Creating at Cline Library

The Silver Bullet is an automated die cutting machine that can cut, emboss, and engrave materials such as cardstock, paper, chipboard, Vivelle Paper, rubber, gasket material, RSI Vinyl, vinyl, thin films, stencil material, fabric, Tyvek, glass paper, paper cloth, laminating mediums, thin veneer (both regular and sticky back), tissue paper, closed cell foam core, mylar, fake fur, clay, magnetic material, shrink plastic, template plastic, Teflon, felt, shelf liner, leather (must verify with us what type) metals (must verify with us), fondant, wood paper, thin balsa wood, sailcloth, flag material, coffee filters, styrene, and so much more. The determining factors are the thickness or density of the media. The Silver Bullet requires use of the Sure Cuts A Lot software, for help using this software view the tutorial video below of visit the Sure Cuts a Lot tutorials page. The Silver Bullet is available for use in the MakerLab on a first-come, first-served basis. Users must provide their own materials. 

• NAU/CCC Affiliates and Public
• In-Library Use Only
• Number available: 1

This How to Guide will show you how to:

• Load the Silver Bullet
• Align your cut
• Cut your material

Loading the Silver Bullet

1. Make sure the Silver Bullet is Offline. If it is Online, you can go into Offline mode by pressing the "Online" button.
2. Select a cutting mat from the "2D Cutting" drawer of the tool bench located in the MakerLab. Your mat should be larger than the material you intent to cut. 
3. Space the pinch wheels on the Silver Bullet so that they are as far apart as possible, but less than the width of your mat. To move the pinch wheels, make sure the levers in back are in the raised position. Make sure that the pinch wheels are positioned above the grit shaft rollers or under the white rectangles. You need a minimum of 2 pinch wheels down, but you may wish to use more if you are cutting thicker materials.
4. Manually insert the mat into the machine so that it slides below the pinch wheels. Feed your mat through the machine and out the back so that the front edge of the paper is just a little ahead of the white cutting strip.
5. Using the levers in the back of the machine, lower the pinch wheels.

Aligning your Cut

1. Hold the edge of the mat up to the pinch wheels. While holding it there, press and hold the Up Directional Arrow button until the white cutting strip lines up with the edge of your media. Use the other arrow buttons to properly align your blade position over your media.
2. When you have placed the blade where you would like it, set the origin by pressing the Origin button. The screen will then read x=0, y=0.
3. Press the Online Button to go Online, where you can adjust the force (pressure), the velocity (cutting speed) of the machine, and receive cutting instructions from the computer.

Cutting your Material

1. Using the Sure Cuts A Lot software, make sure you have everything set up to cut. If there are shapes that you do not want cut, be sure
   to "hide" them in the layers menu.
2. The cutting dialog box lets you control the way your shapes/images are cut out. You can access it in 2 ways. First, you can go to the Cutter menu and choose "Cut with Silver Bullet".
3. You can also click the "Cut" icon from the main window. The cut dialog box will open up.
4. Note: If the port for your machine is not showing, make sure that your USB cable is plugged both into the machine and the computer and that the driver is installed. Then, click the refresh button and your USB COM Port should appear.

This is a recording of a live webinar discussing high speed cutting using the Silver Bullet Professional. This in depth discussion provides a broad understanding of the ability of the Silver Bullet Professional.

Engraving on Metal Tile with the Silver Bullet Pro