Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Answering a few questions...

I have received a couple of comments here and on the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo Group, and I thought that I would address them here since they could be helpful to others as well.

Question 1
One reader (Kate Smith), mentioned that she is having trouble cutting some things in paper, but that they will cut in vinyl.  I have had some great luck cutting some intricate things on the eCraft, even when cutting from the software.  I have tried to cut a few things that I thought for sure would give me the stuttering problem, and they did not.  The first thing that I would recommend to Kate to try is changing out the blade.  When the eCrafts shipped, one blade was already installed in the trolley.  For some reason, these first blades have been affected by shipping.  I hope that Craftwell changes this for future machines so that no blade is installed.  The next thing that I would recommend is to cut your image from a thinner piece of paper using the cardstock stabilizer.  For more information on how to use this cardstock stabilizer, check out my post about it HERE.  If you are still having problems Kate, let me know and we will figure it out!

Question 2
Linda from the Netherlands asked me if the cardstock stabilizer is just a regular piece of cardstock or if you needed to use a special piece of cardstock.  I use just a regular piece of cardstock, similar to the Recollections cardstock from Michaels.  I don't see why any piece that you have lying around won't work. 

Question 3
Tom Meeks mentioned over at the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo Group that SVGs should probably be labeled as cuttable or not.  The main reason why SVG files are not labeled as such is that most of the cutting softwares will convert a non-cuttable SVG into a cuttable file.  For example, the file that was posted on the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo Group that was not set to a Path, imported just fine into Make The Cut.  This is something that Craftwell should be fixing with eCraftshop Pro, and hopefully in the very first update.  The other thing to keep in mind is MOST of the websites that crafters go to for SVG files are cuttable files.  This information is really key for creating our own SVG files.  Kay on the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo Group gave us a guide that she was using when SCAL 1 was released and this problem existed with that software.  Here is the link to her GUIDE for you if you are interested.  You may need to be a member of this group to access it.  If you are not a member yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?  This is a great group of people and a lot of really useful information, so don't hesitate!  Even if you are just thinking about getting an eCraft, this is the place to find out alot about it!  And there is one more thing that I forgot to mention in SVGs 101 post.  If you have an SVG that won't import correctly into eCP and you have Make the Cut, you can try to import it into MTC to see if everything there shows up correctly.  One of the great things about MTC is that you can EXPORT any file into an SVG file.  That means that if that troublesome SVG imports OK into MTC, you can turn around and export it as another SVG file that should import into eCP better for you.

If any of you have any other questions, please let me know.  I am more than happy to help, and I love having an "excuse" to play with my eCraft.

1 comment:

Carolyn said...

I am glad to say that I am within your first 50 followers. Have a ? for you. I have been planning on buying the MTC software but do you think I should hold off until you get through the eCraft demos? Which is easier for a beginner of the software and pc downloading and cutting?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...