I need serious help with cutting!!

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the forum but was looking for some help/advice into cutting a type of card material as I am slowly losing the will at this point. Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place!

I am using the Cameo 4 with a range of blades including the Autoblade, Deep cut blade and Kraft blade. I am trying to cut a type of card that is around 650gsm (I know this is probably way too high for the machine to cut but stick with me). It's a pulp type paper, similar to beer mat card. It's around 1.1mm thick and fairly pliable.

The Kraft blade I initially started with for the extra depth 3mm. This starts off well but towards the end of the final cuts (increased depth increments from 5 up to 16 moving up 2 each pass) it jams on the last pass and ruins the whole cut. What I mean by jamming is it starts violently clicking as it's trying to force it's way through the material until you pause and reset the whole machine. This blade seems to be so hit and miss after reading a lot online it seems not many people have had great success.

I moved onto the Autoblade which cuts perfectly in the material, no problems but because of it's depth, it doesn't go all the way through.

I then moved to the deep cut blade (2mm) as the Autoblade did so well I was just missing the extra length. Again slowly scoring, and then cutting on higher depths. This cuts perfectly but despite the extra 1mm on the Autoblade, it does not cut all the way through. I feel like the the slot for the deep cut simply doesn't have enough force to make it all the way down. I have even taken off the measuring guard on the deep cut bladeto make sure it's not stopping the blade from using it's full depth. No success.

I then tried to make the deepest cut with the deep cut blade and finish off with the Kraft cut blade in the existing lines. Again this makes sense but I still have many problems trying to get it to cut through the existing lines. It goes around fine and the right when it's almost through it jams at some point and ruins the whole cut.

I've used various different settings...
up to 33 force
sticking around 1-3 speed
up to 10 passes

But just no consistent success. Anything that has cut out I've put it down to luck as I can never replicate under the same settings.

I have tried to reach out to the cameo guys by opening up a case but have had no response in weeks.

I would say in total I have spent 50+ hours testing, so much material and at this point I'm starting to think that it's not going to be possible. I've even considered trying to modify the kraft cut blade with the deep cut blade as I believe that the extra force that the second cutting position provides would work.

Sorry for the long post but If there is any advice or help anyone can give me regarding settings, or experiences they have had it would be greatly appreciated as I really need this to work.

Many thanks,

Jack.

Hi Jack, welcome to UKS. Sorry I can't help with your problem but I would give you 5 gold stars just for perseverance alone.:lol:

I would be exactly the same wouldn't want to give up. The best place for your post is the CraftRobo section, lower down from General Scrapping. If someone can't help on there no-one can, they are brilliant.

Someone will move your post, I'm not sure how to and good luck, I hope you get it all sorted. Meanwhile, you could copy and paste your post into the CraftRobo section yourself. I have a Silhouette but don't have the experience of the ladies on that thread.