About H. F. Esterly Company

See what our customers say- read testimonials

Speed-Mat® Mat Cutting System

Speed-Mat®, Inc. has been making Esterly mat cutters for over 33 years. Speed-Mat® cutting systems are incredibly versatile and are designed for high production factories, high end museums as well as Mom and Pop frame shops. The Esterly mat cutters can be used for 2 ply thru 8 ply mat boards and have the versatility of being manually operated, semi-automated or fully automated and integrated with a personal computer.

The Esterly mat cutters combine durability and quality with affordability and precision.

H.F. Esterly/Speed-Mat® Mat Cutting History

Get it all together. Speed-Mat Comlete SystemH. F. Esterly Company, Inc., located in Wiscasset, Maine, has been manufacturing Speed-Mat mat-cutting systems for the picture framing industry for over 25 years. Harry Esterly, designer of Speed-Mat, started the company in 1974. An artist relative of his wife, Diana, was cutting hundreds of mats by hand. Harry said "there's got to be a better way" and took an idea from the electronics business he was working in to build the first Speed-Mat.

The Complete Mat Cutting System

The original mat cutter could only cut rectangular openings. The possibility and advantages of a complete mat-cutting system on one wall-mounted baseboard soon occurred to Harry. The system, consisting of rectangle/square cutter, oval/circle cutter, and mat/glass/plastic sizer soon evolved. Through the years there have been a number of additions to the system: V-groove, heavy duty, and pneumatic knifeheads, production stop spacers, etc., but the basic system is essentially the same as the first Speed-Mat.

Speed-Mat Goes International

Originally, H. F. Esterly Company sales were localized in New England. Today, Speed-Mats may be found throughout the United States and in nearly every country of the world. Speed-Mat enjoys a particularly strong distributorship in Europe. Customers include artists, custom framers, high production framing businesses, museums, colleges and universities.

Committed to Creating state-of-the-art Mat Cutters

H. F. Esterly Company's goal has always been to manufacture a product of the highest quality and to provide service of the same high quality. Beyond this the company is committed to developing and manufacturing new "state-of-the-art" mat-cutters.

About our Mat Cutters

Speed-Mat® manufactures and markets the world-renown Esterly mat cutting systems for frame shops, art galleries, museums, professional and amateur artists, photographers, crafters and hobbyists. The Esterly mat cutters combine efficiency and affordability with precision and flexibility.