# Fiskar's Paper Crimper Review



## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

I bought a Fiskar's paper crimper from Michael's a few days ago. They are used on by people here on the board to make corrugated iron roofing. Most folks say they can crimp thin aluminum (if annealed first to make it softer) of the beer/soda can variety.

In short, I dunno. I find the plastic frame is far too flexible to suit. I've run most every sort of paper through it I have to hand, and on most, it does a good job. On certain types of glossy hard paper, it doesn't do so well, unless you crimp with the grain.

It has an annoying habit of 'running off' so the paper crimps are fan-like instead of parallel.

The crimper rollers appear to be made of cast aluminum, yet on a bad crimp the midsection of the workpiece is blank. I found by turning the paper 90 degrees, this was cured. But it looks like the rollers themselves are flexing, and I find that unlikely given the weakness of the frame.

Others who have them seem to be satisfied. I think $20 is a bit much for an iffy setup like this.

On the upside, it would be very straightforward to build a frame from (hard)wood, take the rollers out of the junky plastic frame and mount them in the wood frame with a pair of pressure screws at each end. I think that might solve all the problems.

In my case, for the time being I'm happy with tagboard as a roofing medium, crimped and suitably painted.

If you can catch Michael's doing a '50% off next purchase' sale, buy something else, come back the next day and pick up the crimpers for half-price. It'd be harder to complain, then. 

Les


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## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Les, 

When I crimp with my Fiskars, I put the handle in a bench vice and a wood spacer under each side to keep it off the vice. You can adjust the crimping pressure by adjusting the vice and it leaves a hand free to put a bit of palm pressure in the middle of the roller if needed. 
Hope that helps. 

-Brian


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## Lawrence Wallace (Jan 2, 2008)

Les, 

Take a look here and see hints on setting up and using the Paper Crimper. 

http://users.stratuswave.net/~wd8jik/crimp/crimp.html


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## Richard Weatherby (Jan 3, 2008)

Works great for me. I have corrugated moe cans then one can imagine. 

See my archive link on how to do it. " LINK "

Also see Yogi's website. It is a paper crimple, so if you intend to use metal it needs to be a light gage and soft temper.

When I apply corrugate sheets to a plywood substrate, I trowel on the adhesive so it fills the corrugations and hardens to form a solid back-up.


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## peter bunce (Dec 29, 2007)

Hi Les, 

Sorry about the expensive mistake re the crimper: I bought mine (here in the UK) with two turning handles specifically as they are needed for metal crimping; even with the thin (.004) thickness being annealed it is still much, much stiffer than paper. 

Having two handles almost stops the lift that you experienced; another thing I do is fix it in a wide jaw vice as deep as possible to make the chance of the casing twisting as little as possible. 

Could you possibly increase the annealing slightly to assist in stopping the lift of the rollers? It will be a 'fine line' between it melting and annealing! 

Also only crimp two or three corrugations at a time and then reverse, crimp them again, and then another 2 or 3 and repeat. This also allows you to check the sheet is running straight – I feed the sheet between the rollers so it sits at the deepest point to get a good start.. 

The last roof I did had 44 sheets with about three or four being faulty. 

I have added a quick photo of it in position in the vice: if this does not work it goes into the 'workmate' with its larger jaws.


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## spodwo (Jan 2, 2008)

I have the plastic one you have - some cans use thinner Aluminum. I have never "softened" mine. I use Coke cans - and just press hard. Mine is about 
6 years old now so I don't know if the newer Fiskers are cheaper but mine is plastic and it works for me. 

The doors on my small shanty was made by the Fiskars and a soda can:


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## Steamnutt (Apr 12, 2008)

mine is also about 5 years old. I learned of this method at our friends open house a few years back, and it's still going strong. It is the plastic frame one, and it does take a constant pressure to get a good crimp. Like Steven, I don't soften the metal, and believe me I haven't done as much as Dick has on the MD Central, but it's still working just fine. Most of my cans are Pepsi products, and it's done quite a few.


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Brian,

I can already sqeeze all the available travel out of the frame with hand pressure, so I can't see where putting it in a vise to increase pressure will work. I do think it might add a good deal to the controllability of the work. After all, it was never designed to hold any sort of tolerance. As I've said somewhere else, I think the ultimate solution is to mount the rollers in a frame so there's some control over pressure independently on the right & left ends. If it turns out those roller/crimper heads do deflect along their axes, I'll be amazed--and very disappointed.

Les


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Peter,

Thank you for the photo and tips. They all sound good; I need to play with it some more. All I've done is crimp paper and cardstock, no metal as I feel that if it won't handle certain grades of paper, it certainly won't do for metal. (Retired tool & die maker). Yours is of a different design. (I _have_ to learn how to post pictures on this site!).

The major problem with mine is, even were I to crimp the 'headframe'--the part that holds the rollers--into a vise, there's still not enough meat on the frame where the rollers mount to absorb much more pressure than can be gotten by squeezing the grips. True, it would be more uniformly distributed, and that might make a difference.

The technique of doing a few crimps, reversing and doing a few more seems an excellent approach. Mounting it in a workmate hadn't yet come to me, as I have an antique saw vise that I was eyeing for the purpose.

Tomorrow I will go buy some of these throwaway aluminum roasting pans and try them. Actually, the card stock I've managed to successfully crimp looks suitable enough for me. (Perhaps I have low standards?







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Again, thank you for your kind input.

Les


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Lawrence,

Thank you very much for the link; I've been there a long while back and never copied the link to my files. Yes, the crimper shown on the right is the one I have, so it looks like I've just got to figure out a workaround to the inherent weakness of the design. After all, the thing was never made to do metal. My major (and only) complaint is, it won't do cardstock, light cardstock at that. It won't even crimp ordinary paper reliably. But for what it was intended to do, I guess it's good enough.

Les


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Richard,

Thanks for taking time to post the link. I've been there and looked it over. I suppose I'm just on the sharp part of the learning curve. I'd hoped for better from Fiskar's. They used to have a great reputation.

Les


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## spodwo (Jan 2, 2008)

Try cheap soda aluminum. The cans are thinner. 

As I recall - I think I used to run my Coke cans through twice.


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Steve,

That's a great-looking little building, there. (The guy on the left looks like a boss I had, once). Doors look just fine.

I haven't worked my way up to aluminum yet, still fooling around with whatever comes to hand on the crimpers. Perhaps I'll get something going this afternoon.

Thanks for the pic.

Les


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## spodwo (Jan 2, 2008)

Les - here is how I made that shed: 

http://islsmr.homestead.com/ISLSMR_tips_page20.html 

Be well!


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Spod,

Thanks for the links. I now have two more sites to investigate. Also, I was eyeing some wooden structures in Michael's, wondering how they'd do, but I didn't have my mind on them, I was after coffee sticks 'n whatnot. That shed looks good.

Les


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## DennisB (Jan 2, 2008)

There are different models of the Fiskars Crimper. The reason the paper or metal wants to pull to one side is that the model you are using has only one locking gear. The better model has a locking gear on each end. This keeps the metal rolling thru evenly. I apologize for not knowing the model number. Regards, Dennis.


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Dennis,

Okay, thanks for the hedzup. I'll go on the web and see what they've got.

Les


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