Cutting thick material

[pedwards2932]

I experimented with my eclips last night with balsa wood and it would cut thru the balsa easily even at the lowest pressure setting. Where it was failing was on any 90 degree cuts. I am trying to cut out an outline of a airplane wing rib that has a notch in it. It would not make a clean cut notch. The notch goes across the wood grain so it tears instead of cutting. I used clear tape on the wood and this seems to help but I am not getting a clean cut. I am using 60 degree roland blade offset is 1.0mm and the thickness of the balsa is 1/16 inch. Any suggestions? I am also wanting to cut foam that is the same thickness and probably even easier to cut thru and won't have a grain.

[talanhart]

Try using the multi cut feature. Raise your blade up for the first cut so that it is just scribing a line in the wood. Pause your machine and then lower the blade and cut again, etc. I would do this three or four times.

[pedwards2932]

Great. I will try that and see how it goes. I did have it set at full depth and it seemed to cut thru balsa even on the lowest pressure setting. Thanks.

[pedwards2932]

that worked.....I put clear tape on the top surface of the balsa and made 3 passes increasing the depth and it cut it pretty accurately. Only thing that was a problem was the notch was a bit oversized. I was using Inkscape and am just learning some of its quirks....and getting accurate measurements is one of the quirks. Thanks for the help it definitely has me on the right track.

[talanhart]

If you get a chance, post some pictures. It's always nice to see what our machines can cut besides Paper and Vinyl.

[HeatherM]

Only thing that was a problem was the notch was a bit oversized. I was using Inkscape and am just learning some of its quirks....and getting accurate measurements is one of the quirks.

Are you using stroke or just a fill? If you use stroke in Inkscape with the default settings then it includes the stroke width in the sizes. You can either work with just a fill or change the Tools Preference to "geometric bounding box" instead of "visual bounding box". HTH

[pedwards2932]

I was using a stroke....I will try the way you are suggesting. I have been on the Inkscape forum and have several ways now to insure better accuracy. Mainly I can set the grid up with 1/16" squares and this helps a lot. I think the stroke I was using was 2px. So I am guessing what you are saying is to not use a stroke at all. I am reasonably experienced with CAD programs but just haven't used Inkscape that much. Also I am importing this svg to sure cuts a lot and I haven't used that program much at all as I just got my cutter.

[pedwards2932]

One thing I noticed when I was doing a test cut last night is the blade drags across the balsa when it completes a cut and parks. I am using a 60 degree blade to get it to cut the 1/16" balsa so the blade is longer than a standard blade for the eclips. I wonder if there is any setting that can increase the park height of the cutter so it doesn't drag when it is parking?

[pedwards2932]

I getting really good results cutting balsa with this machine but I still have some problems with the 60 degree blade dragging across the sheet when at full depth. I realize this is using a blade angle not standard with the machine but it does allow cutting the thicker balsa. Is there anyway to improve the retract on the z axis with this machine? There are a lot of folks within the modeling community that could benefit from being able to use these cutters with balsa and it would expand the market for it. One of the things I am curious that no one has tried is attaching a laser cutter to the cutter holder on the Sizzix.....if you could get it to focus properly it would be a really inexpensive way to get into laser cutting.......not sure if it would work but it would be really cool if you could.

[pedwards2932]

I finally did a video of cutting balsa wood wing ribs for a model I am building. Takes a little while to start and it is just a quick demo.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvv4myOlFI