Cardboard Christmas

Good morning,
Has anyone used an electronic die cutter and software to design and cut out patterns for houses? I saw something called a Pazzle online and wondered...

Lee, I've wondered the same thing. I have an obsolete Cricut with obsolete software that lets me print my own files (you can't do that any more), and I thought about giving it a try, but there are too many other projects I have to get done first.

Plus, when I googled "cutting posterboard with Cricut" and similar searches, the answer was aways ambiguous.

Maybe by summer I'll have an answer.

Buried somewhere in the emails I've saved for future vintage postings at EverythingCroton was some information about a die-cut machine that could make little churches...I'll try to dig it out as soon as I can.

Funny how I start looking into something and then you see a post to the forum.

My wife is letting me play with here old pazzle mini cutter.
She could not get it to cut when she went to win7.

Well last night I got it to talk.

I tried a test cut to cereal box thickness. With some love it almost makes it.
With an x-acto after I could. The problem I see with our cutter is the blade is a bit
short for the thickness of the material.

Show promise.

My goal was to try me hand at some mullion arch windows. Kinda kinda like Peter did.
Just plotter cutted not die cut.

I could see that at least patterns could be cut real easy.

More experimenting needed.

Steve

I look forward to hearing about your progress... Another die cutter I am researching is called a Boss Kut Gazelle. It looks like it is more heavy duty than the Pazzle... I have emailed them to ask what the maximum thickness of chipboard their cutter will cut but I haven't heard back yet...

Lee:

I found the specs on the cutter you were talking about.

http://www.bosskut.com/gazspecs.pdf

Looks like 1mm thinkness.

Steve

Thank you Steve. I need to measure the thickness of the Chipboard I got at the art supply store...

Lee (and others on this thread), I haven't applied my craftcutter to cutting putz house shapes yet, but I've been experimenting with windowframes.

http://www.cardboardchristmas.com/html/ ... terns.html

For an overview about craftcutters, check out:

http://bigindoortrains.com/primer/build ... utters.htm

The short version is you need some sort of vector graphic software and a cutter which will let you cut your own files (which Cricut doesn't).

Best of luck,

Paul

Paul,
Thank you for the information. I am going to use my tax refund to purchase a die cutter. I am seriously looking at a Black Cat Cougar or a Boss Cut Gazelle. Funny how they both have animal names... They are both rated superior to the Cricut machine. Anyway... I will keep everyone up to date with my progress... I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew with this....

Lee,
I just met someone with a serious signcutter who might be open to running some experiments for me.
Wish I knew enough about the other craftcutters to give you some direction. I WOULD look for one that's supported BOTH by Sir Cuts-a-lot and Make-the-cut. Not that you'll necessarily use either of those programs, only that those companies try to cover all of the worthwhile cutters.
Best of luck,
Paul