# Help! Is it my weeding material or my cutter? And if it's my cutter, what can I do??



## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

Of course, I have several large ss06 designs I need to weed.

Right when I put in a new roll of DAS stone stencil weeding material, I started having weeding trouble. Like it wasn't weeding out at all. So I had another new roll of stone stencil material, and I put that in. Still trouble. I had two brand new blades from Clean Cut Blades (they're great btw) and I put one of those in. Still trouble. Put the other one in. Trouble. Checked all my settings. I got so desperate I even got the cutter manual out. (!) I have a GCC Puma III. It said to clean the drum heads (??) and pincher rolls. Never figured out what drum heads were (no picture anywhere) but I took a can of air and sprayed everything down.

I just can't figure out what's wrong! The SS10 designs are weeding fairly well, after several times of rolling over them with a brayer and pulling up. The ss06's barely respond to this at all. Last night I had one I had to finish, and I had to take my pick tool and punch out every. single. hole. Some of the holes on the outside edge of the design weren't even cut all the way through, and I had to push my weeding tool all the way to the handle and kind of make my own crooked hole. (It still worked with the stones -- I was surprised.) But it took my a good 30 minutes to weed out a fairly simple design.

Next up is a very detailed design of over 1000 ss06's. I can't push each one of these through and then manually pull them off. 

I thought it was the weeding material since it happenend right when I changed rolls, but now I'm thinking it might be the cutter. The material on the backside when I work with it, is really sticky and gummy though, so that makes me suspect the material again. But it wouldn't fail to cut all the way through if it was the material at fault. Also, some of the holes are not cutting all the way through, some are cutting even through the white backing.

I think when I bought this cutter, it came with an extra white strip that goes under the blade and an extra belt. ?? Could those be needing to be replaced? They look fine....... I DON'T KNOW! I'm not mechanical AT ALL.

This is when I hate this job. I feel so isolated with something like this. Okay, that sounded a little dramatic, lol, but there is no "geek squad" to pay to come over, no maintenance man to call to look at my cutter, no store to run this material back to and have them look at it to see if there is a problem. 

Help, please!


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## dazzabling (Sep 21, 2011)

My GCC cutter came with an extra strip. If you have any deep cuts or grooves it will need to be replaced. I would check your downforce (pressure) you may need to increase for the smaller stones.


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## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

dazzabling, thanks. I don't really have cuts or grooves, and I have already increased the force to 275.


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## PlumCrazyGlitz (Jul 26, 2010)

If you are not getting a complete hole cut you will need to adjust your overcut in your cut program... I had that problem and have mine set at 1.75 and it works great now.


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## dazzabling (Sep 21, 2011)

I am not sure what the DAS material looks like, does it have a sticky back similar to Sticky Flock?
I went to the website and couldn't find much about it, but anyway. When I first got Sticky Flock, I made the mistake of putting the rolled pieces in my non A/C part of my shop because I wanted to flatten it and I used 
a heavy box and left it for about a day. So when I went to cut it, I had the same problem it was not adhering
to the backing. I tried my new stuff that was left in the A/C and it was perfect. Now, I am not saying that's
what happened to you but here was my solution.

I took my Sticky Flock Template and basically instead of using my workstation I pressed it onto a my work table used the squeegee and rubbed on top of the template with some force then peeled up the template. All the holes came off with ease,but left the sticky holes on my table. I just got the squeegee again and scraped the off, be careful they will go flying every where. Just grab your trash can and slide the squeegee underneath the holes. 

Again, this was my SF experience and sorry if doesn't help you because I can't tell what the DAS material is like but if its close and you say you are poking out the holes and the stones are dropping in I had the same problem. 

Hope this helps someone at least


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## jean518 (Sep 23, 2009)

Could be a lot of things. Overcut and Offset may need tweaked. If you have Stone Cut Pro, do a convert to rhinestones and change the number to 2. This will make it do two cuts instead of 1. Since using Stone Cut Pro and this method, my weeding issues have all but vanished. DAS will tell you that putting the material in the freezer for a bit will help sometimes. A lot of variables. Are you using the plastic weeding sheet? Remove the template from the backer. Place the template on the plastic weeding sheet. Use a squeegie and go over it a couple of times. Then pull up starting in a corner and pull across the template diagonally.


