Rules of the Game

"If nothing else, it should be accurate," contends Ellen Adams, co-owner of Adams Technologies. "The lengths are the most critical of all. If you have a piece of rule and it is the wrong length and the bends are in the wrong place, you've got a piece of junk. That is the bottom line." Whether a machine cuts, miters, or has other options are all just bonus features, she says. Currently there are two types of rule processing units marketed worldwide. According to Dale Kengott, president of Ken Technologies, most of Europe and small parts of the United States prefer to process the rule first in one machine, which performs the functions of cutting, notching, and mitering, and then send it and its cad file to another machine for angle or contour bending. These "bending machines" are not automatic, since double-handling is required to finish a section of knife.