Cutter cuts twice

[xyzsniper 0]

If I make something using bezier curve or trace bitmap, the cutter wll cut normally. I tried using the star tool and the cutter goes over the same path twice. What am I doing wrong?

[tlzimmerman 11]

Sometimes you can end up with 2 copies of things on top of eachother somehow, which is why it cuts it twice.  I would select whatever you made, ungroup it, and try to drag it apart make sure there isn't 2 copies.

[airstuff 0]

I'm having the same problem. Anything that has a "stroke" on it cuts twice. If I turn the stroke off and just leave the "fill" it cuts just fine. After the design is done, I make sure I "convert objects to path"... It's not the "double image on top of each other"...

Any other suggestions?

[tlzimmerman 11]

Whenever you design in inskcape, your finished design should contain no strokes.....if you want that look of a fat line, but want it to cut with vinyl.....select the object that has a stroke and go to path...stroke to path, this will put 2 cut lines instead of one down the center, and will give you the look you are wanting.

[airstuff 0]

Here is what just happened... I finished the design in Inkscape. Since I'm making a stencil for airbrushing, I'm leaving 1" around the entire design as a splash-guard. So when it gets cut, I will have a nice square stencil - 3" x 3"- with the design in the middle. To get that square with rounded corners, I used the rectangle tool -> drew the square -> selected the square -> "object to path" -> save as .eps -> import and cut with SBE aaaaaannnnnd.... it cuts the design just fine and the square it cut once, then went over it again and cut right thru the mylar AND the backing. Had it cut the square only once... it would have been perfect.

When I used "stroke to path", it cut the square once around the outer edge, then the second time around the inner edge and effectively gave me a slightly smaller square. But it still cut the square twice. Only this time, it offset the path slightly. I JUST DON'T GET IT

[tlzimmerman 11]

OK.....stroke to path did it right then, when you put stroke to path it cuts both the inside and outside of the line.  I will try to explain what I would do to make your paint mask.

one thing that might help you understand what the cutter is going to cut is going to view, display mode, outline.  This will show you the cuts its actually going to make.

Here is an example,  First picture is a simple rectangle...path with a fill.  2nd picture is the same thing with a stroke...still a single path with a fill, but it "strokes" the path with a certain width of color.  Has no bearing whatsoever on the cut unless you choose stroke to path...in which case it converts both edges of the black into paths, deleted the old path, and just leaves you with the stroke that has now been converted to paths...and the cutter only cuts paths, not strokes!. 

Ok.....so to make you paint mask I would type some text and convert it to paths or get your object as a vector image.  Then highlight both by holding down the shift key and clicking and choose path difference, this will punch the design out of the larger rectangle.  Basically leaving you so it will cut out that image which can be weeded, which is the part you spray through on the mask.

[tlzimmerman 11]

This is what it looks like afterwards with the object punched through, what it looks like if you select it with the node edit tool to actually see the paths and nodes, and what it looks like is outline view.

[tlzimmerman 11]

Hope that helps you understand!