The KNK Force is unlike any other blade-based cutter on the market! Regardless of your past experience with other cutters, including prior KNK models, it is VERY important that you understand the “new principles” behind cutting:

• The KNK Force has Z axis control. Instead of the head “dropping” to begin cutting, it will move downward at a controlled speed. This change was necessary for adding rotary tool capability. It has also added a great deal of power, as well as functionality to the cutter.

• The blade will now be fully extended at all times. With new depth settings, you control how “far down” the blade will try to cut. Blades are fragile, however, so use caution when inserting and removing your blade holder from the Force, as well as storing your blade holder.  Also, avoid “seeing what happens” by using extreme settings!  You can easily break a blade doing that!

• Every time you insert any tool, you will set a Z Axis origin with the tip resting on either the top of the mat or on the top of the material. Thus you will no longer need to estimate how high to insert a tool. It’s important, when setting this origin, to not have the tool tightened within the blade holder seat until after the blade holder seat drops. The text on the screen will remind you because this is another way you can break a blade!

• The blade holder has a Blade Tension setting. This setting is used to provide more or less force, depending on the material being cut. A material such as vinyl and thin paper will require the least amount of tension, while a material like mat board will require the most.  More about this will be covered in a future post.

• There is no longer a Force or Pressure setting. This is due to the fact that the force applied is a combination of the Ending Depth and the Blade Tension.

• With multi-pass cutting, you now have the ability to cut progressively through a material versus the blade trying to penetrate the entire thickness on the first pass. You will enter a Starting Depth, an Ending Depth, and the number of Passes. This will also be covered in more detail in a future post.

• There are changes in how you approach cutting some materials compared to how they’ve been cut in the past. For example, there will be different settings for vinyl cut on a mat versus vinyl cut without the mat. These will be presented separately in the recommended settings table.