Fellowes M-8C Cross Cut Personal Shredder

Short version: a terrific shredder that powers through the pages with no trouble, and can even shred your credit card. I paid just £39.95 and it is an absolute bargain which will save me untold thousands compared with my previous reckless behaviour. I had around 800 sheets to shred and this shredder powered through them. Longer version: I have files and files at home - bank statements, insurance, tax returns - plus lots of work crap from the endless cycle of meetings. Every couple of years I have a major tidy up, filing new stuff and clearing out anything old. That creates a big pile of paper which I used to throw in the recycling. Yes, I was one of THOSE people, who can't understand how their identity got stolen and wants to blame the bank for their own incompetence. In short, I was a bell-end. Thankfully, it never happened. I got away with it and it's time to shut the stable door with the horse still inside. Shred everything. Don't worry about deciding whether or not something contains personal information, just shred the lot. Just before I stopped being a bell-end, I though 'I bet a proper shredder is going to cost quite a bit, maybe I shouldn't bother.' What a pillock. I paid £39.95 for a highly rated shredder, and the other customers are spot on - it does a proper job and is a true bargain. It is basically a shredder unit sat on its own bin, although it looks a lot nice than that description suggests. It claims to take up to 8 pages or 70gsm paper. As a keen reviewer I couldn't resist testing it to the limit. I got to 10 paper of 80gsm with no trouble. It really struggled on 11 pages and I had to jig backwards and forwards a bit to get it all down. After 5 minutes of action it will give itself a 30 minute break to cool down. Five minutes will get you through several hundred sheets, so it is plenty of time. Also, it is sensing the temperature, so the 5 and 30 minutes are approximate - it will stop when it is too hot, however long it has been going, and restart when it thinks it is ready. My 11-page test made it need a rest, which seemed only reasonable. Safety-wise it covers all the bases - master on/off switch, a lock switch, and then a forward / neutral / reverse switch. So to get it going from scratch that is three switches. HOWEVER, you can then leave them all on and it will sit there waiting to detect paper. Or your cat's tail. So don't do that. Move it into neutral then use the lock switch. It has one more safety feature: if you lift the head off the bin, it will cut out. It has a recessed pressure switch so that it knows if it is on the bin. Obviously you'd put it in neutral first before lifting the head off. Probably. Pricing: The Amazon price for this shredder has ranged between £39.99 and £70.04 in the past 12 months, with about 60% of the time at £39.99. If it is higher than that as you read this, add it to your wish list and check back regularly. It is delivered in its branded box with no Amazon over-box, so bear that in mind if you are buying it as a gift. Wait, why would this ever be a gift? Anyway, top notch, 5-stars, would buy again in a heartbeat, etc.

So far this has performed very well indeed, rapidly gulping down plenty of work, and not making a great deal of noise about it. Having had a previous shredder for 10 years until it wore out, it seems that one has to appreciate that probably all shredders are relatively low powered, and therefore have to be treated gently. This one is 380 watts, which is far less than say a vacuum cleaner or a lawn mower. As a result, it cannot be expected to work long without overheating and needing to cool down, and cannot work at full capacity in terms of number of sheets at once for long either. Hence you have to be ready to do large shredding jobs a bit at a time, and mostly a sheet at a time. It is also a good idea to empty the bin before it is full, (a) so that the shredder does not have to use yet more energy stuffing more shreddings into a full box, and (b) because you end up with far fewer shreddings on the floor that way. Interestingly my last shredder, a cheap PC Line, was never oiled, whereas this one wants regular oiling. I suggest the tip of another reviewer, to put the oil on the paper, is probably a good one, as you can then see how much you are putting in. I am using ordinary lubricating oil rather than shredder oil, as all shredding is recycled and will have to be cleaned of oily print anyway. An excellent feature is the safety switch, which should defeat small children, and the handles for lifting the top off for emptying. As other reviewers have noted, the window is to tinted to see through properly, but it is easy enough to lift the lid a bit and look inside that way.

