Crazitalk Crafting

Crafting Secrets by Crazitalk

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Neenah 65# Premium Cardstock

After upgrading to Studio 4.1I’m finding  it looks like some of my previous settings have changed. Not drastically, it looks like they’ve replaced Thickness with Force and allowed for more than 2 passes. That said I’ll document accordingly.

I started from settings I’ve used for the Neenah 90#. The blade setting of 2 did not work, which is interesting because it did on the heavier stock. My blade may be damaged, I’ll keep that in mind. I think I could go higher on the Force and get through the material more consistently, I’ll try that soon.

Blade: 3 Speed: 5 Force: 20 Passes: 1

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I'm including a photo of this one because as you can see it has no actual brand-name. They come in large packages of approximately 150 pieces in a variety of colors and and several different dimensions. The one I picked up is 12" x 12", but I remember seeing them and sizes as small as 3" x 3". As it says on the packaging it is a heavy card stock. I've tried a number of settings for it, with varying degrees of success. I have found that a couple things happen with this paper, partners are easily pulled apart resulting in a not crisp cut, and also there's numerous spots where the cut does not make it all the way through. The setting I've been trying lately is the textured card stock default setting, I will update this as I find more successful ways of cutting this material. 3|4|30

EDIT: I took the time to do test cuts with a number of the settings, these are the ones I tried and the results. The following is reference for the numbers after the default name; Blade|Speed|Thickness.

Cardstock — 3|4|20 Double cut required to cut through. Didn’t come out clean at all. Glitter Cardstock — 6|3|33 Cut through clean, I think the double cut came rougher. Glitter Flocked/Patterned Paper — 4/5/30 Cut through clean on the double cut but on single cut was only slightly better than the standard Cardstock setting on double cut. Patterned Paper — 3|5|30 Worked better than most of the others Textured Cardstock — 3|4|30 Worked about the same as the Patterned Paper

Unfortunately I don’t recall which of these worked the best, I know 2 came out noticeably better than the rest, particularly with regards to the corners. Several of them wound up having dog ear corners from the cutting process.

EDIT (12/27/16): I used the Cardstock setting on an example project I did yesterday. It worked fine, my current thinking is that the setting worked fine on the big sweeping cuts of the outline I was working on, but not on the tighter cuts of a test cut.

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unuaST HTV

I got a package of this from Amazon, it’s a pretty good price for what you get. It works well enough. I’ve had some minor issues, namely with things like stray “hairs”. I think it’s in part from double cutting the vinyl. If I use more drastic settings it seems to work better, however I run into more problems weeding the material. For whatever reason this stuff is difficult to cut through completely and at the corners it tends to stick. This isn’t an issue if you’re not dealing with a lot of detail, but if you are then the weeding process will take a lot of patience.

Blade: 5 Speed: 5 Thickness: 33

EDIT (12/26/2016): I was using this material last night and had no real problems with the above settings, however there was 1 spot where the negative space in the letter “R” was completely cut out leaving a hole through the transfer paper. As I said, not a real issue, the positive space was what I wanted to retain. I’ll try setting the blade to 4 next time.

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Cricut Iron On Glitter

I got some of the Cricut brand glitter iron on sheets to try out. They work okay, I found that they work best when I use the flocked heat material setting and set it for double cut. I tried the single cut, it worked passably, but I wound up with a lot of spots that didn’t cut through entirely.

Blade: 2 (Double Cut) Speed: 5 Thickness: 33

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Tulip Iron-On Glitter Transfer Sheet

I purchased this from Michael’s craft store. It’s also available on amazon.com, the reviews there indicate issues with die cutters. I ran it with the typical  Flocked Iron-On settings with some success, though there were areas that didn’t cut through properly. I’ll try it again one more time with a double cut. The main problem presently is that the sheets are very thin and do not have any solid backing. I affixed it to the cutting mat before running it through. I’ll try again with a double cut later on and hope for greater success. The material was difficult enough for me to weed that in the future I want to reduce some of the finer details in the design.

