How To Tip: Print and Cut Magnets

Use a very thin printable magnet sheet, because some brands are too dense to cut. (Avery #6270 "White Printable Magnet Sheets for Inkjet Printers" works really well.)

In order to keep from ruining the expensive magnet sheets, do a test print on plain copy paper, until you get all three registration marks to print on your page properly. (see the tutorial in this month's newsletter on Registration Marks and doing Print and Cuts!) Then practice aligning the cutter using the cheap paper and the blue cap and no O-rings, until you figure out what you are doing.

Print out your graphic on the magnet sheet, using the registration marks and document settings that have been adjusted for your printer.

Put the printed magnet sheet on a carrier mat and tape it down at the leading edge with scotch tape. The tape is to give the rollers a smoother "bump" to go over when you first load the magnet sheet. Even the thinnest magnet sheet is still pretty thick for the rollers to go over.

Take the blade assembly out of the blade holder.

Load the magnet sheet and carrier mat into the cutter.
Make sure that the registration marks are right in front of the blade....you should just be able to see it. And make sure that the carrier mat is perfectly perpindicular to the machine (90 degree angle), with the registration marks centered between the white rollers. This helps the cutter to see the far registration mark, when it rolls forward searching for it.

Hit cut and let the machine find the registration marks. Once you have made sure that the cutter has found all three registration marks and is ready to cut, put the pink cap on the blade with 2 plastic O-rings, put the assembly all the way down into the blade holder, and turn the blue locking key to the right.

Now you can hit CUT again and you should get a perfect cut-out of your graphic.