While Silhouette may not offer some of the following materials directly, below are some of the most common materials we are asked about:
Fabric
You can cut select fabrics (depending on material thickness) in one of the following two ways:
- Using a Cameo 4 series cutting model with the Rotary Blade
- Using a fabric stabilizer, such as Silhouette Fabric Stabilizer
When using the Rotary Blade, no special interfacing or backing is required to cut the fabric material. Depending on the fabric type, a Strong Tack variety cutting mat is recommended.
When using a stabilizer, the fabric stabilizer is generally either ironed or pressed onto your fabric. Once applied, the fabric with the interfacing is placed onto a cutting mat, with the interfacing side face-down, fabric side face-up.
General recommended settings for common fabric types can be found in Silhouette Studio. Depending on the fabric, you may want to double-cut your design for cleaner cutting results.
Silhouette brand Wash Away Fabric Stabilizer is pressed onto fabric backing by hand. Then, after the cutting process has been completed, the fabric can be washed in order to dissolve the fabric stabilizer backing, thus leaving you with just the cut-out fabric project. This fabric stabilizer is perfect for appliqués where a permanent backing on your fabric is not desired.
Felt
Some felt materials can be cut with most Silhouette cutting models if the felt material is stiffened.
Many general felt materials, including non-stiffened felts, can be cut successfully with the Cameo 4 model series when using a Rotary Blade.
Not all felt materials can be cut well with Silhouette cutting machines. The ability to successfully cut felt will depend on the thickness, density, and flexibility of the felt material, as well as the level of stickiness of the cutting mat in use.
Balsa Wood
Silhouette machines can cut some semi-soft balsa wood sheets that are at 1.5 mm or less. We recommend using a 2mm Manual Blade on the Cameo 4 or Portrait 3 model for this material type.
To find the proper blade setting, hold the blade next to the material and continue to expose the blade to a higher level until the amount of exposed blade matches the material thickness.
You may find better success with removing the resulting cut when backing down the necessary force and performing a double pass on this material type. Always perform a small test cut prior to cutting a full job. Due to the nature of this material type, if you find the Test Cut feature itself problematic, you can alternately draw a small circle as your own test cut shape.
We recommend using a cutting mat with balsa wood material. When removing the cut-out design, we recommend placing the balsa wood face down onto a hard tabletop surface and then peeling the mat from one corner to the opposing corner while bending the mat almost back down on itself. This generally helps the balsa wood pop off the mat rather than trying to manually peel it away from the mat. You may need to press down on the wood from the mat side to ensure the wood is not flexing and remains as flat as possible during this process.
Fondant or Gum Paste
Silhouette machines are not designed to cut fondant or gum paste, or other edible materials.
We are aware that some users have claimed to have made modifications to their Silhouette cutting machine in order to cut such specialty materials. Silhouette does not support machine or consumables modifications.