by Sandy McCauley | Jun 5, 2008 | Blade Length, Bladeholder
About 4 months after I wrote the KNK User Manual, it was discovered that the newest silver bladeholders for the KNK were shorter than the original ones released in Spring 2007. This causes the tip of the blade to be too far above the material to have enough force to properly cut anything from cardstock on up. Thus, if you are a relatively new owner of a KNK, then YOUR bladeholder will probably need adjusting so that the tip of the blade can be just above the cutting surface. (Refer to the photo.) This is VERY easy to do! 🙂
Simply unscrew the top of the bladeholder and move the flange upwards by also unscrewing, and then tighten the top down onto the flange.
Note that it is then NOT necessary to push the bladeholder all the way down in the grip. See next photo below. The bladeholder should be positioned so that the tip of the blade is around 1/16” above the material you are cutting before the cut begins. Don’t forget to tighten the grip firmly so that that bladeholder doesn’t slide upwards during the cut. AND… of course, ONLY have as much blade exposed as the thickness of the material you are cutting.
by Sandy McCauley | May 3, 2008 | Blade Length, Craft Robo, KNK, Silhouette, Wishblade
A HUGE thanks to Lynn B for emailing me and pointing out that when you go to my profile and check out my interests (and the first three were cutting, cutting, cutting), they were all LINKS that took you to blogs where people were into… well… stuff that none of US would want to look at! Yikes! But I think I fixed it! I got rid of my “cutting, cutting, cutting” words. And surely my interest in cardmaking, scrapbooking, and mathematical puzzles won’t lead any of you to bondage sites? lol
So… let’s get to a tip of the… weekend? I can’t commit to frequency… lol These free tips/videos/tutorials will always be based on inspiration and not the calendar! 🙂
Don’t expect your blades to always be the same length! Heck… don’t expect your bladeholders to be identical. And that’s okay. With the KNK system, you simply back off or increase the blade length, as needed, to match the thickness of your cutting material. With the WB/CR/SIL replacement blades, check carefully when you install a new one and just assume you might need one LOWER colored blade cap than usual. If you previously needed the pink cap to cut your favorite cardstock, then you might find you need the yellow one now.
As I always preach at the Yahoo groups and to my WB/CR/Sil students, more blade never equals better cutting, so the KNK owners shouldn’t be extending that blade out all the way and, for the WB/CR/Sil owners, don’t ever think that the pink cap is the key to perfect cutting for ALL materials. Nope… that’s just not right! I even found the other day that I could easily cut Sam’s Club white cardstock with the blue cap on my Craft ROBO! This is something that I would NEVER have even thought to test a few years ago. My guidelines were always what was being said at the Yahoo groups and I would read posts from these super-confident, supposedly expert cutter owners who would post such absurd comments as, “I ALWAYS cut all materials with the the pink cap” or “I always cut using the fastest speed but no O Rings.” Those comments are really sad because, unless you ALWAYS cut the exact same material, then you are just WRONG about using the same settings every time.
So, get that blade length just right so you aren’t using the most important part of the blade to etch your designs into your mat, and you’ll find that you get much better cutting. And if your blade tip isn’t cutting into the mat, then you can use more pressure or even multi-pass cutting and not worry about damaging that blade. Instead, you’ll be getting better cutting and that’s what it’s all about! 🙂
by Sandy McCauley | Apr 25, 2008 | Blade Length
So, I’m joining the world of blogging and I hope, rather than bore you with mundane details of my life, I will provide a place where you can get great tips on cutters, cutter software, and the actual act of cutting! My goal is to have at least one GREAT tip or new idea per week to entice you to check in on a regular basis to read the latest. I feel I have an encyclopedia of information in my head now… especially for the Klic-N-Kut and Craft Robo cutters.
Today’s tip? Well, this one is credited to Klo Oxford who demonstrated this in her Pazzabilities class. To see if your blade is the right length for the material you are cutting, fold a sheet of cardstock over onto itself and, with the bladeholder in your hand, run it across the top layer, using the same pressure you would with, say, an Xacto knife. If the blade cuts through the cardstock AND cuts or scratches the cardstock beneath, your blade is too long! Back off on the length and try again. You want to cut the top layer but leave no marks on the layer beneath. This is the key to getting GREAT cutting. More blade NEVER equals better cutting. 🙂
