Chipboard Cutting Mats

[talanhart]

I needed to cut some Music Notes this past weekend and I have hundreds of sheets of Chipboard available to me to use. These sheets are about the same thickness as my Cricut cutting mats, so instead of trying to stick the chipboard to a mat, I cutout a chipboard mat the same size as my mat and stapled a smaller piece of chipboard to that and it worked. I was careful of where I stapled the smaller mat, because I didn't want my blade to run across a staple. It's pretty easy to do considering you only need two staples to hold the chipboard in place.

[lindamac]

Did you get deep cuts on your chipboard cutting mat? I wonder how long one would last. I will have to try this out. Cereal boxes would work and would be cheaper than buying chipboard. What blade pressure did you use? My mind is reeling with the possibilities.

[firstcut]

I use flexible cutting boards from walmart or the dollar store. They are great for things you just want to tape down, or you can give em the zig treatment like you would a regular mat. They don't wear out quickly because they are made for cutting on. They are transparent so you can lay them over a regular mat when you need the grid lines for positioning something. I'm sure you could staple to them if you wanted to. I do rough up the outer edges with sandpaper to help them grip better.

[talanhart]

Linda,
Would cereal boxes be big enough?
The stuff that I have is .60 mm thick. I had to cut it 3 times with full pressure and a blade depth of 3. I haven't cut any paper this way. I will probably use these to cut my vinyl. I don't want take any chances of the vinyl slipping when I make my cuts.

[swirliepants]

Kay,
I am being rather dense today for some reason but what flexible cutting mats do you get at the dollar store? I would love to find those or the ones at Walmart you are talking about.

[firstcut]

SP,
Nothing dense about it. I never knew these existed till I ran across them in WMart one day. If you turn your Cricut mat over and look at the back, the flexible cutting surfaces (maybe I shouldn't have called them boards) I am talking about look a lot like that. Navigate in either WMart or Dollar Tree to where the regular cutting boards are, and then look for a stack of large flat plastic packages. WMart has 3 12x 15 mats to a package for less than $3.00 and Dollar Tree has 2 per package for $1 (Don't know size of Dollar Tree ones). The 12 inch side is too short to load in the machine so you have to cut the 15 inch side down to fit so you end up with a 13 x 12 mat with a cutting area about 12 x 11.

[HeatherM]

Woo hoo, I have to get to the store. Speak for yourself about them being too short on the 12" side. Those of us who only have baby bugs now have a way of making true 12" borders without either buying 24" mats or putting the paper on an angle.

[swirliepants]

woo hooo! I can't wait to cut longer .... thanks for the info

[Tingha Treasures]

This is just a what if.........
If SCAL could show a cutting mat bigger than 24x12 say 36x12 would the Cricut cut it?
I gather SCAL software overides the Cricut settings?

[HeatherM]

It looks like it does. For an earlier post I changed my mat size to a 12x24 and put something beyond the 12" mark, and my mat ran all the way out the back of my baby bug. I didn't actually cut anything, because all I have are 6x12 mats.