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## dazzabling (Sep 21, 2011)

jean518 said:


> Remove the template from the backer. Place the template on the plastic weeding sheet. Use a squeegie and go over it a couple of times. Then pull up starting in a corner and pull across the template diagonally.


Great Idea!! I may have to try that next time instead of my table. My table was readily available at the time I was in a rush job and since used up that piece but will have to try these in case it happens again. 
SF has the plastic weeding backer but it just wasn't adhering so maybe trying something else would be easier then my table since I had to remove those pieces. 

didn't mean to hijack the thread about SF, but it just sound all to familiar and can someone tell me what DAS material looks like?


:tipthank:


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## dhearn (Aug 22, 2008)

Definitely check the blade offset and bump that up. I adjusted my overcut and that helped. But as soon as I adjusted the blade offset, my templates are weeding beautifully!


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## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

I am in the process of trying *everything* that *everyone *suggested, lol. Thank you so much! This is very frustrating.....

Dazzabling, the DAS stone stencil material is a rubbery, thick, gray material with a white backing. The back of the gray material is very sticky, almost gummy. I have a chunk of it in the freezer right now.


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## deb1066 (May 3, 2007)

I have a US cutter mh721 and am having offset issues also. What is the offset for the green material? What would be an offset for SF? I have been reading for days and I have learned so much. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge...


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## SpecMat (Mar 15, 2011)

leapoffaith said:


> Of course, I have several large ss06 designs I need to weed.
> 
> Right when I put in a new roll of DAS stone stencil weeding material, I started having weeding trouble. Like it wasn't weeding out at all. So I had another new roll of stone stencil material, and I put that in. Still trouble. I had two brand new blades from Clean Cut Blades (they're great btw) and I put one of those in. Still trouble. Put the other one in. Trouble. Checked all my settings. I got so desperate I even got the cutter manual out. (!) I have a GCC Puma III. It said to clean the drum heads (??) and pincher rolls. Never figured out what drum heads were (no picture anywhere) but I took a can of air and sprayed everything down.
> 
> ...


Hi there-

I don't have much experience with rhinestone template material. I'll go ahead and say that right now since I realize you all have much more experience than I! 

One thing though- is that you need to make sure that the blade has a high degreed angle- like 60 or up. Also- when fitting the blade into the blade holder, you need to make sure it it sticking out the same depth as the material you are cutting or even a little more. 

Someone else mentioned the cut strip, which is a very good point. It doesn't even have to be really gouged out, but nicks and cuts out of it do make a difference. That is what is pushing up against the blade, and if the material is able to be pushed down into a small groove instead of getting the full force of the blade- it really does make a difference in the quality of cut. It's really easy to replace too- it's just a matter of peeling up the old one and laying down the new one inside the grooves and cutting the edges to fit. 

One thing I've noticed from dealing with the really thick template material and the self-adhesive flock is that the blade gets gunky and dirty very quickly. It seems like anytime I plot thick self-adhesive material, the stickiness gets on the blade and has to be cleaned off often. 

That's all I got. I hope I could help. 

~liz


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## dhearn (Aug 22, 2008)

deb1066 said:


> I have a US cutter mh721 and am having offset issues also. What is the offset for the green material? What would be an offset for SF? I have been reading for days and I have learned so much. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge...


Debbie,

Not sure what the settings are for a US Cutter or how the settings are measured or how they read. I have the equivalent of a Graphtec CE-3000. For cutting normal vinyl, the offset is very low. Around a 24 I think. But when I cut the stencil material, I bump it all the way up to its highest setting of a 260 and the stuff weeds perfectly. Hope that helps a little. You just have to play with it and see what works.


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## gabenick2 (Nov 23, 2010)

Leap, I also have the same software and cutter, I cut the ss6 twice in order to get a good cut esp with the material you are using. I will avoid ss6 designs as much as I can because I have a hard time weeding them. If the material is stored in a warm area I have noticed the glue becomes gooey, play with the blade and I would decrease my pressure. I believe I read you are cutting at 275, I cut at 180 2x and once I cut I have to put the material on the table use my squeege. More pressure and deeper blade are not always your best solution, at least for me it hasnt. I really like my DAS stuff but dont care for the stencil material, I find that the glue is too gooey for me and harder to weed.


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## InstImag (Oct 30, 2011)

I've had that problem with stone stencil material from DAS. When I called, they new about the problem but wasn't contacting customers for replacement rolls.


