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$200 Cutting Tool

Started by finescalerr, December 05, 2014, 11:02:02 AM

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Ray Dunakin

Yeah, the need to be connected to their site to use the machine turned me off too.
Visit my website to see pics of the rugged and rocky In-ko-pah Railroad!

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kcorbin

The Cricut and the Silhouette Cameo machines do not have adequate resolution for fine scale modeling. They can't cut accurate circles and arc. They will offset lines and sometimes the lines that should be vertical will be on a slope. They round up numbers which means your lines do not always end up in the place you intended, instead they might be offset by a few thousandths. You can't fine tune the settings on these machines, they are intended for beginners who are making larger objects without a lot of fine details.  Leave them to the scrap book crowd, that is what and who they were designed for.

Silver Bullet Cutter. I own one of these. It is head and shoulders above the entry level craft cutters. I don't like the software that comes with it but I never design anything with it anyway, I just use it as an interface to drive the machine. It has 1250 grams of pressure which means one can cut thicker materials but it will still take a number of passes to do so. It is a good quality, robust machine. If a part breaks you can get replacement parts for them.

Cutting wood on it. You are better off with a laser cutter. If you are expecting to cut thin solid wood with a knife on cross grain cuts you will need to take numerous light passes to avoid breaking the wood. A laser cutter does not have the issue of applying pressure and splitting wood but a knife blade always will. Even though the knives are very small they are still wedge shaped which means they will split wood if you apply too much force at one time. So it is going to be slow, lots of easy passes versus one or two quick passes. If you are exclusively cutting in wood don't invest in a drag knife cutter, get a laser cutter instead.

If most of your work is in light and medium weight cardstock or paper one of the drag knife cutters with at least 700 grams of pressure will be OK. But don't expect to be able to make really thin, in scale, delicate window mullions as there are limits to what you can cut without tearing and then also be able to pull the piece  off the adhesive covered cutting mats without tearing.




finescalerr

Thank you for that useful information. -- Russ

mabloodhound

Yes, thank you.  I'll save up my money.
Dave Mason
D&GRR (Dunstead & Granford) in On30
"A people that values its privileges above its principles will soon lose both."~Dwight D. Eisenhower