On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:39:57 -0700, Winston wrote:
On 7/15/2010 11:26 AM, Steve B wrote:
....
BE SURE TO GET THE CONFETTI TYPE. There are readers and computer
programs out there now that can read and reassemble strips from strip
shredded documents.

OP referred to 'cross-cut' shredding, so already was looking,
I think, for what you refer to as 'confetti type'.

....
I'm envisioning an 'open source' shredder. 'Way overbuilt.
Interdigitated banks of hardened tool steel punches of various sizes
convert up to 10 sheets per pass into small pieces of random shapes.

Here is a use for that 1 HP gear motor you've been saving!

By 'interdigitated', do you mean that punches would be
operating from both sides of the paper? I suppose that
would avoid the need to make dies as well as punches.

Another approach would be to adapt an inexpensive wood planer*
either by substituting a long stack of slitting saws on an axle
in place of the cutterhead (ie, part #53 of HF 95082, or part
#22 of HF 39860) or substituting serrated blades in place of the
straight planer blades. How keep it from jamming, or from
letting pages go thru uncut, are details left to the reader.

* Like http://www.harborfreight.com/13-inch-industrial-planer-39860.html or
http://www.harborfreight.com/2-1-2-half-hp-12-inch-planer-with-dust-collection-95082.html

Where only the top inch of lots of pages needed shredding, I've used
a wood-cutting bandsaw for trimming that part off of two-inch thick
stacks of pages, to cut down on volume through the shredder itself.
When you start with a ton of paper, the "shred everything" advice
given in some other posts doesn't make sense.

--
jiw