DSF

Which blades do people use? / suppliers

I've been running kingcut cutters for over 6 years now with my sign writing business and blades have never been an issue, I just bought the cheapest and only had to change them once in a blue moon..

Now I'm doing more garment vinyl than stickers I'm noticing the blades wear out very quick (my scalpel blades wear a lot quicker too!)

Obviously with Christmas bringing me a 500% increase in sales I've noticed it much more so I've decided to see if there's a better blade, or if I just need to stock up on blades and suck it up.

so what prices do people pay for blades? where should I be looking to buy them.. and other questions I've not asked.

Ive been using Roland blades in my cutter for £8.99 (for 5) from fleabay.

problem with ebay is I can buy 5 blades for £10 from UK or I can buy 15 for £11 from China, they turn out to be the same product / packaging so the quality can't be judged by price. (I did this recently as I needed some asap so purchased 5 UK based, and 15 from china which could take time to get to me.)

Roland is often stated as compatibility with the pen rather than the brand of blade, I'm happy to change holder if needs be (I use a roland holder from my RX8 and also have a kingcut holder which takes blades with a fatter shaft (oo-err-missus))

I have a Black Cat cougar.. buy the named blades and you are looking at around £20 for 5 BUT get the exact same blades that are actually Roland blades.. and you get 5 for £9

So I decided to stock up and go cheap - they've lasted just as long too

have a look at Martor, we get all our blades from those guys

I've always got the generic eBay china ones. Depending on the vinyl.I'm cutting they sometimes do wear out faster but I do use 60 degree blades rather than 45 degree ones as most of the vinyl I end up using is glitter or flock. Still it's better than paying 30 quid each for the branded blades!

does anyone know anywhere I can get cheaper blades (e.g. of china origin) for a silhouette cameo? mine get blunt so fast..

How fast are we talking? None I've used blunt too fast and i do a lot of glitter and flock material. Maybe lighten the pressure a bit?

well i noticed it blunting after the first couple months - it still cuts vinyl ok, but its getting a bit poor on card...

Card is abrasive I'm afraid, recycled being worse, not all the ground up staples get removed...

its worth having a couple of knives and keeping one for vinyls and one for card, the blades will last longer that way.

The quality of graphtec blades for the Cameo is good and they do last well in our experiance .

If you are cutting card on the larger graphtecs with backing sheets. Check out the CB15U bladeholder and blades, pricey but do last on abrasive materials.
Alan