So far in this series, we’ve looked at where to start and what Cut Mode and Cut Style mean.) To start with lesson #1 in this series, go here.) Today, we’re going to talk more about choosing and changing your cut settings in Action by: Simple (simple cut mode). Specifically, I’ll show you how to choose a material and edit it, select an action and tell the software and machine which tool you want to use.
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After you’ve chosen the cut style for each shape in the left column, you’ll look at the right column of that area to select a material, an action and a tool. Click the arrow on the right end of each line to drop down your menu of choices. If you are using both left and right tool holders on a Cameo 3 or Curio, be sure to make your choices in each section– the red Tool 1 and the blue Tool 2.
Material
Choosing a material
The first section in the list is for choosing your material type. When you first open the panel, the default selection is one of 4 types:
- “Cardstock, Plain” if you’ve just opened the software and started a new file (without the New Project Wizard).
- The settings built into the software if you open a new file with the New Project Wizard.
- If you’ve been working with a material in this software session and start a new file, it’s that material.
- The last material used on a file you have previously saved and now opened.
If you don’t choose a different material, the machine uses those settings.
Click the arrow to open the menu of materials, scroll to find the material you want and click on it. HINT: there’s a slider bar and arrows at the right to move through the menu. On machines with 1 tool holder, you can only choose 1 material. With a Cameo 3 or Curio, you can have a material for Tool 1 and a different one for Tool 2, but you select them separately. This is 1 of 2 places to add or delete custom materials (we’ll talk about those in our next lesson).
Once you’ve selected a material, the suggested settings for that material are at the bottom of that tool number’s section.
If you select a different material, you will see those suggested settings change.
You cannot have different settings for different shapes other than if you are using 2 tools. So, you can’t say, “Cut this shape with the settings for cardstock and this one with the settings for vinyl” all with a blade in 1 tool holder. There’s a way to do that, but not in simple cut mode.
Editing default materials
You can edit the settings on a temporary basis – just for the current job or software session — in the section for each Tool. To edit a material, use the arrows to adjust the numbers.
When you edit a material, you’ll see that indicated in the settings. You can click “Revert” to reset the settings for that material to the default. Click “Save As” to save those settings as your own custom setting (again, I’ll get to that more next time). If you don’t save them, when you close the current software session the program will prompt you to decide if you want to save those settings or not. Saving them creates a custom setting — it does not alter the built-in default settings for that material.
If you edit the material in 1 tool section, it will edit that same material in the other section also. That means you cannot choose the same material on each tool and have a different set of settings for each. In other words, you can’t choose Cardstock, Plain for Tool 1 with a force of 15 and Cardstock, Plain for Tool 2 with a force of 30. We’ll get into how you can do it when we discuss the other cut modes.
Edit options are based on the material and machine. For example, if you edit Patterned Paper, you can choose a variety of actions and tools. But if you choose Heat Transfer, your only action option is Cut and your only tools are blades.
Advanced Material Panel
There are some options for editing settings you won’t see here — starting and ending extensions for line segment overcut, track enhancing, plus platforms and other Curio-specific settings. To edit those, you click the 3 small dots at the end of the settings row to open the Advanced Material Panel. Once there, look at the bottom for those options.
You’ll also see the “Save As” option in the Advanced Material Panel for any material you have made changes to. This works the same way as in the regular panel — it gives you the option to create a custom setting.
Changes from version 3 and misc.
- Materials are listed in alphabetical order, with custom settings at the bottom under User Defined.
- You can no longer change the order of items in the list.
- If a material and action is specific to the Curio only you will now see it in the list. But as you go along you may find that you don’t have the options to choose the right tools on a different machine. For example, if you have a Cameo 3 hooked up, you can choose Metal Sheets-Etching in the Material tab. But when you get to the tool choice, you won’t see the Etching tool listed because that’s only for the Curio.
- Sketch Pen is no longer a Material choice. You’ll do this in the Action and Tool choices instead.
Action
With Material, you tell the software and machine what type of material you are using. The Action choice tells them what you are wanting to do to that material. Choose the action by clicking on the arrow to open the drop down list.
The options you have here are somewhat dependent on the material you choose and what machine is detected. For example, if you choose Heat Transfer-Smooth, you can only select Cut. You can’t sketch on it without creating a custom setting. If you aren’t using a Curio, you can’t choose Etch.
As you change the action, the wording at the left changes but the action is the same. For example, if you choose Sketch as the Action, your choices at the left read No Sketch, Sketch and Sketch Edge. Once you have chosen an action, the rest of the settings choices will depend on what action you chose. For example, if you choose the action Sketch, your tool choices are going to be pens and not blades.
Cut
Choose this when you want to cut completely through your material, or do a “kiss cut” on materials like vinyl or HTV. With the latter, you use a lower setting on blade number and/or force so that you don’t cut through the backing. So if the setting for Vinyl, Matte tells you to set your blade on 1 and the machine will use a force of 10, that means that those settings should cut through just the vinyl and not the backing.