Fellowes M-8C Cross Cut 8 Sheet Personal Shredder for me personally was a good purchase and one which we needed for a long time especially in today's world where not even your own bin is sacred to the nosy parkers! I bought this mainly because my last shredder was of the same make and it did give us many years' service. The Fellowed M-8C Cross Cut Shredder does works well but for me the 8 sheets which the makers promise must be of a cheap quality paper as I tried 8 sheets of normal quality printing paper and it totally jammed up. I hit the reverse button and it worked OK but I had to get a long thin object and slowly unblock the sheaf of papers which was stopping the shredder from doing its job. I actually would recommend if the quality of paper is of the cheaper thinner kind yes it will take the eight sheets as promised but if you are using the better quality thicker paper no more than five sheets is more its limit. I do actually like the shredder as it is not overly noisy compared to my last one and it works very well shredding the paper to undistinguishable small shreds of paper. If constantly shredding your papers the Fellowes M-8C Cross Cut will work continuous for five minutes then at this stage if the blades are hot a red warning light will turn on it is recommended for the long life of your shredder stop shredding and therefore to turn your machine off to allow the shredding blades to cool down. It is recommended by Fellowes to oil the blades using their own oil Fellowes Shredder Oil 355ml each time you need to empty the paper bin, for me I actually do a zig-zag of oil over a sheet of paper then shred this paper therefore the oil is coating all blades without soaking the blades. Everyone has their own way of doing this and how often they do it is up to their own shredding needs. I actually use this Swordfish 240ml Shredder Lubricant Bottle and find this works very well and I have also used the Aurora SP1000 Shredder Lubrication and Sharpening Sheets (Pack of 12) , I do like the sheets as they are convenient to use and I do find they work very well plus keeping the shredder blades in a good sharp condition. I find even using the sheets once a month for the good condition of the blades a very good idea as I found the blades even after five years of use still producing good shredding results until the actual machine slowly give up and ceased to work. One reason I do like is the actual design of the shredder as it has a darkened window on the side which shows you how full the actual bin/container is without having to lift the actual top of each time you want to check how much paper there is in the plastic bin. It is a nice shape and sits neatly in a corner and with nice rounded edges it does look good as well as being a good working model makes this a good purchase for me personally. While using the shredder I did not find the actual machine overly loud compared to other models I have tried plus the fact there is a safety lock which is discreetly positioned at the front, I always have this on even when I unplug the shredder which I always do as having children constantly in and out of the house I am terrified of them being injured. This lock works well and because it is discreetly designed there is less chance of the child realising this must be released for the shredder to be switched on for using. Also the on/off button is positioned at the top so both these must be used for the shredder to work which makes it even harder for a child to turn it on, even because of this safety device I still unplug the machine when not in use. I would recommend the Fellowes M-8C Cross Cut 8 Sheet Personal Shredder as a good purchase for the home or even a small office as it does work well but it will not take big piles of paper and it does slow down if there is more than 5 sheets of paper this is the only reason I took one star of the actual rating but this is easily overcome by keeping a close eye on the amount of paper which is being shredded at any one time.

My new shredder arrived yesterday, and as we had a huge pile of shredding to be done, of course I had to get it set up and working as soon as possible! The first thing I noticed (once it was unpacked and plugged in) was the noise - the low level of the noise! Our previous shredder had been quite loud, especially towards the end of its life. This one has a hum to it, and I was amazed how little the noise changed even when shredding staples and credit cards. We had both of these in the pile of shredding to be done, just by coincidence, and it was a great way to test out the unit. I wondered how it would handle the staples, even though it was designed to shred them, but it didn't even blink! The noise was literally no different with just the paper to the stapled paper. The thicker the wedge of paper added to the slot, the deeper the noise became, but that is just because the motor was working that bit harder. Nothing to worry about, though. The shredder worked beautifully, and it happily shredded through all of the paperwork which had piled up since our last one gave up! I did the shredding in two sessions, simply due to the amount there was to be done, and I did not want to burn it out in the first evening. The temperature control light flickered a few times when shredding the thicker piles of paper, but nothing to cause any concern, and it merrily chomped its way through all that I fed into it. I emptied the shredder bin twice, and oiled the blades each time, as recommended. The oil was a bit messy, but that is not a review of the shredder, more the oil bottle. The window in the front of the bin is more of a smoked plastic than clear, so it is more difficult to see the paper level than perhaps it needed to be, but it was clear enough when it needed emptying, I think. Just being aware of how much paper you have shredded will help to not overload the bin. We noticed with our previous unit that if the bin was not emptied when it was getting full, the shredder blades clogged with paper if shredding continued,and I can see that this would be the case with this item as well. Therefore, little and often emptying would be advisable, even if the bin is only half full, and then you could oil the blades every other time it was emptied. For the price (I paid £42), this is an excellent bit of kit. I looked long and hard at the various options, and seriously considered spending half as much again for the 22l bin of the next model up, but I am glad I went with this unit. The bin is not massive, but for general everyday shredding which has not been piling up for a month (and had hubby's business chequebook added to the pile with who knows how many pages in it!!), it will be more than adequate. The noise level is perfectly acceptable, and feels to me like it is on the quiet side, which is great. I would currently agree with the "powershred" label, as it certainly seemed to power through everything fed into it. I am very pleased with my purchase, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy or replace a home shredder, especially if you do not wish to pay lots of money for one.