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## stephens411 (Mar 23, 2011)

What are the steps to adjusting the over cut in StoneCut Pro. I an having weeding issues as well, I've narrowed the causees down to that.


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## jean518 (Sep 23, 2009)

It is not in the software. It is on the cutter. You have to use the lcd screen and buttons to adjust the overcut and offset. Check the manual for your cutter on how to do that.


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## drakesis (Apr 3, 2007)

jean518 said:


> It is not in the software. It is on the cutter. You have to use the lcd screen and buttons to adjust the overcut and offset. Check the manual for your cutter on how to do that.


The "overcut" feature isn't always on every machine nor software. Example alot of the cheaper chinese machine don't have this option. Also older softwares like Flexisign 7 doesn't either.


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## dhearn (Aug 22, 2008)

It depends on the software and cutter. You may have overcut in both places or none. My cutter doesn't have it. But the software does. You also need to play with your blade offset angle which is typically a setting on your cutter. I had a nightmare weeding rhinestone material until I finally read about increasing the offeset angle of the blade. As soon as I started playing with that, it became easier until I finally hit the right setting and now the holes just pop right out.


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## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

Just came across this thread that I started in a panic awhile back, and thought I'd post a follow-up. After trying a lot of different things, I tried one more......ordered one last roll of stone stencil material from DAS. It worked like a charm first time out, without doing any of the special things to make it work better. Turns out that the last three rolls I had trouble with had been ordered and delivered last summer. Somewhere between Phoenix and Dallas (we had 60+ days of 100 degrees here), I guess the material had gotten too hot and it doesn't seem to recover from that. Wish I'd known that little fact at the time! What a lot of headache I went through with those rolls.

Lesson learned -- I will stock up on stone stencil material this Spring before it gets terribly hot. And if I do need to order in the summer and have a problem with it, I will know what to do on the FIRST cut, (return it!) not three rolls and hours of hair-pulling later. 

I should add that when this material works correctly, I love the way it cuts. 

Can I please be about done with the learning curve on all of this now?

And THANK YOU so much to the kind help I got. It did help with these problem rolls, and I learned things that I needed to learn. This forum is the BEST!!


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Thanks for the update. Glad you had a resolution.


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## jean518 (Sep 23, 2009)

The learning curve never goes away. Constantly learning something. I have only been at this a couple years. I still am learning. You have to stay up on things.


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## jbrookshire01 (Sep 9, 2011)

I am having weeding issues as well, but I dont know to make it cut twice - can anyone explain that please.

Thanks!


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

jbrookshire01 said:


> I am having weeding issues as well, but I dont know to make it cut twice - can anyone explain that please.
> 
> Thanks!


What software are you using?


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## jbrookshire01 (Sep 9, 2011)

Corel 5 and I have a GCC Bengal Cutter


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

jbrookshire01 said:


> Corel 5 and I have a GCC Bengal Cutter


So you're cutting from Great Cut?


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## jbrookshire01 (Sep 9, 2011)

Yes 

this is making me type at least 10 characters - LOL


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## jbrookshire01 (Sep 9, 2011)

jbrookshire01 said:


> Corel 5 and I have a GCC Bengal Cutter


Do you have any advice?

Thanks!


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

jbrookshire01 said:


> Do you have any advice?
> 
> Thanks!


Sorry, yes... In order to do a double cut from Corel, you have to duplicate the design on top of itself. What material are you using? I've never had to cut with a double cut or with an overcut.


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## jbrookshire01 (Sep 9, 2011)

Sticky Flock- It seems that it always changes even if I dont adjust anything. 

I used to cut 140 and 35 speed, blade got old and I changed it - now doesnt seem to work I have to pick out each one by hand.

I tried up to 200 and it still leaves it. I am using green flock now, which seems a little thicker, but still - I am spending so much time weeding!


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

You might want to dial back your blade a bit. If I have mine extended out too far, it won't weed at all. Another thing you could try is to take a piece of packing tape or some transfer tape and squeegee it to the back of your template and peel. The circles should weed easily then. 

I've never had to use two passes with Sticky Flock. With a 60 degree blade, I use about 155g of downforce and with a 65 degree, I use 140. I have noticed that the 65 degree blades wear out a little faster than the 60, but they work so much better so it's worth the extra expense for me to change it every 4 or 5 months or so.


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## jbrookshire01 (Sep 9, 2011)

Thanks, I will try that.


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