Blade: 3 Speed: 5 Thickness: 33

EDIT: This transfer sheet gummed up my blade astonishingly. I’m glad I took it apart and cleaned it immediately after, I couldn’t even see the blade through the gunk when I was pulled it out. I’ve got one more sheet of this, I don’t think I’ll get it again. It’s just too difficult to work with when it comes to the Cameo Silhouette.

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Thermoflex Ref-Lite Safety Reflective Iron-On Vinyl

I ordered some of this from Amazon.com and thought I had good settings but they cut clean through the material. After several test cuts I decided that these settings were good. A thickness of 4 also works, but I had some spots that didn’t cut through. A thickness of 6 cut too much, even through the support plastic.

As a side note, there is a film covering what will be the back side of the material. Remove it before cutting, it’s a nuisance to remove after.

I used a regular iron to apply, pressing firm through card stock for about 20-30 seconds. I found it beneficial to wait 30-60 seconds before pealing off the support plastic, otherwise a residue may be left behind.

Blade: 1 Speed: 8 Thickness: 5

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Jean Trix Iron-On Glitter Sheets

I’ve tried several settings to work with these. At the moment the best results I’ve had are with the following.

Blade: 3 Speed: 5 Thickness: 28

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Blade Length & Thickness

After rereading a few online resources, I want to get out my digital calipers to measure material.

One of the resources I looked at indicated that each ratchet of the blade increases the length by 1 millimeter. That implies to me that most papers can probably be cut with a blade length of 1 or 2 and that card stock will likely be a 3 or 4.

Thickness should probably be listed as density, as cutting felt should require less force than cutting card stock.

The engineer in me wants to figure out a correlation to blade length and thickness that I can apply to things like paper and card stock to say, this is 100# card stock, it’s average thickness is X, therefore my thickness should be Y. I could get into the math more and maybe I will at some point, but for now it’s something for me to think about.

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Neenah 90# Cardstock

After trying a number of settings I’ve found that the following settings work. I didn’t try a blade setting of 1 although, with the other settings, I’m thinking that a 1 or a 1x2 (1 - Double Cut) would work.

Blade: 2 Speed: 5 Thickness: 5

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Silhouette Cameo Blade Settings Guide

The following information was found on Kat’s Scrappy, Bloggy Life

The only information that the manual provides is as follows:

Blade Setting by Material

1 Thin materials such as vinyl and smooth heat transfer material

2-3 Medium-weight materials such as paper, cardstock and flocked heat transfer material

4-6 Thicker materials such as textured cardstock and pattern papers

7-10 Thick materials such as canvas

If you have used the Cameo then you know that that is just not detailed enough because of the different weight and texture of each type of card stock.  I am compiling a list of papers and the recommended blade settings for each paper.  If you have one that is not listed here, please let me know by emailing me or leaving a comment and I’ll add it to the guide.

TIP:  To figure out the blade and thickness settings, I recommend that you use the “test cut” feature which cuts a small square with a triangle on your paper.  This will let you know if the settings are correct or if they need adjusting.  Always start with the blade setting low and use double cut before going up to a higher number.  By not doing so, you run the risk of breaking off the tip of the blade.  (I was told this by Silhouette Technical Support).  So let’s say you start out with your blade depth set at 3 and it doesn’t cut all the way through, first try it with double cut and if that doesn’t work, then try setting it at 4.  If 4 doesn’t work, try double cut again and if that doesn’t work, then try 5, etc.

Paper Type — Blade Setting American Crafts — 4 Bazzill — 4 (double cut) Coredinations — 4 (double cut) DCWV — 4 (double cut) Joanns — 3 Momenta *New 6/6/2012 — 4 (double cut) PaperTrey Ink — 5 Recollections — 3 Stampin’ Up — 5

Silhouette Magnet Paper: Blade 4, Speed 1, Thickness 30

If these settings don’t work for you or you use different settings, please let me know either by email or by leaving a comment.  Thanks!

