So I'm a lazy person, but I attribute that to being a member of a tool using species so I was looking into buying these mystical machines that cut for you, but I wanted to be sure of what I was getting before I fork out a few hundred moneys to the cutting machine merchant.

The cutter comes with software you install onto your computer, and with this software you use .gsd files to plot where it cuts, which means if you don't have these files, the cutter won't know what to do. Can you create these files yourself?

What's the life of the blade like? Does it score? Is it worth it in the long run? I have a phobia about machines doing anything art-like and I just imagine the blade cutting like a millimeter off the line and having to go back over it anyway.

Keen to hear experiences, both positive and... negative.

Yes it comes with software you install, you use .gsd or more commonly now .studio files to tell the cutter where to cut. The cutting machine uses registration marks on the page (the small "L" marks in the corners of the page...if you were wondering what they were for) so that it knows where on the page it is to start cutting.
Cut files are quite easy and quick to make..once you take the time to learn how to use the software...not hard, but there is a definate learning curve



I use my cutter a lot I have had it for just over 18 months now, and have just put in my first replacement blade...Your mileage may and probably will vary...but these things are durable It "can" score...but most often we use it to perforate a score line...which means its easy to fold either way, and with a little edging looks pretty good...some folks prefer the look of a scored edge to a perforated edge tho...its one of the few "bad" points of machine cutting...but at tabletop range to the model, its no real problem. As for accuracy...if the cut file is accurate, and the page does not slip, the machine will cut better and more consistently than any hand cut...You can actually ask the machine to double cut a sheet and it will do it perfectly.
Negatives...As said, some folks dont like the perforated score lines.
The machine can be fiddly to get up and running...there is a determinate period to begin with when you are learning how to get paper loaded and the machine to align. It can get frustrating...but then once you get it going , and you listen to it sing its little cutting song to you...finish and then you pop out those first few perfectly cut parts..Its kinda magic, and does make it all worth while.

Recommend you make your own carrier sheets...there is a post on the forums on how to do so..If a sheet is used to much and looses tackiness parts can lift and tear...or jam the movement of the machine..Very easy to tell when it does this..the machines song turns into a growling scream

If you want to do a lot of cutting, and the files you want to cut have cutfiles made for them (either as bought or ones you have made) then you will for sure get the benefit of the Silhouette SD cutter. I still hand cut some stuff...but very seldom...It takes me less time to make a cutting profile than it does to cut the page...and once the cut profile is done, you can cut it as many times as you like with no effort. I usually have one page cutting whilst folding and edging the one I have just cut...work through the models pages like that, and all thats left is glue and a great build

Here's my 2¢:

I've had a Silhouette SD for a while, and have had both the good and the bad experiences.

So yeah, the way the cutter works is you send it a pattern via its software to direct the blade where to cut. It doesn't really *score* so much as perforate, but perforation works for both directions of folds, whereas a score line would require reversing the paper sometimes. I haven't had any problems with perforations, except that it's marginally harder to edge, I think.

The WWG files are printed with registration marks in the corners. When you feed the printed sheet into the cutter, it will scan for the registration marks. That's how it lines its cuts up with *reasonable* accuracy. I've had a couple printouts come out of my printer slightly skewed, and the reg marks wouldn't read. I simply cut the bottom of the page so the reg marks were square with it, and the cutter was fine with that.

As a software developer, I'm really annoyed with some of the decisions the developers made (like, why on earth did they animate every bloody undo operation?!?), but it does get the job done. If you have some images that don't have gsd files for it, you might need to do more than just create the gsd files. For example, I took some of the props from one of the older sets. There was no gsd file, so here's what I did:

In an image program, I imported a newer PDF that had the registration marks on the pages. In GIMP, this is really easy - just make sure to set it to 300 dpi so it imports at the correct size. I cleared out the pattern and pasted in the props, making sure they fit within the registration marks. I saved that as a PNG file. From OpenOffice Draw, I pasted the PNG on a page, set it to its original size (which should make it fill a page) and printed it out. From the Silhouette SD software, I dragged the image onto a new screen, lined up the corners so it filled the page, then drew the cut lines and score lines. Then I removed the image from the background, made sure that the score lines were set to 'perforate' rather than a regular cut, and it was ready to send to the cutter.

I don't know how long the blade lasts. I've cut hundreds of pages, and haven't changed the blade...

Here are some of the things that drive me nuts about the cutter:

1) I've had my contact sheets fail during cutting. You have to have a contact sheet in order to keep the cut pieces from flopping all over. I've had em flop all over. There are notes in the forums about making your own contact sheets - it's super easy and cheap, and much better than the contact sheets that come with the device, in my opinion.

2) I've accidentally fed the sheets in the wrong way. You want to feed the BOTTOM of the page in first, that's just the way WWG sets it up. I only messed this up early on in the process. Haven't made that mistake in a while, but it stinks when you pull the cut stuff off, and you see you've messed up.

3) I've accidentally sent the wrong file to the cutter. Sending a hallway gsd to a 6" tile. Sending a left-rail stair pattern to a right-rail stair file. Etc. It happens once in a while. It bums me out when it happens.

4) Sometimes the cuts are off a teeny tiny bit. The only real effect is I spend more time edging, covering up the dotted lines. The fact is, if you're using a cutter, the cut and score lines are useless to you, but they're still printed there. If the cutter misses them just a little, you might have an obvious dotted line along one of your tiles.

