Silhouette Cameo Tips for Set Up When Using New Material

I received the following tips from a viewer of mine, Hilary Spiers,  who asked that I share this information with my blog readers. I happily obliged so here ya go!

Hi there I’ve had huge problems with blade settings for my silhouette cameo until I got this advice which is brilliant and I thought you might wish to share with your followers.  I hope it’s useful it certainly has been for me

Silhouette Set Up for Using New Material

1. Take a sheet of the media you are trying to cut and fold it in half.
2. Take the blade out of the machine, set it to 1 and hold it in your hand as you would a pen but held vertically as it would be in the machine.
3. Get your folded media and with your blade held like a pen but kept vertically press firmly down on the media and ‘draw’ a line.
4. Next have a look at the media; with the correct setting you should have just cut a line through the top layer of the folded card without cutting in to the back layer. If you have not cut through the media, increase the blade by 1 position and repeat from step 3.
5. Keep doing this until you reach the correct setting to cut the top layer without cutting the back.

• Once this is done the blade can be put back in to the machine.

  Next we need to head into the software so we can set the correct cutting speed and force.

  In the Silhouette Studio software open the Cut Settings, go to the Material type options and press the + to create a new preset and give it a name, then set the thickness to a setting of 8. Next load some of the media you wish to cut in to the cutter and press the Test Cut button located at the bottom of the Editing: settings page.

  • When doing a Test Cut the machine will cut a square with a triangle inside it, if the Thickness setting is correct you will be able to lift the triangle from within the square of the test cut and there will be no marks from the test cut on the cutting mat itself, or at most a very light outline just on the adhesive.
  • If the test cut does not cut cleanly, increase the thickness setting by 2 or 3 and do another Test Cut.
  • Repeat this until you find the right setting to cut the media. Once you have the correct setting for the type of media you are using, you can then keep and use this setting each time you cut this specific media.

General – guidelines for starting point
315gsm media with a blade 4, thickness 24 and a double cut,
216gsm media is normally between 190-250 micron thick
(which would equate to a blade of 2 or 3).
Rule of thumb is use double cut on any media over 180gsm, it gives a nicer cut and allows lower thickness settings to be used, which is kinder on the blade.

Issues and solutions:

Symptoms
With a blade setting to high it means that the excess is getting dragged through the mat, which causes extra drag and causes the machine to stall (grinding noise and restart losing its place)

To Check the blade is good
The easiest way to test your blade is to get a piece of normal printer paper, fold it in half and half again, then take the blade out of the Cameo and set it to 1 on the blade dial.

Then, holding the blade in your hand and making sure to keep the white cap flat on the paper, move the blade over the folded paper. If the blade is ok it will cut through the top two layers, if it is worn it will just cut the top layer and if the tip has gone it will not cut at all.

Thanks Hilary!