All About the Blades: Cricut Maker Knife Blade
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The Knife Blade adds new dimension and possibilities to your Cricut projects. It was designed to cut materials up to 3/32” thick. It can handle thicker materials than the Deep Cut Blade, including materials such as leather, chipboard and even basswood or balsa wood.
The Cricut Maker machine is 10x more powerful than Cricut Explore One with 10 kg of force and has full control over the blade. It can move the blade left, right, up, down, clockwise, counter clockwise, and it can even tell what direction the blade is facing at any time.
The Knife Blade is NOT included with the Cricut Maker machine (even though there is a picture of it on the Maker box). You can purchase the Cricut Maker Knife Blade here. It is currently only compatible with the Cricut Maker.
The Knife Blade works a little differently than other blades you may use with your machine. Instead of doing one pass with the blade, the Cricut Maker will do multiple passes to cut through thicker materials. They aren’t identical passes either, no, the Maker uses Intelligent Variable Pressure when cutting with the Knife Blade. If you are cutting thick material that takes multiple passes to cut through, the Knife Blade will vary how much pressure it uses with each pass. The Knife Blade will start with a lighter scoring pass to break the surface. Another pass will be heavier, getting into middle of the material. Toward the end of the cutting, the Maker will cut lightly again to prevent damage to the bottom of the material. This helps you get the cleanest cut possible and mimics how you would cut if you were doing the cut by hand. This variable pressure helps to optimize the life of the blade and mats as well.
When cutting thick material, use the StrongGrip mat to make sure your material stays in place while cutting. It may also be helpful to tape your material to your mat on all edges using masking tape. You may also wish to move the star wheels out of the way to prevent them from scoring or damaging the material you’re cutting. The StrongGrip mat was engineered to have a higher adhesive, which helps keep your materials in place while cutting.All About the Blades: How to Calibrate the Rotary Blade
