When the blade is placed in the holder, you must manually adjust how much of the blade protrudes from the blade holder.

It is a common mistake to have too much of the blade exposed. A good starting point for blade depth adjustment is approximately ½ of the thickness of a credit card.

Figure 1 is a close up of how the blade depth is usually set. The most important thing is to have enough blade exposed so that it can cut cleanly through the film and adhesive.

If you are cutting thicker materials, you may have to expose slightly more blade.

Once you are satisfied with the adjustment of your blade, pressure will need to be adjusted. Since every cutter is different and pressure will vary based on blade age and angle, we recommend starting with the default settings recommended by the cutter manufacturer and adjusting from there.

You can use the test cut that is embedded in the cutter software. There is usually a “cut test” option. The objective is to set pressure where the blade is going through the film and adhesive layer, but not cutting into the liner.

If the blade pressure is too high, you may damage the silicone release layer on the liner. When this happens, the adhesive may grab or adhere to the paper fibers and cause the paper to split at the release layer. This can be seen in Figure 2.
If this happens, the pressure needs to be reduced.

As with the blade pressure, the actual number for speed is likely to vary by plotter model as well as age and angle of the blade.

Our recommendation is to start with the default setting and if you notice the blade skipping or edges lifting, you should decrease the speed.
If you go through this process and just cannot get a good cut, we recommend trying a fresh blade and going through the setup process again.

It is also important to note that you should run a test cut each time you put in a new roll of film to ensure you have the cutter set up properly.