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any cutter would probably need multiple passes. better to do multiple than stress the motor and carriage. Any cutter with a servo motor will get you better accuracy over a stepper. if the Graphtec is within budget, definitely go that route! Get yourself some CleanCut Blades too.

Thanks for the replies! We are looking to do about 1/8" to 1/4" deep with about 100PSI sand blaster. The reason for the 500 series material is the statement claiming for "porous substrates". There are many times we encounter "rough granite" and it would be nice to be able to work on that type of media. So the current census is a Graphtec CE6000, Sandmask 400 series with multiple passes? Thanks again

ditto on the multiple passes.

I have cut Hartco 425 with my Graphtec, but it is a little thinner material, i just cut it with 2 passes

I think you got the right stuff Scott. I actually bought a sheet from my local vinyl/sign warehouse here. I wish I bought more because they stopped carrying it. I snipped some off and trying to cut it, it was wicked thick and required more than a few passes, which the LP wasn't too happy with (especially isn't is stepper and doesn't track super accurate for fine cuts). Dumb question - can that kind of stuff be run through any vinyl printer? or does the printer really only work on specific media?

If you are prefeeding and it will run straight on the way out but not stay straight on the way back, all this while no blade touching then you have a tracking issue for sure. They usually don't recommend messing with the tension on the pinch rollers but possibly one got messed with or has become weak. We have seen new owners immediately start cranking on the pinch roller springs and get all sorts of wonky. If you can get it running true in and out without a blade then adjust your blade appropriately and it starts dragging the vinyl out of track then you could have weak pinch rollers. (not common) Most of the time we see set up being wrong and too much force being applied which causes bunching and off-track. A remedy can be as simple as a high quality Clean Cut blade that uses less force to cut with. Cutting stencil though is probably rough and tough with lots of pressure. I make a couple passes if I cut stencil so I don't abuse my machine but mine has great tracking and will stay in the same grove.

Hello, new to cutting and new to the forum! Bought myself a Graphtec 6000-40 and I've noticed that I'm getting some very small hang nails on some of the smaller letting, but only where there is a circular shape. I'm using the stock 45 degree blade and I've played around with the settings a bit, but the only way I can completely get rid of them is to make 2 passes of whatever I'm cutting. It's almost as though the blade JUST stops short of where it's supposed to. Quality wise, everything is superb and I'm very happy. Just wanted to know if this is normal or not. I've read of several other people with the Graphtec 6000 cutters having this happen. 2 passes fixes the hang nail problem but the quality of the work overall is very slightly diminished as far as I can tell. Can anyone confirm this is ok? I'm working with lettering around about 7mm in diametre. Thanks!

I do two passes and I’m cutting through laminated Calendared vinyl. Vinyl is 11mil and laminate it 3 mil. 2 contour cuts and they pop out nice and clean. Sometimes you have to play with pressure to fine tune it.

Man, I just wrapped up some MX decals for a family members company. I bought some 6 mil vinyl along with 12 Mil Heavy duty gloss laminate for MX , ssnow mobiles, etc. I had to contour cut - 60 deg. blade- Tangental mode-- almost highest force setting on the GS15 vinyl cutter- took three passes. Total is 18 mil THICK.- a credit card is about 20 mil I think. Turned out very clean for 3 passes Pics:

Hello I have a titan 3 vinyl cutter, i printed some text on a HP Latex 365 i did the contour cut option, everything printed well with registration marks. When i put it in my cutter and give the command to start it does not red the markings just passes on top and on the screen it says marks not detected, even if it detects the line one time when it goes for the second registration it misses it. Can someone tell me what i can do?

As weird as this sounds - sometimes I need the reflective to be temporary. If anyone has tried to peel off reflective, then they should know that it comes off in small pieces and is a total pain to remove. So when a temporary application is needed, I will often pre-layer the reflective on some 651 (whatever color I have the most inventory in), and then run it through the cutter, doing two passes. The end result is a pretty thick decal, but removing it is a breeze. Ditto on the Clean Cut Blade!

Less force means I need more passes, correct? Doesn't look like the gs-24 plays nicely with macOS due to it requiring an Adobe Illustrator plugin.

You may have had better luck, if you went with the Graphtec FC unit. The Graphtecs are just better, heavy duty cutters. That is what they are built for. There used to be a guy on here years back that cut plastic with his, making several passes. I own 2 of these FC cutters, and they are tanks. I have never tried to cut thicker materials, as that is not my niche' My niche' is very large long vinyl graphics. The cutters also have different positions that you can put the pinch rollers at to hold the material. You can still find good deals on the used Graphtec FC cutters. You just have to have the money and grab it.

