Frustrated on blade/cutting strip changes

[TomK]

Hey All,

I've got 2 Summa cutters, a S75T and S140T. I use original Summa blades and cutting strip replacements, but I dread having to change my blades and cutting strips every few months. There is no consistency after I change things out.

1. Removing the blade holder, I count the number of turns and have it marked and put it back and make sure I line it up, example 9 turns out, replace blade, 9 turns in. I know it isn't scientific and there will be a little difference, but I'm talking a huge difference with each blade/strip change. What was cutting fine at a 75 or 95 pressure is now too deep on one machine, but the other machine it may not be deep enough. The same for the Flex Cut, sometimes I have to back it way off, other times I have to add a bit more pressure.

2. I would think both machines would be close for cutter settings on the same material across the machines, for example 75 pressure on the 75T should be close to 75 pressure on the 140T - but nope, one might be 75 pressure, the other might be 105 - on the same material.

Any tricks from long time Summa owners to dial these in when you change out strips and blades? If I had one material to do this for, not a huge problem, but when you have to re-dial it in for 8+ different materials it makes me want to stick a needle in my eye.

And, why hasn't this advanced at all? My daughter uses a hobby Cameo, and the blade holder is enclosed in a case, she drops it in and it auto-sets everything basically for her. A $300 cutter is more advanced then $20K worth of cutters on blade change and auto-detect? Sure the Cameo is a hobby machine and has their own set of problems, but come on this is 2019 why is this such a manual process? I feel for large shops with a fleet of Summa's that change blades/strips on a regular basis.

I hope I am missing something, but this has been driving me crazy for a year and I would welcome any help or tips/tricks that I am obviously missing.

When dialed in, these things work perfect and cut perfectly.

 

[equippaint]

Cant you just push/pull the blade out and pop another in like the roland style? I never adjust my blade depth once the holder is set.. In 3 years Ive only changed my blade once and cut strip is original on our mimaki, every few months seems like a lot unless youre doing a bunch of perf cuts.

 

[TomK]

Cant you just push/pull the blade out and pop another in like the roland style? I never adjust my blade depth once the holder is set.. In 3 years Ive only changed my blade once and cut strip is original on our mimaki, every few months seems like a lot unless youre doing a bunch of perf cuts.

Unfortunately not, with the Summa you have to unscrew the holder and pull it out, remove blade, push new blade into holder and then screw it all back in.

And yes everything we do has a perf cut on it, one of the advantages of the Summa is perf cutting is all done with one pass, unlike Roland, graphtec, etc. I contour cut and then perf cut without doing anything.

 

[RICHARD SIMMONS]

Which type of blade are you usig ?? 32°, 45° o 60° ?? In normal conditions I use the 32° blade and it works very well. The blade has to come out no more than a credit card thickness

 

[TomK]

Which type of blade are you usig ?? 32°, 45° o 60° ?? In normal conditions I use the 32° blade and it works very well. The blade has to come out no more than a credit card thickness

hi Richard, official 36 degree blades from Summa for the T cutters (https://www.airmark.com/collections/blades-bits/products/summa-36-tangential-blade-5-pack).

And yes, I measure the depth of the blade each time I change them, still doesn't make a difference. Also use the same amount of turns each time I change them like I mentioned above, which is how the depth is controlled.

 

[AF]

I do a calibration after blade change and then a test cut or two when changing media to get the correct depth. Takes moments, not sure why you are having so much grief. If flex cutting, the blade gets extended more. You have to appreciate the fine control and simplicity. As the blade wears, you extend it some more. You can see how much the blade extends and adjust for a sensible starting position after a blade change.

 

[ikarasu]

Have you tried the summa smart knives? It's more expensive. A rep tried to get into us3 then for our graphtec... I do 30,000 decals a month and I don't need to change my blade more than once every 3-4 months... So I never saw the need to use it. Plus, for perf cutting we buy cheap $1. Chinese blades and they work perfectly. But it looks like they carry the smart bladesfor summa also..

https://www.targettransfers.com/hsk430v-summa-smart-knife-vinyl.html

I change my strip every year, if that on my graphtec. So yes... You may save yourself a bit of time by not having to kiss and perf cut in two passes... But there's a trade off. If you do lots of perf cutting you'll be changing your strip a lot. There isn't really a way around it.