Score
Score lowers the blade number and thickness settings for the chosen material but uses the same tool (a blade). If you have a machine with 1 tool holder, you need to use the cut by line or fill color or layer (that’s the next lesson) to make different choices for Cut and Score. If you have a machine with 2 tool holders, you can choose some lines to score and others to cut by using blades set to different numbers in the 2 holders.
The software will tell you what it thinks you should use to get a score line instead of cutting all the way through the material. If you have a Cameo 3, as always the machine will adjust the AutoBlade for you. For any other machine or blade, you’ll adjust it yourself to this recommended setting. (But of course, you’re doing your own test cuts, right? See more info on my recommendations for that here.)
Sketch
Choose Sketch as the action to use a Silhouette sketch pen or your own pen in the pen holder to draw lines instead of cutting them. You definitely want to choose this for the action when you are sketching, as the machine handles a pen differently than a blade.
Emboss (Curio only)
This is for using your fine or wide embossing tool to emboss or deboss your material (create indentions so that the design stands out in relief).
Etch (Curio only)
Use this option for etching on metal sheets or the like. I actually love etching on clear acrylic.
Stipple (Cameo 3 & 4 and Curio only)
Use the stipple panel to turn a design into a series of dots. The machine draws the dots on paper with a pen (either machine) or punches them on metal sheets with the stippling/etching tool (Curio only).
Tool
So far you’ve told the machine what you want to do and what material you want to do it on. Now you’re going to tell it what tool you want to use to do it with. In your Preferences>Defaults, you can set the AutoBlade or Ratchet Blade as the default, or have the software choose automatically based on the connected machine.
Notice that some tools are not active based on the machine, the material and the action choices. For example, since I have Cut as the action, I don’t see Sketch Pen in my tools list. Since my Cameo 3 was my last machine hooked up, I can choose the Stipple action (to use with a pen) but not the Stipple tool since that tool in for the Curio only.
AutoBlade (Cameo 3 & 4 and Portrait 2 only)
This blade can only be used in the left tool holder. The software reads the number there in the Send area and sends that information to the machine. The machine then adjusts the blade for you before beginning to cut.
Ratchet Blade
This is for the regular, fabric or premium blade, even though that last one does not technically adjust by ratcheting. The premium blade is made of a harder material and so lasts longer. It adjusts by twisting smoothly, and I’ll give you an advantage of that later. You have to physically adjust this blade before you put it in the machine, no matter what number shows in the software. The number is there for 2 reasons: to give you the recommendation for the blade number for your selected material, and so you can create a custom setting.
Deep Cut Blade
Use this only in the Cameo 3, Portrait 2 or Curio. It’s similar to the premium blade — it just goes to a 20 instead of 10. That means you can cut up to a depth of 2mm instead of 1mm.
Sketch Pen
Use this for the Silhouette sketch pens. When you choose Sketch as your action, this is the default tool.
Pen Holder
This one is for when you use your own pen in the pen holder.
Stippling Tool (Cameo 3 and Curio only)
To stipple on a Cameo 3, it defaults to Sketch Pen but you can use the Pen Holder as well. The reason there’s a different choice here is that the Curio can stipple on metal sheets by using the Stippling and Etching tool.
Etching tool (Curio only)
This is the same tool as the Stippling tool. It just uses a different action — carving lines instead of poking dots. You’d only do this on select materials such as metal. Cindy Pope also does ASTOUNDING things with leather tooling using this tool setting. I’m obsessed with etching on clear acrylic (see a beginner’s post on that here).
One note of caution
If you select a material and an action or tool, then change to a different material that doesn’t have that action or tool available, then go BACK to the first material, the action and/or tool won’t necessarily go back to your original choice. Certain things do, others don’t. For example:
- You choose Cardstock, Plain as the material and sketch as the action. That means the tool choice is sketch pen (or pen holder).
- You change to Heat Transfer, Smooth, whose only action choice is cut and only tool is therefore a blade. That means the action goes to cut and the tool goes to the default blade for your connected machine.
- You change to the Cardstock, Plain again as the material. The action will NOT automatically go back to sketch and the tool will not automatically go back to a pen option.
OR
- You choose Cardstock, Plain as the material, score as the action, and ratchet blade as the tool.
- You change to Heat Transfer, Smooth. As before, the only action choice is Cut so the action resets to that. HOWEVER, since you changed from an auto-blade to a ratchet blade, that choice stays.
Bottom line: always triple check your choices for material, action and tool before you start the cut.
Up Next
Have you ever used a material in your machine that’s not sold by Silhouette America? It’s not a problem, except that you’ll often need to do some experimenting to find the perfect cut settings. And believe me, once you’ve found those you don’t want to forget them. In our next lesson, I’m going to show you as promised how to create a Custom Setting so you can save it right in the materials list.
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