Tool Heads

The Mastercut, Orion and Genesis range of flatbed cutters can be fitted with a variety of tool heads for almost any application. The Mastercut is the only machine in the range that can be fitted with laser cutting heads, and heavy duty routers, drills and reciprocating blades.

Reciprocating Blade Tool Head

Reciprocating blade, supported only by the Mastercut platform
Reciprocating blade heads are usually used for specialty applications where the materials cannot be cut with a fixed blade tool head.

Trepanning Punch Tool

Punches, Mastercut platform, developed originally for gasket production

The trepanning punch tool head is used in applications where many identical holes are needed to be cut in a material. If small circles are cut individually with the knife blade, then cutting speeds are often reduced dramatically. An example of a production application that requires a punch head is gasket cutting where the multiple bolt holes for gasket have to be cut.

Pen Holder Plotting Toolhead

Pen plotters, designed for large format pattern plotting.
All of the Cutting Specialists flatbed cutting machines can be configured with a plotter pen tool head that allows them to operate as a multi-function large-format plotter, as well as a flatbed cutting machine

Ink Jet Printing Tool Head

Designed for extended labeling applications.
The industrial grade ink printing system is designed for long production runs. Features such as no-clog extended run print heads, and remote high-capacity ink reservoirs make this tool very reliable and trouble-free.

Single Blade, Tangential Cutting Head

Tangential blade, three-axis tangential blade cutters, durable and precise
The tangential control system that guides the blade also means that the cutting edge is perfectly aligned at all times and the resulting cut edges are very clean and free of debris. The tangential cutting head is fitted with a fixed drag blade designed to control the depth of the cut very precisely. Ideal for materials with a backing such as sticky backed plastic. The blade cutting depth can be set to cut the plastic, but not the paper backing. This makes it simple to peel the backing paper off as it comes off in one single intact sheet. A pizza wheel (rotary) knife that allows multiple layers of material to be cut at one time is also available on this tool head. Both tools use economical and easy-to-obtain blades that can be sourced from almost everywhere.

Laser Cutting Head

Laser heads, ranging from 60 to 400 watts

The Mastercut industrial flatbed cutter is capable of being fitted with a sealed CO2 laser of between 50 and 400 Watts. The cutting is performed by the intense heat of the laser beam that vaporizes the material in its path. The hot gases produced as a normal part of the cutting action are vented safely away by a vacuum system that is attached to the main cutting beam of the machine, directly above the laser cutting head. The laser head is especially suitable for cutting highly intricate and precise shapes in materials such as cloth, where sealed edges are required. It is also ideal for plastic films, veneers, plywood and MDF, and for materials that can be resistant or damaging to standard blades, such as Kevlar.

Drill Spindle tool head

Drill spindles, drilling tools designed for continuous or extended production runs.

For heavy duty, high speed drilling applications, the drill spindle tool head can be use in conjunction with a Mastercut 2000/2100 flatbed cutting platform. This drill head is controlled by air actuated servos that lift the drill chuck at the end of a run that drills a single hole. The depth is controlled very accurately so the surface of the underlying cutting table is not marred. The precise control of the Mastercut 2000 means that the holes are placed with a precision of better than 0.15 mm across the entire surface of the vacuum table.

Routing Tool Head

One of the biggest problems with designing a router or routing tool head for a flatbed cutting machine is the removal and disposal of the large amounts or dust and cutting debris that is produced by the high speed spinning blades of the router. This problem caused poor reliability in previous attempts to make a CNC controlled router as the high precision drive components were often adversely affected by debris build-up in belts, tracks and on electrical components. Although scrupulous machine maintenance could mitigate this, in high production run environments, continuous cleaning greatly reduced the time that the machine was online and actively cutting. This problem was tackled in two ways. The addition of a high-efficiency vacuum manifold that is mounted precisely at the cutting point meant that almost all of the cutting debris was captured immediately it was generated. A high-power vacuum system also ensured that even the smallest particles were caught and removed to an off-machine filter system.

Dual Head Flatbed Cutter

Two synchronized cutting heads

In response to a customer's request for an economical and compact machine that would cut custom filters from a variety of fibrous and woven materials, a dual head flatbed cutter was developed. Two identical multi-blade tool heads operating in a synchronized fashion on a single moving cutting gantry. The ability to make double the number and length of cuts in a single pass of the gantry would allow greater production goals to be met with no increase in machine size. This solution allowed production rates to be more than doubled with no change in reliability or set-up time.