Silhouette Blade

Just a few days before Easter, everyone. Just thought I'd release some Silhouette tips in case you haven't started on your Easter projects yet. O.K., so there's this thing on that's seriously seems unnecessary until you  need it on the Silhouette software. It's called thickness- you can find this when you click the "Send to Silhouette" button. It's on a scale of 1 to 30, with 30 being the default. Recently, I was doing some heavy-duty blade experiments and set my blade to 10. After I did this, I had some other regular projects to do, and need my blade set at 3. Unfortunately, the blade was stuck. I tried countless fruitless attempts to turn the dial back to 3- heating, oil, water, rubber bands...none of them worked. Finally, I broke down and contacted Customer Service. I never expected them to return my email- much less return it within 2 days! I explained to them my situation, and they asked me for my mailing address to replace my faulty blade. Man, I was thrilled!

An hour after my celebration, I realized how long it was probably going to take the blade to arrive. So, I did some more blade experiments. The Silhouette team suggests that you set your blade at its minimum blade exposure to prevent blade chipping. I found that even at a blade setting of 10, I was still able to cut regular patterned paper without damaging the mat! For pattern paper, set your thickness at 3. For regular copy paper, set your thickness at 1. The thickness controls how hard the blade is pushed down into the paper.
P.S. I found that the setting of 10 with a thickness of 3 on a speed of 1, cutting Colorbok's patterned paper so far yielded the best results for cutting font. I was able to smoothly cut Lucida Handwriting- font at a 14 fnt size! Wowzers.

My blade just arrived an hour ago- it came within a week. Super happy to have my new blade- which spins in its dial perfectly! However, I'm even more glad that I now am armed with the knowledge of maximum usage of faulty blades!(;

Note****Silhouette Customer Service rocks! It replaced my blade, no questions asked and no blade inspection required! However, I think you have to request your replacement during your machine's waranty- they ask for your machine's serial number.

Happy Easter- or Happy Sunday to those of you who don't celebrate Easter.