If you want to cut down on discoloration, you can mask it front and back with a medium tack paper masking tape. That stuff that I got from SignWarehouse works really well on paper, and removes without trouble after cutting. (Part of the reason I don’t like it for wood - it’s not sticky enough to stay attached on wood.)
It’s not nearly as tacky as the stuff that comes on the Proofgrade materials.
I’ll see if I can figure that out…All it says in the roll is “MainTape” and it’s been a while since I picked it up. I know they have different tack levels on the tape, but I’m not sure what the number is.
I found the link to the tape on SignWarehouse…I bought the 12 inch roll, the only thing they had at Amazon was the thinner widths at the time I was buying, and I wanted the wide roll.
Pretty sure MainTape is another top-tier brand (along with TransferRite and R.Tape), and I think Endura is made for signwarehouse by one of those companies.
Even the high-tack masking may have adshesion trouble on unfinished wood. Sometimes if it is being cranky, I lay down a sheet, pull it up*, and then lay a fresh sheet.
*this used sheet is great for removing pet hair from clothing, or picking up little piles scrap masking and wood off of a work surface
FWIW, this is a situation where you may want to convert to an engrave. It looks weird while it’s happening and may take longer, but cutting the paper with a raster engrave gets rid of the speed variation problems. (I’ve done vector scores trying to draw a picture, and same thing with the overburning.)
@Jules, I tried using that Krylon easy tack spray you once recommended to me for re-stickying the Silhouette mat. Sprayed on two sheets of regular paper and used to mask. Seems to work, prevents the smoke discoloration, although there is still charring on very fine features from the power setting I need to burn through the whole stack.
I bet one could even use this for a quick and dirty mask on wood, since you can adjust the tackiness by spraying both parts.
Oh good, I hadn’t tried to use it on regular paper yet since I’ve got the masking tape. Glad to hear it worked. (You could probably just keep using that and save some bucks on the masking tape.)
Low and slow! I read that for paper, you should go for max speed and the highest setting that will cut. I’ve been following that advice for all my previous attempts, but the large swings in head velocity through corners was causing charring and spotting. I figured, why not try using a low speed with super low power, which will tend to cause less variation overall?
I ran a bunch of tests and determined that 200/2 will cut through paper. And the result:
I was actually thinking two passes at low power, if the first pass doesn’t cut all the way through. Maybe even dampening the paper just a little, then placing under flat boards to prevent warping while drying.
Which settings did you use? The 200/2 I cited was what I use on printer paper, not cardstock! On what I think is ~80# dual sided cardstock from Michael’s, I use 200/15 bare, or 200/20 masked. What you might want to do is cut out a series of tests (I like star shapes because they have lots of points that will show off overburning) in increments of 5, then pick the one that looks the best to you. I like settings where there is very little weeding to do. Also, 200 speed was just a speed that looked slow enough without me dying of impatience, it may not be optimal.
I used the 200/2 with 4 passes. Worked great.
I was using 250/15 for 110# but had slight charring. No charing now. The marks that you see on the white are reminents from my pad that I hadn’t cleaned off.