# 24" Graphtec- blade Depth and pressure



## greeneyedeagle (Mar 10, 2009)

Ok I'm sure this has been beaten to death and I've read the previous threads and STILL trying to understand.
The vinyl says it 2.5 mils thick so my blade needs to be set out 2.5 mils but using a dial indicator, 2 mm is a huge gap...no where near the thickness of the vinyl.
So here it is.... if the blade is set out too far and the pressure is set on the low side it could cut the vinyl without cutting the backing. OR of the blade is a bit shy of the thickness and more pressure is applied it too could cut and weed correctly right? Am I missing something. Just wondering about the "Right" combo.

Thanks for the suggestions or comments


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## MediumPace (Jul 30, 2008)

Well, in general a 15 pressure is a good setting to use for a graphtec with a brand new (45 degree) blade, and you are cutting through standard 2-3 mil vinyl. It will cut through the vinyl, and score the backing paper slightly, but not come anywhere close to cutting all the way though. 

As far how far you need to extend it, I set up my blade holder so you can barley see the tip of the blade sticking out, when you look at it from the side.

Do test cut, if it's not cutting deep enough, rotate it one click, and test again. repeat until you find the depth your happy with. 

I just installed a new blade 3 days ago and this is the setting I use, and it works great. I've been using to to cut through all my Oracal 651 vinyl, and all of my Thermoflex. I only have a ce5000-60 so I has no digital preasure reader like the more advanced graphtecs, but this system seems to work for me everytime.

good luck.


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## jiarby (Feb 8, 2007)

I know that this is an old thread... but during a search I stumbled across it and thought that I would be doing a great disservice to leave it as-is...

2.5mils is NOT the same thing as 2.5mm... 

For the record...
a "mil" is one one thousandth of an inch... and "imperial measurement"
a "mm" is a millimeter, or one thousandth of a meter... and from the "metric system"
1 meter is 39.37inches... so 1mm is 39x bigger than 1mil. 

*1 mil = 0.001 inches*
*1 millimeter = 0.0393700787 inches*

if you get corn-fused and have long forgotten metric to imperial measurment conversion formulas the good folks at GOOGLE have solved this problem for you 

At a google prompt you can do a query to perform a measurement (or many other) conversion

example:
"1mil in inches"
"2.5gallons in cc"
"5usd in pesos"

*so...*

*2.5 mil = 0.0635 millimeters*


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## Nick Horvath (Feb 26, 2010)

greeneyedeagle said:


> Ok I'm sure this has been beaten to death and I've read the previous threads and STILL trying to understand.
> The vinyl says it 2.5 mils thick so my blade needs to be set out 2.5 mils but using a dial indicator, 2 mm is a huge gap...no where near the thickness of the vinyl.
> So here it is.... if the blade is set out too far and the pressure is set on the low side it could cut the vinyl without cutting the backing. OR of the blade is a bit shy of the thickness and more pressure is applied it too could cut and weed correctly right? Am I missing something. Just wondering about the "Right" combo.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestions or comments


 
Proper blade depth regardless of the thickness of the material is to extend your blade 1/2 the thickness to the thickness of a credit card from the blade holder. From there you would adjust your downforce to achieve a successful test cut.


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## jiarby (Feb 8, 2007)

nick, would you recommend that for both 60° and 45° blades?, .09 and .15?


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## Nick Horvath (Feb 26, 2010)

jiarby said:


> nick, would you recommend that for both 60° and 45° blades?, .09 and .15?


I would recommend that blade exposure for any blade type.


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## Twanabee (Sep 14, 2009)

If you can just see (and feel) the blade out of the holder, you should be good. My pressure is set at 19 for Thermoflex and cuts great. The Graphtec will cut real fine detail. Can be tough to weed though. ;-)


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## JohnWisc (Sep 29, 2011)

Can someone explain what the ramifications are of setting the blade depth too long? Everyone says, just stick it out a little, such as 1/2 a CC thickness.

My settings with a new blade are about 90gms if pressure which will cut the VyRoll material but not even scoring the backing.

It seems that if I use any more pressure, the test cuts seem to get a bit wavy. 70 gms and the vinyl won't always cut through, 110gms and the waves are happening. So 90 seems to be perfect.

So if I'm using this little pressure, what happens if the blade is extended too far? Obviously, if I used a lot of pressure, I'd be gouging everything, including the cutting strip. But that is due to pressure, not blade depth.

I guess my question is there any inaccuracy that's exhibited due to the blade being extended too far?


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## JohnWisc (Sep 29, 2011)

Anybody? Or should I start a new thread?


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## rturner381 (Mar 9, 2012)

JohnWisc said:


> Anybody? Or should I start a new thread?


JohnWisc, as you know, your goal is to cut the material and barely SCORE the backing. There is no magic formula, nor one failsafe answer. Each material requires testing. Once the testing is complete to your satisfaction, make notes of the depth and pressure for each media. Patience is your best friend as you work your way through your jobs. In a year or so, you will look back at this thread and muse, "...why did I have so much trouble; this is SO easy..." or something to that effect.


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## Fenrir (Mar 13, 2012)

I think the answer to your question is how much wobble there will be. If you hold a pencil normally, the tip doesn't wobble. If you held the pencil by the eraser and tried to write, I think you might have problems. Now with a cutter with a metal holder and stiff metal blade, it shouldn't make a huge difference, but having just enough of the blade sticking out to cut would still be preferable to having the blade out all the way. The deeper settings are for material thickness, if you have a carrier mat you can cut through light materials like paper or thin card (which is bad for your blade). Depending on the strength of your cutter you may be able to do poster board, mat board, foam board, and magnet sheets, but not a lot of cutters have the power to cut through these things, and even if they do they're probably not designed for huge production runs. That's why large runs of things like this tend to be die-cut.


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