Today’s tip has to do with the cut border — the outer edge of where the machine can cut. The usable area is different when you cut without the mat. If you don’t understand this, it will cause all sorts of problems. So let’s learn about the margins with and without the mat. (To start with the first post in this series, go here.)
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Margins
The mat
Look at your cutting mat for a moment. Notice that it’s not 12” x 12” – it’s bigger. The sticky area in the middle is 12” x 12”. That’s so you can cut a full sheet of cardstock that size. But there’s also a non-sticky margin around the edges. It’s about ¼” on each side and 1” on top and bottom.
That margin is what the machine grips onto when you load the mat. The white rollers on each end of the roller bar are going to run along the sides in that non-sticky area. They grip in the top margin to pull the mat in. And they grip in the bottom margin when the sticky area gets past the rollers.
HINT: the plastic and spring, spring or rubber rollers in the middle of the roller bars are not there to grip the material or mat and move it in and out of the machine. They are a secondary means of holding the material and cut pieces down on the mat during the cut. The mat is the primary means.
The material
Now look at a roll or sheet of vinyl or HTV. It doesn’t have a separate area at the outer edges like the mat. It’s material all the way to the edge of the backing paper/carrier.
When you cut without the mat, the machine is going to grip onto the material itself at the edges. The edges of the material are like the non-sticky area of the mat. That means it isn’t going to be able to cut there, just like it doesn’t cut in the margins on the mat. It can’t cut where it’s gripping because the blade can’t drop down far enough in that spot.
Because of this, you need to leave space at the sides and bottom on your design page. In other words, you are creating a grip-margin, knowing that the machine can’t cut in those areas.
Tip #3: Check Show Cut Border
In your Page Setup panel, check the box beside Show Cut Border. (You also still need to have None for your cutting mat).
A red outline will show you where the margins are. You might have noticed this already if you had this box checked.
HINT: if your line is black instead of red, you’ve checked or are looking at the Show Print Border instead of Show Cut Border.
Guess what? The margins are almost exactly the same as those non-sticky areas of the mat – about ¼” on each side and 1” at the bottom. The difference is that you don’t have to leave a margin at the top.
On a Cameo 3 or Portrait 2, the software will read your mat selection and pull the material alone in less far than a mat. On a Cameo 1 or 2, a Portrait 1 or the old SD and Original machines, you will choose a different loading method (load media vs. load mat — we’ll go over that in a later post). Because the blade is farther back in the machine than the rollers, you can cut up to the top since those rollers are gripping already.
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Here’s the big thing to remember. If you want to cut a design 15” tall, you’ll need at least 16” of material. Otherwise, when the machine gets to the bottom of the material it won’t cut the bottom of the design. That extra 1″ is so that the rollers have something to grip at the bottom. If the machine tried to cut to the very bottom of the material, the bottom edge would be past the rollers. They wouldn’t be gripping it anymore. That means it would be sliding all over the place. So you cut your material a little longer in order to create a margin where the machine can grip but not cut there at the bottom.
Hint: Give your length another 1/2″ or so beyond that margin if you can spare it, especially the first few times you cut without the mat. A little wiggle room never hurts.
When you are looking at your cut preview, it may APPEAR that something in that margin area will cut. If, for example, you have a long design that is partially on the useable area, partially off, the cut preview may show that the whole thing will cut. It won’t. Only the portion within the red box, that cut border, will cut.
One other thing to note
Having the cut border off or on affects something else when None is chosen on the cutting mat. It has to do with the alignment tools.
You can use the alignment tools in 3 ways–
- to align separate shapes to one another
- to position a single shape or set of shapes to the middle of the page
- to position a single shape or grouped set of shapes to a location on the page
It’s that last one we’re going to talk about. You may not have noticed this before, but even if you have just 1 shape selected, the Quick Access Toolbar has the alignment options to available.
That’s because you can use these tools to put the shape in a specific spot on the page.
The rectangle is currently at a random location on the page. If I select the shape and then, using either the Quick Access Toolbar or the Align tab in the Transform panel, select Align Left, the shape moves to the very left of my usable area. In other words, it’s right at the edge of the cut border.
Now I’m going to uncheck the Show Cut Border and do the Align Left again. This time, the shape goes all the way to the left edge of the page itself, which is outside the Cut Border.
This happens with all the alignment options. This is one more good reason to keep that Show Cut Border checked at all times when designing and cutting without the mat.
Up Next
In my next post in this series, I’ll talk more about material size and why it makes a difference in cutting without the mat.
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