Cameo Blade Settings for Vinyl – I got this information from Expressions Vinyl

Vinyl Type — Speed | Thickness | Blade Setting Indoor Vinyl – Oracal — 6 | 3 | 1 Outdoor Vinyl – Oracal — 6 | 5 | 1 Specialty Vinyl – Oracal — 7 | 5 | 1 Specialty Vinyl – Oracal — 9 | 5 | 1 Patterned Vinyl Heat Transfer – Easyweed — 8 | 9 | 2 Chalkboard Vinyl Dry Erase Vinyl Inkjet Printable Vinyl – Adhesive — 8 | 9 | 3 Heat Transfer – Stripflock Inkjet Printable with Laminate — 5 | 33 | 3 Patterned Vinyl with Laminate —8 | 15 | 3 Dusted Crystal — 3 | 14 | 1

Blade Settings for Freezer Paper ( Thanks to Krafting Kelly) Speed 3, Thickness 10, Blade 1

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First!

For Christmas my wife gave me a Silhouette Cameo, I’m not planning on just using the Silhouette branded materials for it though. I plan on using this format to record settings I use for different materials so that I can find ones that work well for me.

The following information is from the Silhouette website:

In regard to the blade and finding the correct settings to produce a clean cut, there are two things to take into consideration:

THE BLADE LEVEL The blade level controls how far the blade is exposed in 0.1 mm increments. This accommodates for how thick the material is. For example, a blade level of 1 = .01 mm, a level of 2 = 0.2 mm, etc. If you have a material such as cardstock where the actual thickness is 0.3 mm, setting the blade to a higher exposure (such as 0.6 mm or a setting of 6) would mean you are exposing the blade beyond the actual depth of the material. This does not allow the blade to cut better. It just exposes more of the blade and if extending beyond the actual thickness of the material can dull down the blade tip much more quickly (or in extreme cases break off the tip). This would then result in ragged cutting results. From that point on, you would then have to expose the blade to a higher level because a setting of 6 would actually be only exposed 0.3 mm since you had worn down the excess tip beyond the material's thickness. We would thus discourage attempts to overexpose the blade to try and get a "better" cut.

THE THICKNESS SETTING The Thickness setting from the software controls how hard the blade is pressing down. This accommodates for how dense the material may be. For example, a sheet of paper that measures a 0.3mm depth versus a sheet of denser cardstock that measures the same 0.3mm depth would require the blade to be pushed down with different Thickness levels.

If you feel that the material in question may be slightly deeper than the recommended blade setting recommendation, we would recommend that as you raise the blade level, you also in turn lower the Thickness setting in the software so that the blade if overexposed is not still being pressed down with the hardest force possible and potentially harming the tip. You may then gradually increase the Thickness according to further test results.

The key to successful cutting results is to find the lowest level (blade setting and thickness setting combination) where the Silhouette is still able to cut your material successfully. For example, if a specific material is able to be cut with a blade setting of 3 or 4, you should opt to go with the lower setting that is still allowing you to have a clean final cut. Likewise, if the Thickness setting works at 28, it would likely also work at 30. However, the lower setting should be selected to avoid over-exerting the blade beyond what is necessary to achieve a clean successful cut.

The Silhouette Cut Settings also includes a Speed level to control the speed at which the job is cut. The speed is generally only necessary to adjust for specific materials that may require the blade to move at slower speeds around corners or intricate detailed parts of the image. Faster levels are available to enable the overall cutting process to go faster. You may wish to slow down the Speed level if you are finding that certain parts of the design at corners are not cutting as well, if the material is being lifted from the backing during the cutting process, or if the start/end point of an image is not matching up exactly.

If the test cut works but you find there are areas not giving a clean cut on denser materials, you may wish to slow down the Speed and select the Double Cut option. Doing this will have the Silhouette cut your image twice, thus ensuring any problem areas are given an extra pass during the cut job.