Graphtec has its ups and downs and I'd like a summa for the roll To roll option... But honestly the perf cutting on a cutting strip has always put me off. I don't see why they don't do it over the channel also.

I print decals in 10 ft increments. I have two cut lines... Once it's done the first.. it'll ask me to swap the blade... Then it'll do the perf cut. No re-scanning or nothing. And when you're cutting 10 ft of decals 1"x3" that means you get up to swap the blade once every other hour... It doesn't take much, if any at all extra time.

Again... Both have their benefits and downfalls.

There's no reason you can't perf cut over the strip on a graphtec and do it all in one pass btw. You'll just chew through the strip and dull the blade as quick as you do on a summa. I think for perf cutting... Especially large quantities like we do, Graphtec is the winner over summa though. You cant beat the channel.

 

[Saturn]

I have the S2T75.

I don't use nearly that many different materials, so take what I have to add with a grain of salt.

My main material/use is for cutting all the way through GF203 that's been laminated with Oraguard 210. I only do about 8-12K 3" stickers a month, but I can easily get a couple months out of my 45 degree summa blade and strip. The key I found was to setting the blade depth to just BARELY deeper than the material. I use two stickers and pull them gently underneath the blade with a little pressure on the holder while the machine is off. I look for it to cleanly cut he top sticker and just barely into the top vinyl of the second. I try to err on the side of less extension, especially at first. Pressure for die-cutting this material is around 300 for me.

I don't use the perf cut feature. Instead, getting this setting right with this material the stickers still are ever so slightly "attached," and just need to be popped out by hand. The edges are perfectly clean and there's no raggedy-ness to the paper whatsoever. Also the cut strip takes almost zero wear. Took me ages to nail this down, and in this case I can just use a much lighter pressure to get kiss cuts without fussing with the depth—say for decals or "sticker sheets" that have both kiss and die-cuts. Doing kiss and die on one job would have to be two passes though.

The other key I have found to using the Summa as a die-cutter (especially without using the perf feature) is to have ALL the pinch rollers installed. I tired it both ways, and let me tell you, the extra pinch rollers were worth every penny.

 

[TomK]

Have you tried the summa smart knives? It's more expensive. A rep tried to get into us3 then for our graphtec... I do 30,000 decals a month and I don't need to change my blade more than once every 3-4 months... So I never saw the need to use it. Plus, for perf cutting we buy cheap $1. Chinese blades and they work perfectly. But it looks like they carry the smart bladesfor summa also..

https://www.targettransfers.com/hsk430v-summa-smart-knife-vinyl.html

That doesn't look like it supports the T model of the summa cutters. This is the blade holder for the tangential blades https://www.airmark.com/collections/blades-bits/products/tangential-blade-holder.

I got rid of my FC8600-130, and don't miss it one bit compared to running the Summa cutters. Blade changes on the Graphtec were certainly easier, but that's about it.

 

[TomK]

45 degree summa blade and strip

Do you use the dual wedge 45 degree blade from Summa or buy it elsewhere? https://www.airmark.com/collections/blades-bits/products/summa-45-dual-wedge-tangential-blade

I haven't tried that, but 50 bucks seems expensive. Then again, 200 bucks for 5 blades from them is also expensive.

 

[Saturn]

Do you use the dual wedge 45 degree blade from Summa or buy it elsewhere? https://www.airmark.com/collections/blades-bits/products/summa-45-dual-wedge-tangential-blade

I haven't tried that, but 50 bucks seems expensive. Then again, 200 bucks for 5 blades from them is also expensive.

I do. I don't know that there's anything special about it, and yeah it's definitely expensive. Broken out over tens of thousands of stickers and a few months of work it's not so bad. It really is just a plain blade, I don't know why the 45 degree one gets called "dual wedge", when the only unique one is actually called "double edge"... easy to confuse the two.

I use it because, if it ain't broke... Eventually I will tinker more with getting the 60 degree clean cuts to work, but I had a few hiccups with them and just stuck with OEM for now...