The Framers Forum

Hi all. I’ve got a Futura, and it cuts standard thickness board perfectly. However, I can’t get a good cut if I’m trying to cut thicker board, even if i make several passes each progressively deeper. Any advice appreciated. Thanks

I assume you're talking about cutting windows in thick mountboard, rather than just straight cuts?

You'll need to make sure you've got a sharp blade in there - I change mine before cutting extra deep.

Then you'll need to wind the blade forward to it's going to go deeper to cut through the board. I have a seperate cartridge for this so I can keep one set to regular board, and one for thick. If you don't have this, you'll need to hold the board up to the blade and make sure it's sitting deep enough to go through - or just do by trial and error on an offcut.

Once you're cutting clean through, you'll need to adjust for overcuts.

On my machine, this usually means cutting +2 on the top stop, and -4 on the bottom stop.

For example, if you're cutting a window 50mm all the way round, top will be 52, side 50, and bottom 46. Try and then adjust for any over or undercutting.

Hope that helps
Megan

Hi Megan, yep, windows, in thick mountboard - thanks for your advice, especially the bit about adjusting for under & over cuts. I’ll keep trying.

You could also try changing the blade, for standard board I use the 12D - double edged blade, for thicker board try the 12S - single edged and make sure you fit it the right way round, there should be an arrow visible pointing at the cutting end. Then try the 15S if the 12S is still bending/distorting. You can only use the S blades one way round.

Thanks David, I’ll try that too.