Requiem....for an inanimate object!

Ah, the lovely blue Big Shot is dead. Mr Dunnit took it apart, reckons the bearings are worn. This wear causes the rollers to depress less effectively. In this case, they won't squeeze together closely enough to emboss or cut a full 3" margin. Useless then really. Also, Mr Dunnit suggests that the work involved in accessing the bearings for replacement may well cause destruction anyway. We are not engineers. By the time he's done that, and I've driven somewhere to fetch some new bearings...well, I might as well buy a new one. Mr Dunnit was quite amused by my motivation to get going, source a replacement and generally not live without a die cutter for too long. He felt, I think, that I was exaggerating the pleasure of owning a Big Shot.

I had no idea how often I turn to cut a die or emboss a piece of card before I couldn't. No wonder the blue one wore out; count the day to day hobby stuff, then the workshops and Marathons, the odd multi-cut as a RAK - and countless times I've embossed paper, card, foil, stuff. whew. The blue one did well. Four years or so of excellent service. And when it went, it went...I haven't spent the last few weeks having to shim or re-cut and blaspheming over it. It just, well, gave up! 

Lovely Mary to the rescue again. Just as if she were still alive to offer it as a loaner, her bequeathed stash contains a Big Shot. This is wonderful on so many levels. Am thrilled to be using and employing something that was Mary's and that I know she enjoyed having. Am thrilled that I don't have to do any waiting. 

You can see that I haven't even bothered to dust this replacement before putting it to work! A couple of trial cuts and we're off. I can't promise to do less, be more fastidious about paper and card thicknesses and etc. It's got to be a working tool. But I can promise that every time use it, Mary will pop into my mind. Especially that laugh. And that, above everything, is the pleasure a little black Big Shot.