I love these plates when they are intact. However some must be made with bad glue as sometimes despite their expensive price they will de-laminate and separate. There are two layers, metal & plastic. If you use as top plate facing down over sharp cutting plate it'll happen sooner than later. Used with metal up as bottom plate lay paper to be cut face down and die cutting side over the paper then use a regular acrylic plate over all so cutting down it will last much longer. USUALLY. The problem is they sometimes de-laminate within 1-20 uses anyway as in right away no matter how you use as bottom facing up or top facing down. Just note bottom cutting into works usually better than as a top plate facing down. For some reason the operation of the machine warps the plastic layer leading to it's separation even on good glued plates. I save the metal layer-use solvents to remove all glue and manage to use shims to still get a lot of use out of the metal plate as a cutting surface. I love glitter paper. And these help me cut through the tough plastic core of all glitter type card-stock.

This was recommended to me by a friend and it works great as a base plate.