Thursday, July 29, 2010

Sharpening Cricut Blades

So I was curious today and thought: there has to be a way to sharpen Cricut blades and so I began a search today. I own a Craftrobo and users on their sites have always told us to use heavy duty aluminum foil, and it has worked for me. I still have my original blade with my CR. But my Cricut, I have bought in two years over 20 to 30 blades! That is about $150 just in blades, so today we went to Walmart and I bought some heavy grade sandpaper and heavy duty aluminum foil and I am going to experiment and see which is better. But on the web today here is what I have found from several sites:

Blades can be sharpened with heavy duty aluminum foil. Simply cover your mat with the foil. Create a file with several straight lines, a couple of circles, and a few squares. Set the speed to slow. Set the thickness to 1.
By sharpening them occasionally, you can increase the lifespan of the blades.
Lint can sometimes get caught up in the blade. Remove the cap and check the blade under a magnifying glass to see if any fibers are present. If so, use some compressed air to get rid of it.

So my idea of sandpaper, definitely did not work…so it was worth the try, but unfortunately it didn’t sharpen my blade, but made it worse. I think my mat needs to be stickier to use the aluminum foil…so I will try it.but like the website suggests, is to sharpen before the blade gets dull.

My goal is to find a way to sharpen these blades, because I go through so many. If you have found a way to sharpen your Cricut blades, be sure to post it here and I will definitely try it.

Thanks! Enjoy!

4 comments:

Ulysses' mama said...

Thanks for sharing what you found!

pammyj1965 said...

Aha!! I thought this would work! So, I tried the heavy duty aluminum foil and it definitely helped my blade! It was so frustrating; I only had used my Cricut a couple of times and the cuts were being torn instead of nicely "cut." Do you think it's possible the blade can get dull from underusage?

Unknown said...

u have tried the sharpening with the foil......on a dull blade and it now works like a new one !!! so worth the hassle of getting the foil off the mat !!

Unknown said...

oops i meant i have tried it and it works great........mind you a couple of my really old blades it didn't work.......Thx