click blade help (and general mat gouging)

[mroot@mca.edu]

HI,
I just received my new click blade holder, hoping that it , along with Penny's chart, would help me be more exact and prevent excessive gouging. When my click blade holder rests on its lip in the carrier clamp, the holder is flush against the mat with the medium ( photo paper) - if the carriage is moves, the paper gouges as it passes over it. In other words, I think it is way to "deep" . I am still using the silver bullet provided measurer, so that the blade is set on the click holder at 3 (recommended height for the medium) and just barely grazes the measurer. It still seems as if the mat is gouging more than it should - I can feel the edges of the cut on the mat with my fingers. Ack!! I hope this makes some sense. I am very nearly close to having this down, just still iffy on setting correct blade depth.
Lastly, is there a description in the literature of the blade offest and overcut settings, what they are used for and how they work??
Thanks all!

[Gigi]

I will address the click blade holder part for starters!! My click blade holder "lip" is abouit 1/2" above the clamp because , as you stated, if I let it drop all the way down it hits the medium I want to cut. I use the blade setting tool and pull it up accordingly.

Not sure what you are cutting, but I rarely put my click blade holder above 1 unless I am cutting a much thicker medium. So far setting it at one gets me the results I need, but as we have all stated, each machine is a little different and you have to experiment with the settings that work for you. You should not feel the cuts in the mat with your fingernails. That is what I use to judge. You will see the cut as it is going through the adhesive, but you should not be catching the cut in the mat. Hope I am wording that so it's understandable!.

Here are the definitions on offset and overcut (quoting Dawn in this post viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3572&p=70479&hilit=offset#p70479

Offset is the amount of difference between the blade tip and the centre of the shaft.
Overcut is the distance travelled after the shape has been cut in order to join the two ends of a shape together

[Tyler]

This page of the learning center also talks about it and has some pictures to help illustrate it.

http://learn.silverbulletcutters.com/sc ... t-a-shape/

[Gigi]

Thanks Tyler - I looked quickly and couldn' t find it