VersaCamm blades, go blunt VERY quickly??

[Phill Fenton]

Your blades are being blunted because they are coming into contact with the media clamp that holds the vinyl down to stop it curling. This is caused by ink vapor gradually clogging the mechanism that controls the knifes up and down movement. Look closely at the right hand media clamp and you will see scratch marks where the knife has come into contact. This is not normal and should not happen, but is a common fault that develops on these machines

The solution is to create a cutting file consisting of a large number of "0"’s. When you run this file a few times the rapid up and down action will free off the mechanism so that it returns to normal operation. Alternatively, remove the clamps so that the blade is no longer able to hit them. Or remove the knife and only fit it when you are cutting

[Paul Hughes]

Phill is spot on

i only put my blade in when iam contour cutting.

Paul

[Scott.Evans]

learn something new every day 😀
ive never been completely happy with the cutting of my vp and has always done the bulk of my cutting on gx24

[Nick Minnery]

quote Phill Fenton:

Your blades are being blunted because they are coming into contact with the media clamp that holds the vinyl down to stop it curling. This is caused by ink vapor gradually clogging the mechanism that controls the knifes up and down movement. Look closely at the right hand media clamp and you will see scratch marks where the knife has come into contact. This is not normal and should not happen, but is a common fault that develops on these machines

The solution is to create a cutting file consisting of a large number of “0”‘s. When you run this file a few times the rapid up and down action will free off the mechanism so that it returns to normal operation. Alternatively, remove the clamps so that the blade is no longer able to hit them. Or remove the knife and only fit it when you are cutting

Cheers Phill (& Paul). Someone else mentioned the clamps, but I watched the head pass the clamps and thought there was plenty of clearance, so I dismissed that. But, I didn’t realise that the knife sometimes fails to move up and down properly. So, that makes sense now. And I’ve just looked at the clamps, there is indeed a couple of horizontal scratches.

Thanks again! 🙂

[Dan Osterbery]

Phil is correct, we put vinyl over our media clamps and you can see the line where the blade has passed over and blunted. we only put the blade in when cutting now!

[John Dorling]

quote Dan Osterbery:

Phil is correct, we put vinyl over our media clamps and you can see the line where the blade has passed over and blunted. we only put the blade in when cutting now!

Me too!

John

[Martin Oxenham]

Little tip I was told by Harry at Edward Mathias is to raise the blade holder slightly in the carrier and re-tighten it. So its about a mill or two from the stop.

[Phill Fenton]

It was Harry at Edward Mathias that told me what caused the blunting of the blades on these machines. I was ordering new ones when he explained to me why this was happening. Considering he was in the business of selling these blades it was not in his interest to tell me but he did non the less. A good honest person to buy from.

[Cheryl Smith]

quote Phill Fenton:

It was Harry at Edward Mathias that told me what caused the blunting of the blades on these machines. I was ordering new ones when he explained to me why this was happening. Considering he was in the business of selling these blades it was not in his interest to tell me but he did non the less. A good honest person to buy from.

Id second that Phil…he told me about ‘exercising’ the plotter blades using the figure 8 over and over for 15 mins without the blade in too…