5) The machine is noisy. It annoys anyone else in the room who may not be 100% tolerant of your hobby.

6) I tried to get clever and make a ton of contact sheets, so I could whip through a lot of pages and peel em off at my leisure. I did a LOT of walls. For some reason though, the cuts were off by as much as 1/16" which ruined every piece. It was demoralizing enough that I took a break from paper for a while. Since getting back into it, I haven't had any problems, so I have no idea what went wrong. All I know is now I check the results of the previous cut before I move on to too many more. Whatever I did wrong (and I'm sure it was user error), I managed to do a dozen times over.


But, with all of its quirks, when you get the hang of it, it's just awesome. I was able to print and cut about 50 6" tiles in one short morning while I was working remotely from home, waiting for a delivery. With a couple contact sheets, you can keep that puppy humming. You can pull a printout right off the printer, mount it to a contact sheet and feed it while another page is printing. 6" tiles require a little manual cutting because they extend beyond the allowed cutter space, but it's TINY work. But you can breeze through cutting all the props. You can churn out a forest of trees! Posts? Do you enjoy cutting the posts? Well, if you do, you still can, but if you're like me, you enjoy popping page after page of already-cut posts off of a contact sheet.

Just last night I whipped up some fancy 50th anniversary invitations on the cutter, making my in-laws plenty happy. I never would try manually cutting 50 invites with the crazy complicated pattern I made.

I had my cutter whip off a pile of perfectly cut circles that I could label for monster tokens.

If you've got the extra cash, it's a really neat device to have around.

I have had mine since October 2009, replaced the blade once. There was a decent stretch in there where I didn't use it much but since like Dec of 2010 I have still used that second blade, with no problems.

The only problem I have had was if it is an old blade and week sticky on the carrier it can cause the blade to skip.

I love my Robby, I admit I have gotten lazy and don't like to hand cut anymore . This was one of the best $100 I ever spent to pick it up. If you plan on doing a lot of Card Stock they aren't required but they make life REALLY easy.

My build projects have a work flow now.
Night 1 Print loads of paper.
Night 2 Turn on Robby and Cut, once you have all of a page type done Edge those while Robby cuts the next type.
Night 3 fold and Glue.



I have made some of my own GSD files for some Terrain features I made for my home game and they aren't hard to do.

What speed do you have your cutter working on? I ask because I find I only have time to edge one side of a 6" tile before the cutter is done cutting the next 6" tile...

I was able to cut out about 50 tiles in a short amount of time. It's taking me multiple days to catch up with edging.

Curse you, edging! But so necessary!

I really need one of these. I had a player that bought one, but he has since then found other things to do. We still keep in touch, but we are both busy people.

I wish that there was a sale like the Black Friday deal a few years back for $130. I would jump on it in a heartbeat.

Starting towards that season again...Time to start looking for the deals

You can create your own cut paths around pictures so that you can use your robo cutter on older WWG sets. That's the short answer =) There's a pretty good learning curve there. You'll spend a lot of hours getting good at it but if you're cutting a lot of the same thing then it pays off.

I've easily gone through 1,000 pages with my original blade and it didn't show any signs of dulling.

It doesn't score like you would by hand but rather cuts a line of dashes to perforate a score line. I actually prefer the perforated line as you no longer have to do annoying reverse scores because a score line is biased to fold one way where the perforated line folds easily both directions.

Very worthwhile imediately and long term.... if you plan on making a lot of terrain. Do you have, or plan on having, several WWG sets and creating quite a bit of gaming terrain? Then it's totally worth it.

I'm very surprised how accurate the cutter is. I mean it's DEAD on the line.



Negative? Hmmm... not much!

Mine was not accurate out of the box. It was a bit of a pain troubleshooting it. Eventually figured out I had to recalibrate it and it's been dead on every since. This is pretty rare from what I've heard reading bout others; most ppl just pull it out of the box and it works.

Thanks for the replies, it seems like a useful thing to have and when I get the money spare it's near the top of the things to pick up. I'm impressed by the life of the blades, doing it by hand I find it starts to tear the card after about two dozen sheets and I need to snap the end off. Another question perhaps off topic, 'kitbashing' is just modifying the pdfs in an image program to create different tiles and walls?

I already dream of sunny afternoons, automated cutter by my side as we sing a jolly shanty and build worlds... I'll name it Slartybartfast.

Of course, Slartybartfast can concentrate a bit too much on his fjords, so you'd better keep him focused on the "big picture".

Ah I BULK edge...

That may be the confusion.

I put a STACK of the same thing together, then grab a WIDE sharpie, and Edge like 20 things at once.
repeat till all things edged, then fold and glue restack and edge new folds that did not exsit before

I tried the whole bulk-edge thing, mostly with walls since they're the easiest to line up. I was disappointed with the results, so now I edge everything one at a time.

I found that I ended up with some pieces getting messy edging and some pieces not being edged well enough, so I had to go back over them anyway.

At least I've found I can edge here at work while my computer is crunching, and slow-and-steady *does* win the race, I am told...

I tried bulk edging, but I was unsatisfied... it leaves just a smidge of white still, but stand out like... like unedged papercraft. Maybe if the marker bled a little more...

Oh yeah the sharpies I use do bleed a little, which is likely why it works for me.