talkmagic.co.uk

Hi there,

Does anyone know if you can buy a corner short punch for cards?
I've been trying to make a few corner short cards, and I'm not that impressed with my results! I then wondered if you can buy a card punch that trims the corners?

I've had a look in Hobbycraft this afternoon, but they just have flowers and cats on !

Just found one over at the Card Collection:

http://www.cards4magic.co.uk/acatalog/Hole_Punches.html

Corner Rounder
Pocket device for making the perfect corner on a playing card.


Price: £7.50

Card collection do sell one, but that same punch CAN be found at craft shops for about £5.

Or, if you can find a pedicure set...

If it's the same as the one I bought a year or two back from cards4magic, you need to be aware that the radius of that punch isn't exactly the same as Bikes but its very close. Just finish it off with a piece of wet & dry paper and the job's a good 'un!

Thanks for the replies.

I saw Brad Christian talking about corner short cards on one of the Ellusionist DVDs. He suggested just cutting off a small amount, but in a straight line.

However, I'm concerned that this may be spotted, which is why I thought about trying a punch. I've got lots of old cards lying around though, so may just keep practicing with nail scissors! I guess that once you have got used to the cutting action, the cards don't need to be that short at all.

The beauty of a corner shortening punch and hand finishing, as opposed to just cutting a diagonal section off, is that when the card is viewed on its own, there's no indication that anything has been done – assuming the back design doesn’t reveal that something’s missing. Regular Bikes and others with plain borders are fine.

It's interesting to see how different magi handle card shortening.

Andy Nyman springs to mind...

The Last Deck on the Left wrote:Does anyone know if you can buy a corner short punch for cards?

I've had a look in Hobbycraft this afternoon, but they just have flowers and cats on !

Don't knock it. I always decorate my cards with flowers and cats.

I've just ordered the £7.50 corner rounder from cards4magic, as suggested in this (rather old) thread. (I would have walked to a craft shop, but it's snowing.) I considered buying their sturdy metal one, but it's fifty quid, so I'm hoping this will do the job.

By the way, here's two trimming ideas (which may well be discussed elsewhere on this site; am currently reading through all the posts on trimming)...

1 If the corner rounder doesn't match the original corners, if it makes a bigger curve maybe you can round all the other corners to match?

2 Some years ago I experimented with trimming cards, and I seem to recall buying some Bikes on ebay. Many ebay sellers sell seconds (often not labelled as such!), and these seconds often have the backs printed off-centre by a few millimetres. The deck I have beside me now is like that. If you're going to make some short or narrow cards, why not buy some seconds and trim those, and mix them in with a correctly printed deck?

(Obviously they'd have to be printed off-centre in the wrong direction, but if you bought a few decks from different sellers you'd probably find some that are suitable.)

I bought one from cards4magic years ago and it does the job very well indeed. Not exactly the same radius as the original card corner but not far off. A little extra work with wet & dry paper or an emery board will see the job done to a very high standard!

Bravo!

Why do you need to sand them down? Is the corner too big, or is it the wrong sort of shape?

The radius was a teeny weeny bit flatter than usual Bikes, not a great deal at all and I was probably being very picky as it's only noticeable if you know what to look for - which specs don't! The wet & dry idea is what I used before the corner punch, it does the same thing but just takes a little while longer.

You can buy card punches off Ebay for very little.

saxmad wrote:You can buy card punches off Ebay for very little.

Do they do the same thing, trim the corners?