A machine for cutting a continuous web into successive individual battery plates has a rigid frame on which a cylindrical rotary anvil is journalled. A rotary knife drum is fixed on a shaft journalled on a pair of laterally spaced upright plates mounted for vertical sliding movement on the frame of the machine. A toggle linkage is utilized to shift the drum mounting plates vertically between operative and inoperative positions. The knife drum shaft is journalled on one of the mounting plates such that the plate can be disengaged from the shaft and tilted laterally outwardly by simply removing a nut threaded on the end of the shaft.