I purchased this shredder for my mother as she is a stroke survivor and is severely disabled. What could be easier than putting a sheet of paper and the shredder doing what it's meant to do, shred! After about 8 months my Mother asked me to empty her shredder as it was getting full and as I lifted the top part off I hear something rattling, which I thought was odd. A piece of plastic fell out, it was part of the surround to the blades broken away and once the first part came out it literally disintegrated and fell apart. I can tell you hand on heart that my mother could not have mistreated the unit as she couldn't even lift the top part off by herself, I even have to oil it for her. She only used the unit once or twice a week and it broke for no apparent reason! I contacted Fellowes and fairdo's, after a bit of faffing around sending them details they sent a replacement. This replacement unit has now developed the same rattle and has stopped working after about 3 months and I'm now going to have to go through the nonsense again. This really isn't very good, the components within the unit are sub par and not fit for purpose. Another point is, the unit is described as being able to handle 8 sheets which just isn't true. it struggles with around 4 sheets and runs very slowly. Update 29th November Our 2nd replacement that we received September 22nd broke down today after 2 months. We hardly used it and the plastic surrounding the blades just starts breaking and rattling until it becomes unusable. I emailed Fellowes to tell them we will never use their products again and they offered me a free upgrade to a better model. I read the reviews and it is just as bad as this one, so I am just going to purchase a different shredder, this has gone n too long! I notice other reviewers have tried to contact Fellowes, the email address is [email protected]

Sthredders have become a normal part of life, sadly, but it is important to make sure that anything that could be used to steal your identity is shredded. This shredder does a fine job and has a powerful motor. It states you can shred up to 8 pages of A4 at a time, don't take a lot of notice of this as I feel you are better off doing no more than 4 at a time, less strain on the motor and you'll get there in the end anyway. The small pieces are secure enough to deter anyone who looks through your paper rubbish. Personally I use the shredded paper on the garden, either as a mulch or, most often, as an addition to the compost bin. Oh yes, it will also shred credit cards, but personally I prefer to use strong scissors - that's just me though. In use this shredder is solid and sounds it too - yes it is noisy, but powerful motors are noisy. For the money you would be hard pressed to get anything better. So if, like me you don't have huge amounts of papers to shred, look no further. I thoroughly recommend this machine.

I bought this Like New, the machine itself i would rate 5/5. Does the job well but my 3/5 rating is due to the condition of what I received. Firstly, the button switch was for some reason separately in another bag. When I inspected to see how the clasp would fit the switch, it snapped off! Luckily it still clasped the edges (it has 4 edges) with the remaining 3 sides so it still fit the switch. Otherwise super glue would be the only way. Not sure why this was separated to begin with and why it was so fragile. Secondly, I gave a wipe of the inner drum and saw some yellow staining. Don't really want to think about it too much (!). The plug had an orange sticker over the wire and that whole 20cm part of the cable feels sticky. I've tried wiping that too with wet wipe but it still remains mysteriously sticky. Aside from this, there was only 2 scraps of paper stuck in its teeth so i hope it was only lightly used as advertised. --- The product itself is good, it can cut 8 pages as advertised. I tried 14 (accidentally thinking it was 8) so it struggled. But the reversing made it easy to unstuck it. Phew.

This is a good solid shredder. The top lifts off to empty the bin, the contents of which can be seen through a window. It has a useful lock which prevents it being turned on accidently. The top, shredding head, is quite heavy and it makes a fair amount of noise when shredding. You can shred up to 8 thin sheets of paper at a time, or credit cards but it will not shred CDs, newspaper, transparencies, cardboard, laminates or plastics. If you run it for more than 5 minutes, to prevent overheating, it shuts down for half-an-hour. The instructions recommend no more than 60 sheets shredding a day, so if you shred more than this you should probably look elsewhere. It is rated at 1.6 amps (which is about 370 watts) so safe to plug in with other office equipment. One downside is that you cannot easily pick up the whole unit (bin and shredder head), if you use the hand holds then just the head comes off in your hand. It would have been easy and better if they had moulded small handles into the bin so the whole unit could easily be picked up and carried. the mains lead is about 2 metres (6 ft) ling and is fitted with a standard 3-pin plug.

The shredder has shredding mode and rewind mode in a single button. Shredding function works fine, but if you accidentally slide the button to rewind mode, it will scroll all remaining shredded papers stuck from the shredder head up causing paper jam. The paper jam happens in a place where there is no easy access to clear them up. Bought the shredder for a year with very little use because it kept having paper jam and it took so much time every time clear up the jam. Recently found out the jam was because of the Rewind (and it guarantees the paper jam 100% when you rewind the shredder). A product like this should not be on market. Not sure why it had so many 5 star reviews.

No le doy las 5 estrellas porque no especifica como es el corte del papel. Anteriormente tuve una maquina de este mismo fabricante y no lo cortaba tan pequeño (pensaba que seria igual), lo corta muy pequeño y yo queria que no lo dejara tan deshecho (tiras muy finas del papel a deshacer). Por lo demás bien, es muy rápido y apenas hace ruido.

Absolutely useless. I took good care not to put too much paper in at a time. Now it has jammed and although I have cleared one side I cannot get at the other and the machine simply will not work at all. A complete waste of money.

Amazing shredder for home and office use. Very powerful too!

preciser sur descriptif prise anglaise donc acheter convertisseur prise europeenne afin de preserver la garantie