SNC Basics - A step by step guide to Test Cuts

Draft post - quick and dirty for an fb group where a poor user has cut a ginormous hole in their mat (hopefully now taped up from the back and useable again).

Oh dear! you've cut a big hole in your mat, or your cuts aren't clean and messing up the surface of your material. arghhhh you are so frustrated, the machine looked so easy on the TV! and you can't get it to work and want to throw it out of the window for all the wasted time and money.
Is it your fault? why won't it work?

Well, have you done proper test cuts, do you understand the relationship between speed, blade depth and pressure? Because yes, some materials are just horrible and won't cut well, but usually cutting problems can be solved by using the right settings. The settings are NOT arbitrary, it's NOT an arcane mystery. The settings are logical and can be created to be pretty much exactly right if you know how and why they behave how they do.

I did a post on test cuts ages ago. This is complimentary to that and is a step by step 'how to do test cuts' the long way round.
Let's learn to do test cuts!

ScanNCut Basics 4d: Adventures in Test Cutting - Flamingos

This Flamingos paper cut really tested my patience and also my understanding of what the machine can do, and how what I do affects what the machine does.

This Flamingos Papercut is currently available to buy in PDF form HERE I've been testing how it cuts as an SVG file

ScanNCut Basics 4c: Test Cuts are your friend!

I think we've all done it. Assumed we know what settings to use, set it to those, stuck our paper to the mat, told it to cut and 'WHAT???? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU BEAST OF A MACHINE!!!!!' is more often than not the anguished cry that follows, especially when you're up against a deadline, and have limited amounts of the exact material that needs to be cut. Honestly, it would make a grown man cry! (and probably has!)

So this post is all about NOT assuming and instead doing Test Cuts to be absolutely sure that what we want to be cut will be done perfectly.  With the added attraction of the fun I had testing a cutting file for a designer Amy Purdie for her Embellish Cuts business - these gorgeous flamingos - as an example of what you can do if you persevere for long enough.

This stunning papercut design can be purchased as a PDF download for manual cutting from Amy's shop HERE