Mandala Cutting Help Please ADDED A VIDEO!!!

[Lisa Lander]

I have tried several options and loads of wasted paper trying to cut this file. i just can't work out which is the best blade to use, pressure etc. everything i try i seem to get fluffy messed up corners, or not cut properly. Can someone please give it a try and tell me what i am doing wrong? the media i am using is 350gsm cardstock. yes, it is thick, i'm making mobiles so it need to be thick and stiff enough to be able to hang. Ive tried the 60 plus, 60 and 45. tried cutting twice, once.....so many tries.

Ive tried reducing the pressure and cutting twice, but even that isn't working. and i am constantly checking the blade. occasionally it HAS had a piece of paper stuck to it, so i AM aware of that happening.


why do the corners get chewed up?

hope i have included the cutting file ok.

Just added a video. not sure if will help at all, but it shows how ruffed-up the board is :-/

[mmhockeyfan]

Hi, I didn't try cutting the file, but I took a quick look at the file and I noticed that it has lots of nodes. Tough to cut, but possibly doable.
I have a few suggestions that might help. I would definitely use the 60 plus blade since you're cutting 350 gsm (appx. 130 lb. cover). Try a test cut of your paper to find optimal force and velocity. For example, for 100 lb. paper, I'll cut a 1" square with a force of 50 and speed of 800. If successful, I'll lower the force to 40 and cut the 1" square 2X. If that works, I record it in my book for reference. I can't tell you how much time and paper test cutting has saved me. BTW, I typically cut all my designs 2X at a lower force to get a great cut.
Is your paper smooth or textured? Smooth paper cuts the best; however, you can do it with textured, but you'll want to slow down the speed to cut non-smooth materials. Same for thicker materials.
The multi-cut feature is your best friend for cutting thicker and non-smooth materials. A lesson I learned from cutting chipboard, is that it's best to cut and layer thinner chipboard pieces instead of attempting to cut one piece of thick chipboard. You may want to consider cutting several layers of a lighter weight paper and adhering the layers to get the desired thickness.
Oh and check your blade depth. I learned from one of the ScrappyDew vids to set your blade height to match the thickness of the paper. This has saved me lots of frustration.
I hope something here helps. Good luck and please let us know now you make out.

[Gigi]

Without cutting the file, I can tell you exactly why you are having trouble. Is this a design you traced? If you go to Path>simplify, you will see that you have 12,798 nodes. That is a ridiculously high number for what you are cutting and you can see from the picture I attached that some of the nodes are well placed, but on inner parts of the design, let's call them petals for lack of a better word, you have nodes on top of nodes. If you open your design and enlarge it a few times, you will be able to see all of the extra nodes that you have that are causing you problems. I only enlarged it once so I could fit all of it on the mat and screen capture it to show you. Think of each node as a message to the cutter - no wonder it is tearing up the card stock.You either need to manually trace the design or simplify it until you get better results - and you may still need to delete some nodes.

See how the outer circle just has a few nodes in strategic places? That is how the whole design should look. It is a really nice design, but since you are still getting used to using a new machine, I would suggest working on a much simpler design to get a feel for how the nodes translate into a good cutting file before you tackle something this involved. Again, it is very nice, but super node intensive.

Just to give you an idea, I simplified the design 5 (maybe 6 - got distracted while counting!) times and you can see the difference in the nodes. The threshold is set at 20. Doing this doesn't mean it will cut perfectly, but it will cut better. You may find that you need to simplify it further, or enlarge it and delete nodes in areas where there are still too many. I would not test cut it on 350 gsm card stock - in fact I would make it a practice to test cut any new design on a lightweight to medium weight card stock to be sure there are no issues, and then you can use the heavier weight card stock. That will keep you from wasting expensive card stock.

You can oversimplify a design so that you lose some of the detail, so that is why I would test cut it to be sure it still looks the way you want it to.

I hope that helps.

[Lisa Lander]

oh my goodness. you wonderful people. i can't thank you enough. i AM still learning and its fun yet frustrating.i get ideas in my head and won't stop till i get it right. This svg i paid for from Etsy. i usually search there and find cool stuff, I'm pretty fussy about my images!. Anyway, haven't ever looked at nodes!!!! am going through the scrappy dew class, obviously not up to that part yet !
so now im going to Path-Simplify and going to learn more.

thank you a thousand times over.

so, while im here, is there anyway of knowing before buying a file that is it overloaded with nodes ? and also, why are they overloaded with nodes ? i guess they are used for things other than cutting, so ......?

[Lisa Lander]

How do i view the nodes like you have shown in your screen shot Gigi ?

[Lisa Lander]

delete that , found it !!! sorry :-/

[Lisa Lander]

how do i enlarge it and be able to view the nodes to delate some of them ?

[Gigi]

so, while im here, is there anyway of knowing before buying a file that is it overloaded with nodes ? and also, why are they overloaded with nodes ? i guess they are used for things other than cutting, so ......?

I don't know that there is any way to no in advance what a file looks like, but if you are buying from a "new" site, as in new to you, I would just get one file at a time to be sure the files are good. Chances are this person just did a manual trace of clip art and didn't clean it up. You could have done that on your own with better results! There is a lot of clip art and line art (black and white images) out there that are free and you can practice tracing on them and not pay someone to do it.

There are good sites that make quality svg files. Miss Kates Cuttables has daily freebies (M-F) that cut beautifully plus a wide variety that you can purchase inexpensively. That's just one example. If you want to buy files. Crafty Vectors (Dominic Parker) makes beautiful files and he hand cuts his own files - I know. He has more patience than I do!! I have all of his floral frame cards and have made tons of them - they are detailed and beautiful. And there are other good sites out there - I would just start with free files and try out different sites to see who makes files that cut well. They all don't put time and care into their files as you have found out.

I think you need to take a deep breath and get through the classes first before you tackle difficult files. You are still learning which is great. But I don't want to see you become overly frustrated because you are trying to tackle too much too fast. Take baby steps. I know you want to jump in and cut everything, but if you take the time now to learn the basics and take it a step at a time, it will save a lot of frustration and ruined card stock and will ensure that you will have more success later on.

Re: your question about how to zoom in - click on the magnifying glass with the "+" in it in the tool icons - it's the third from the bottom. And when you click on that, there are other options in the upper left above the mat so you can zoom back in, make it the size of your window, etc.

Hope that helps.

[mmhockeyfan]

Gigi makes a great point about the Clip Art. You may want be extra cautious if you sell your items because who ever you buy cut files from might have traced an image protected by copyright. Not saying the Etsy owner you purchased the file from did this but just a word of caution.

[Lisa Lander]

thank you so much Gigi,
one last question....well, when i say 'last'....))))

how do i delete nodes, I've looked and can't find how to view the nodes and delete or add. I know....im going too fast. i promise i'll slow down, just messing around on this design and would like to play with deleting all those extra nodes as an experiment. many many thanks.

[jobab]

Hi Lisa

When I delete nodes I zoom in on the area, select my design then click the node tool on the left hand side menu of the screen, it is the third icon down and called shape editing tool, your design now shows the nodes, I then select which node i want to delete by dragging the curser around it it will change to blue colour when selected and then I hit the delete key

[Gigi]

Thanks Jo for responding!