Sample Cutters & Preparation

Thwing-Albert offers sample preparation tools for a range of materials and sizes to meet required specimen sizes based on testing standards including tensile testing. Strip cutters for tensile testing, circular cutters for basis weight, and custom shapes to meet many other industry standards.

The capability to prepare test specimens accurately, efficiently, and safely is critical to ensuring reliable and repeatable test results. Inadequate sample preparation can lead to additional re-testing and higher costs, while improper tools can endanger operator safety. To select the optimal sample cutter consider these questions:

  • What material will I be cutting?
  • What sample dimensions do I need?
  • How easy is the cutter to operate?
  • Can you cut consistent and accurate samples?

Some sample cutters are designed for a specific use such as cutting dedicated width for tensile, seal, and adhesion tests. There are also sample cutters that provide a higher level of flexibility utilizing interchangeable cutting dies that can be configured to cut complex shapes and multiple specimens at a time. 

Sample and Test Strip Cutters for Sale

Thwing-Albert offers a comprehensive range of sample cutters, die presses and strip cutters to cover all your testing prep needs. We manufacture our sample preparation equipment with the highest-quality materials and superior levels of accuracy to ensure its performance during testing. Many of the world’s top testing facilities and laboratories recognize our equipment as the industry standard for sample preparation in paper, paperboard, corrugated, plastics, tissue, nonwovens, textiles, foils and other sheet materials.

CeraTek Heat Sealers

The Thwing-Albert line of CeraTek heat sealers is designed to provide safe and efficient means to create heat seals for various testing applications including food packaging, medical pouches and trays. Our sealing systems provide consistent, accurate control over sealing parameters such as pressure, temperature and dwell time. These sealers are ideal for various industries, including medical device manufacturers, chemical companies, plastic film manufacturers, packaging converters and consumer product manufacturers.

Circular Cutters

Our circular cutters are the perfect tools for quickly cutting samples for determining the basis weight and other properties of paper, plastic, textiles and more. These cutters can produce smooth and accurate edges on the most demanding materials, including knits, films, tissues and corrugated cardboard. Our electric circular cutter offers a more precise, automated cutting method that works well for calculating grammage. 

Corrugated Sample Cutters

Our corrugated sample cutters can handle the preparation of samples for edge crush, bursting strength, pin adhesion and other tests requiring that the corrugated sample is not compromised prior to testing. These cutters can provide the most accurate, clean cuts for corrugated test specimens regardless of the material’s size, weight or fluting. 

Die Press Alfa Cutters

Die presses are among the most versatile sample cutters because they allow users to quickly interchange a cutting die to produce a limitless range of sample designs. Die presses work well for cutting small or large volumes of paper, paperboard, plastic films, tissue paper, nonwovens, textiles, thin foils and other sheet-type material. Cutting dies are available to meet industry standards, or custom dies can be made to meet specific applications. Multiple dies and shapes can be incorporated into one die to increase efficiency and throughput. These presses require minimal maintenance, and the dies are easy to replace when they dull.

Elmendorf Tear Sample Cutters

We engineer our Elmendorf tear sample cutters specifically for Elmendorf tear testing, which determines the force needed to continue tearing an initial cut in sheet materials such as paper, textiles, plastic films and nonwovens. Our twin-blade guillotine cutters prepare samples that are precisely 63 mm wide and up to 6 inches long. Cutting dies with our Alfa Die Press Cutters can be configured to meet the Elmendorf sample preparation for plastic film and textile materials. These cutters are available with pre-slit options that save the user valuable time during testing. Our Elmendorf tear cutters come in manual and pneumatic models.

JDC Precision Sample Cutters

JDC precision sample cutters offer superior cutting accuracy of plus or minus 0.001 inches and defect-free edges to ensure accurate tensile test data. These cutters are perfect for sheeted materials such as paper, plastic films, textiles, non-wovens and thin foils as they cut precise width strips and maintain parallelism for the entire length of cut. They are available in widths ranging from 1/8 to 3 inches and lengths of 10, 12 or 16 inches. 

Strip Cutters

Strip cutters are ideal for preparing samples that need specific widths for tensile, adhesion, seal and other strength testing methods. We offer two models of cutters — MTT and JDC — to suit the edge quality and degree of accuracy required. These cutters work great for thin materials such as textiles, paper, paperboard, non-wovens, foils and plastic films.

Buy Sample Cutters Online From Thwing-Albert Today

The team at Thwing-Albert is able to help with any materials testing needs including selecting sample preparation tools. It is important to have accurate results for consistent quality analysis and there are a variety of time-saving options available.  If you have any questions, you can contact our team at experts@thwingalbert.com to discuss your application.