The optical look is normally only secondarily. The customer is normally not able to optically distinguish the factors which make a tool to a good tool.

Really important are the quality and selection of the hard metal, the grinding process with the right lubrication and cooling fluid and grinding discs. Also the tight tolerances and sharp edges are very important .  Only a very few companies are able to fulfill all these aspects. 

These high demands are not free of charge, a real good tool has his price.

The supplier of the cutter - especially the Swiss - set themselves the highest demands.

Knives:

The standard Zund Cutter knives are made out of the high quality full hard metal. This assures a high lifetime and the best possible cutting results.

Particularly when cutting thinner materials, a smaller cutting angle (β)will make it easier to cut; however, a smaller cutting angle (β) also creates a larger overcut x. "Overcut" refers to the distance between the center of the knife and the point where the knife blade intersects with the surface of the material.

When cutting thicker materials, especially in small radii, a smaller cutting angle is disadvantageous in that it will tend to distort contours (e.g. arcs will no longer be perfectly round). The same occurs if knives are set too deep.

Experience shows that double-edged (or sword-shaped) knives tend to be more durable because of their greater stability. In each corner, the sword-shaped blade creates an overcut in both directions. Any time visible overcuts on the front side of the material are a problem, try cutting from the back (if necessary, register marks can be cut out to ensure proper registration even when cutting from the back). Especially with thicker materials, it is physically impossible to cut without overcuts!

visit the only original Zund Plottertool Shop from Zünd.

www.zund.com

there you will find all cutter knives, tools, routers

„Wir erschrecken über unsere eigenen Sünden, wenn wir sie an anderen erblicken.“
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe