americans and the Italians I'd bet

Grahame Case · Post by **Grahame Case** » Mon 04 Feb, 2008 8:07 pm

sorting out finance tomorrow,

and all being well will have a nice Valiani Matpro 150 X-I CMC in 4 weeks time,

look what the valiani did for us... 3 layer mat pre-assembled with ATG. ( a little too much as it ripped part of the mount off on removal),

(thanks to Merlin for the design)!

the quality of the scan isn't very good and the mount took a beating on the way home under luggage, but it looks fantastic in real life!

Lemon_Drop · Post by **Lemon_Drop** » Mon 04 Feb, 2008 8:21 pm

I dont know that much about the Trucut CMC, but I would imagine any company displaying their products at a Trade Show would have their machinery be it CMC,s underpinners, saws, or whatever else their trying to sell, that it would be checked and double checked before the doors of the show hall opened.

The cost of Trade Stands do not come cheap.
As for the Trucut CMC, I would
assume that it was calibrated to show what it can do, If that is not the case they most be a pack of idiots to show the CMC with out any calibration in the first place..

When a protential buyer asks them to cut a opening in mount board that they are using, and they refuse to cut it, I would take my business elsewhere.

I just cant understand a well know company like Trucut could get it so wrong.
Whatever about the quality of cut on the CMC, the guy that refused to cut the supplied mount board would be better off if he stayed at home.

Grahame Case · Post by **Grahame Case** » Mon 04 Feb, 2008 8:32 pm

he said he wouldn't be able to cut it just now for us, and would be able to do it for tomorrow...

why the secrecy? if i was investing several thousand pound in a piece of machinery i'd want to see it working, and working with our materials.

Nico and Luca from Valiani entertained our queries, even cutting through , corricor, and the triple mount you see above without batting an eyelid, they were more than happy to spend the time with us demonstrating their machine and answering our questions.

the attitude of the Tru-cut stand just turned me off completely, this was compounded when they failed to clamp the mountboard in before running the CMC, it was a pneumatic clamping system operated by a switch, and not the software, which surprised me,

at the end of the day, we made a decision on Price, user friendlyness and function, and the Valiani ( redesigned newly for spring fair) ticked all the boxes,

the Wizard 8500e and similarly the Gunnar 601 (our prefered gunnar) were sadly out of our price range, we had a quick look at all of the cmcs exhibiting, and had several pages of web based material to look through (we'd already compiled our own research material), had lunch and made a decision.

for anyone visiting spring fair this week, please take a sample of your board around the stands, because only then will you truly be able to envisage what the machine can do,

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Fri 08 Feb, 2008 12:21 am

Grahame Case wrote:..the attitude of the Tru-cut stand just turned me off completely...

Sad to say, and I don't mean this nastily, I had similar experiences. They shall remain nameless, but one person started listening to their voice messages when they found out that I wasn't buying this year (thankfully another rep on the stand was more than obliging, highly knowledgeable, and far more respectful of a prospective customer); and the vendors of another product thought it was perfectly acceptable to expect me to recreate complex Corel motifs in their software because I would "just have to do it once." My comment that I had "already done it once" and really did not want to spend 100 hours doing it again was greeted with non-verbal disdain. Would I feel comfortable in a business relationship with those people involving such an important asset to my business? Answers on a postcard...

One name I will give. The above were not any of the Simons team, and Luca Valiani was helpful, courteous, obliging (at 5:40pm on Wednesday evening!) and very informative (with the added bonus of that magnificent accent!!!

). Points out of 10, guys!!