Cutting white Cardstock

I cut a lot of cardstock. There is some variation between different card stocks, even of the same weight. Also, if you don’t already know, “weight” is more complicated than one would intuit. [1]

So, I do a materials test on each type of cardstock I use to determine the optimal settings:

I usually come up with both a “fast” setting (usually full speed) and, a slower setting (around 200) for use on things like spirals and tiny details.

Since custom settings are supposed to be restricted to the Beyond the Manual section, I will DM you with a recommended starting point. The Proofgrade 80# settings are probably also a good starting point.

[1] Here’s the short summary I give about paper weight when I teach papercraft stuff (feel free to ignore):

In the United States and Canada, we most commonly see the old English standard known as basis weight. Basis weight is the weight, in pounds, of a ream of sheets at their original manufactured or “basic” size. While that sounds straightforward, different grades of paper have different basic sizes and, the number of sheets in a ream can also vary in some cases. So, 80lb writing stock and 80lb cover stock will be quite different.

Europe uses grams per square meter (g/m^2), which standardizes sheet sizes making the measurement comparable across grades of paper.

There are measures of thickness (“caliper") and stiffness (“rigidity index") but, those are rarely provided outside of papers made for specific applications.

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