Any of you guys who run the lasers think you could cut with a laser? To klcjr - Magnets as mentioned are really hard to cut and hard on a fine tuned machine. Getting your cutter to cut accurately would be the very first thing you would need to do and you would want to start out by cutting some cheap sign vinyl which it's actually designed to cut. IF it's cutting regular vinyl at regular pressures ok but not the magnet then you will have an answer about whether your cutter has a problem or if it's related to the 30 mil issue. Assuming that it ALSO cuts out of dimensions then you will need to calibrate your cutter. Each cutting program goes about it a little different but they pretty much all have a way. If it's cutting sign vinyl at the correct size but not the magnet then you are probably not going to have success. The heavy magnetic material is likely more weight than your pinch rollers can keep hold of properly especially if you are dragging a knife blade through it. I have cut a few, and I stress FEW, like two times with my Summa. I did three passes at a regular pressure and it did ok. You also have a whole other part of the equation that you are probably not considering. You can't cut clear through any material without having some sort of carrier sheet. Vinyl and Heat Transfer Vinyl come on a carrier sheet. I seriously doubt your magnet does. I recommend if you keep trying and get it to cut satisfactory that you should leave just a little bit so the magnet is still one piece and then you can break it free. That's what I did on the couple that I cut. This will work for an occasional project but mass production is probably not all that viable. The big factories use a true die cutter and stamp cut them out I think. Very mass production.

I did actually; I played with the blade depth, downforce, tried three and four passes, and tried cutting the magnet with the wax paper liner side facing down. No dice. Calibration is inconsistent.

So, did you ever try the multiples passes?

My apologies if it sounded like I wasn't taking advice or haven't tried to search before posting. I am definitely going to try multiple passes! As a machine designer, I was merely curious how the plotter actually advances the depth of the blade on each pass. From my prior knowledge, I think this can only be accomplished with a leadscrew and motor.

It cuts the same design 2 or 3 times more, just like it did the 1st time. you choose the number of passes in your cutting software. Each pass will cut deeper. But like stated above. I would never run 30 mil magnet thru my Graphtec and I have a heavy duty FC unit. Good luck with your project.

I still don't understand what 'multiple passes' means if the bladeholder solenoid is either fully up or fully down. The pinch rollers are also fully covering the material, cut and not-cut. I'm also not fully cutting through the material either.

When there's a heavy drag, tracking gets to be more tricky. If i have to do layers - like reflective on vinyl because I want to be able to peel it the reflective off easily, I always do multiple passes - the force is lighter so there's less drag on the material when it's moving, less chance for the tracking to go askew. And do you have rollers on the part that's being cut, as well as the 'outside material' because once there is definitive cut through your material, only the part that being pinched by roller will want to jog back and forth, there by adding to drag. If you were trying to do with paper, the paper would bunch. That's why machines like the Cricut need to have 'carrier' sheets that have a light adhesive - it keeps everything moving as a single piece, even though it's cut so stuff doesn't bunch or get caught. You're basically cutting something that's 12x thicker than 651 vinyl, which is done in a single pass. I wouldn't even attempt to do a 30mil anything in a single pass.

trying to cut the very thick material in one pass causes more drag than if done in multiple passes - that causes slippage. I too never subjected any of my plotters to cutting 30 mil magnets - for rectangles I used straight edge and a corner rounding tool.

I am not understanding how the amount of passes would correct the dimensions and the non square cuts that I am trying to solve? Can you enlighten me? Thank you so much for helping!

I have never cut magnet, but I have read that most people who cut thick materials are cutting with 2-3 passes. Are you doing that? Or just trying to cut with 1 deep pass?

Hello, I have been cutting vinyl and HTV with no problem but then here comes the cardstock, making look like I don't know what I'm doing. Ha. I am trying to cut out invitations and cupcake toppers with my MH-871 and I am unsure of the settings I need to use. I have a cutting mat for it and I installed the 60 degree blade, but I am having trouble getting it to cut all the way through without two passes and for some reason it is shifting just a tiny bit and making it to where there are two cuts instead of just going through the same path twice. Help please!

The lower end cutters tend to drift because they just don't track as well. How are you cutting it twice? - are you sending it to the cutter twice, or do you have the design layered in your software? When I have to make multiple passes, I always layer and send it to the cutter once. I got much better results from my LP that way.