[ROL]

There are a few interesting suggestions so far which given careful attention, may work. My concern with all of them is that scratching the emulsion, particularly with fiber paper, might be difficult to avoid:

• Floor cutting seems the most promising, providing you have the room and can prevent dirt and other foreign matter from scratching the emulsion.
• Leaving the roll in the box and cutting lengths seems low tech enough, just be careful not to graze the emulsion on sharp cardboard edges.
• The giant film canister "light safe" idea is something I've often thought of trying. I'd be cautious of making the light trap tight enough to prevent exposure while not simultaneously scratching the emulsion, and a way to retrieve paper from inside when starting a cut. It isn't clear to me that the responder has actually constructed a safe working version.

Some contraption to hold or suspend the roll while cutting would be a big help--that was part of my problem.

I have successfully used two wall mounted closet pole supports and a 4 foot long 1" pipe on which to mount all my rolls, paper towel dispenser style, for many years (seen here). I mark lengths on the wall with painters tape, and finally cut paper as it is unrolled with an OLO rotary cutter, scissors being too "grabby". Cut paper is stored in a large diameter black ABS effluent pipe (new!), "roll paper safe", one end capped, other screwed.

Very inexpensive but far from perfect. The cuts are always approximate, too be cleaned up after printing and during mounting, and one must remember to put the roll back into a light proof bag/box before turning the lights back on!