To trim or not to trim? The World Spirit Tarot

hunter said:

I don't understand what people are doing with sandpaper. I'm having trouble reading and finding the trim threads. For some reason all posts are showing links as test surrounded by img tags, so reading the stickies is pure torture. I'm not sure if the glitch is on the board or firefox, so don't know how to fix it :-0 Sorry I can't use search better to look for info on sandpaper.

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Hunter, the links and vb codes aren't working on the forum at the moment. See this thread in Tech Support: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=120128

I'm not sure what you mean by using a printer to trim a deck. How do you trim with a printer?

I've trimmed a couple of decks and used large scissors for one and a sliding scap-book style trimmer for the other one like this one:
http://www.a2boffice.co.uk/category/1_6/paper_trimmers_a4_-_a3_-_a2_-_a1_-_a0

There are a few posts about taking the deck to a professional printer and they cut the deck all at once instead of card by card, ensuring a uniform size deck.

My scrapbook cutter is similar to the ones in the above link. It makes a wonderful straight cut, but the cut it curled downward. That would be fine for scrapbooking, but not a deck that needs to be shuffled. I guess maybe a more expensive model wouldn't produce the curl?

Thanks for letting me know it's a board glitch and not a personal setting issue.

I trimmed my cards today and am very pleased. I used a tiny pair of scissors designed for precision work and carefully cut inside the colored borders. Then I used a corner rounder on the corners.

I scanned all the cards. The sun and 2 of wands look like I cut them crooked, but it is an optical illusion made more obvious by the removal of the borders. The Emperor looks off center, but was cut correctly. These 3 cards should be looked at carefully before deciding to trim this deck.

Many of the scans include 2 card backs. I'm more pleased than I thought I would be with the backs.

Majors



Cups


Pentacles


Swords


Wands

You did a nice job, Hunter. They look good!

I've been thinking about trimming my world spirit deck. Looking at your scans Hunter makes me even more tempted.

The main reason I'm thinking about trimming this deck is the card size, I find them a bit bulky, as is.

On the other hand I think this deck really needs a border of some sort to contain the bold lines in the artwork. It makes trimming a bit more difficult because it means measuring out a new border thickness rather than just cutting close to the artwork edge (like I did with my thoth).

Hmm .. decisions, decisions.

papercut said:

On the other hand I think this deck really needs a border of some sort to contain the bold lines in the artwork.

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There's also the fact that if you repeatedly use a deck through years or decades, the edges will soften and cop some damage no matter how careful you are. If the deck has borders, the images won't be hurt. If it doesn't, well ...

Awesome job there Hunter!

Agree.

hunter, the cards just look perfectly done and I like the effect.

Alta

I agree, Hunter, you did a lovely job. World Spirit is one of the decks I really like. In my tarot journey I try to incorporate the images "as is" and see how I fit with the decks whether with borders or not. Seeing so much discussion here at AT about the impact borders have on others it's given me something to think about.

papercut said:

It makes trimming a bit more difficult because it means measuring out a new border thickness rather than just cutting close to the artwork edge (like I did with my thoth).

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I just cut along the INSIDE border of the colored borders, so I had nice crisp guide to follow. Every once in awhile I struggled a bit with the purple borders against the black. I just left a little purple when unsure and turned the card over. The colored borders lined up EXACTLY with the white borders on the back for the top and both sides. Only the bottom borders did not line up. It was easier to see the white against the blue and black sometimes. It was nice to be able to keep turning the card over and over to compare the borders on each side.

I used small, very sharp scissors and was almost shaving the edges sometimes, when tyring to get a card just right by removing the last tiny bit of a border.

Thank you everyone for all the kind reviews. I'm really happy with how the cards turned out. I feel so lucky I didn't slip the tiniest bit on any of the cards. I bruised my fingers, but it was worth it, to have no regrets for even a single card.