Do you have Balsa wood that you would like to cut precisely and use for creating decorations for your home or office walls? If that’s the case, you would require a good piece of equipment for that. In this case, you are likely to struggle to find a much better tool than the Cricut Knife Blade. To use it well, though, requires a bit of skill. Fortunately, you can teach yourself to do just that, as you will see below.
Before learning to do that, let’s start with a bit of education regarding Balsa wood first.
One, it is a type of hardwood that weighs almost nothing. More crucially, balsa wood’s strength-to-weight ratio is quite high. What this means is, the wood is surprisingly strong despite its weight. For this reason, balsa wood is one of the best materials for model-building and other similar crafts. Nevertheless, it has a few drawbacks too. For example, it breaks and brittles rather too easily for comfort and is capable of bending. Additionally, it is too expensive!
Now that your understanding of balsa wood is above what most people know, the next objective is to look at its relationship with Cricut Knife Blade extension to your friendly neighborhood Cricut machine. How do you use this type of blade to cut such hardwood? How fast is the blade capable of cutting balsa wood? Consider these questions when deciding whether this Knife Blade is the ideal cutter for the hardwood. In addition to that, remember that balsa wood is hard to find hence the need for using it well.
Get some tips here to help you in cutting balsa wood with Cricut Knife Blade.
Watch the Size
The first thing to note is the balsa wood has to be of a specific size to go under the Knife Blade. For ease of work, you should limit the wood to pencil’s width. Anything smaller than this could prove problematic. Why? Cricut Knife Blade is mighty and strong. It’s capable of destroying the expensive balsa wood if it’s smaller than the width of any pencil. Remember, balsa wood can split along its grain quite easily.
Cutting the Longer Pieces of Wood
You will notice that balsa wood usually comes in small sizes, especially in terms of length. All the same, you may find Yothers that are quite long. These should not worry you a bit. Instead, take your craft knife and use it to cut these longer pieces. The process is quite simple. You only have to use a ruler to draw a straight line on the wood before snapping it into two or more pieces. Using the longer pieces could jeopardize your entire project.
Holding the Wood Down Firmly
Before you start cutting balsa wood using Cricut Knife Blade, you should make sure that the wood is in place. Taping it down usually works effectively. However, you can use brayers first to adhere it on the mat before taping it. Holding it down is good to prevent the wood from moving all over the place and messing your project. Once again, this is for your own good since the wood is one of the most expensive.
Using on Design Space
Design Space is one of your most important tools. It guides you into cutting balsa wood properly, efficiently, safely and precisely. What is more, it saves you from wasting the costly material too. Therefore, it is wise to mirror your image on the Design Space first. This way, you guarantee yourself a final project that has clean cuts all through, especially on the most important side – the front!
Removing Smaller Pieces
Additionally, it would be advisable to keep removing the smaller pieces from the machine. This step is critical the moment some of the pieces start popping or falling out. You can keep the larger pieces in place, but the focus should be on the smaller wood. Failing to remove them could be detrimental to your work. Typically, such pieces could shift a bit thus ruining the entire project and leading to a waste of time and money.
Double Check Your Work
In roughly one hour, the Cricut Knife Blade and Cricut Maker will have finished cutting the balsa wood. Therefore, it would be great to remove the finished products from the machine. However, check your work before doing that. The goal of double-checking is to make sure that the Knife Blade cut the wood cleanly all through. This activity doesn’t mean that the Knife Blade does a lousy job. No, it does an excellent job, but there’s no harm in rechecking and confirming!
Adding One More Pass
Assuming that you checked and confirmed that one or two pieces remain uncut, Cricut Design Space allows you to add one more pass. Take advantage of this feature to finish the entire project. Nevertheless, avoid wasting your passes. If Cricut Knife Blade has cut the majority of the balsa wood except for 1-2 small corners and parts, you would have no reason for adding that one extra pass. If all looks good, feel free to:
• Remove the mat
• Release the project
• Use a craft knife for cutting the bits that weren’t cut cleanly all through
How to Remove Cut Balsa Wood from the Mat
Each stage of the cutting process is crucial for many reasons. Skipping any step could cause you a bit of distress. An example of these critical steps is the removal of the cut balsa wood. It’s important to learn how to remove it correctly. In this case, your options would involve bending the mat away. Do not attempt to pull the wood away from the mat straight up as this could cause it to break. Remember, balsa wood breaks and splits easily because of its brittle nature.
In summary, Cricut Knife Blade is the most effective tool for cutting balsa wood. It’s easy to see why Cricut waited a while before releasing this product into the market. You’ll hardly need to replace the blade since it’s sturdy and robust. Again, remember to be careful while cutting the wood. Otherwise, you would damage the wood, which as we established, is one of the costliest and rarest types of hardwood.
