February 19, 2012 at 12:35 pm

Cricut Machines for Etching Stencils?

I bought your book on Glass etching. Luckily I have a Harbour Freight nearby! One of the bummers about your tips was having to cut out designs by hand. Wouldn’t you say that one of those “Cricut” machines that scrapbookers use work for patterns? You load vinyl in the machine and it will cut out fairly intricate designs. They cost around $300 but you can get them on eBay for a little less. Just thinking of going that direction.

I was looking at SCM and their photo stencil maker but it is $700. although you can turn any photo (just about) into a stencil. What are your thoughts on this? I don’t see many people into glass etching other than Armour cream users. It is nice to find someone like you! All I have so far is a compressor! Debating what exactly to buy. I am willing to spend about $800 overall. What is your best suggestion for equipment with that budget? Hope to hear from you!

Hi, first of all- thanks for your purchase!

The one reason I wasn’t too excited about the Cricut- is that they originally only cut out designs from some type of cartridge that you had to buy. From what I remember- the designs were fairly simplistic, but that might have changed recently.

I do remember seeing some kind of plugin that would allow the machine to accept any type of pattern. Most people, including myself wanted a machine that would cut out any type of logo. So it might be able to do this now, but I haven’t looked into it too much.

Also, I am not sure if you’re sandblasting or using etching cream, but the other issue with the cricut is it may not be able to cut thick enough vinyl stencils for deeper sandblastings. If you’re only using etching cream then you shouldn’t have a problem.

I have heard some bad things about SCM with customer support & having high prices. In fact, the high prices is what lead me to writing the ebook. These places have some cheaper photoresist packages: Rayzist & Ikonics imaging . If you wanted to save more you could just buy the photoresist film and transparent film sheets. Then buy/ rig up your own UV light and buy it a lot cheaper from a hardware store.

Also, since you only have a air compressor and want to do smaller light work you can try using a mini sandblaster like these that I wrote on my blog.

Thanks and I hope this helps.
-Eric

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4 comments so far

  1. Katherine

    February 19th, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    Hi all, I think I read, that if you have not purchased the sure cuts alot program that interfaces with the circut before now it will not work with the cricut. If you already had the sure cuts alot program it will still work with your cricut.

  2. Eric Robert

    February 20th, 2012 at 7:28 pm

    Yes, you are right. I looked into it further and Cricut took legal action against all third party software because the company makes a lot of their money from cartridges.

    You have to find a older copy of the software (new one doesn’t work) and I believe the cricut itself has to be older as well. I am not sure it that is true, but apparently the old software won’t work with the new cutters also.

  3. Becky

    March 5th, 2012 at 8:47 am

    I use a CraftRobo which I think has now been rebranded as Silhouette. It’s linked to my Mac and I use an Illustrator plugin so I do a design in Photoshop, import it to Illustrator and then send it to my cutter. It only does A4 but handcutting all my designs wasn’t financially viable so this has been a lifesaver!

  4. Eric Robert

    March 6th, 2012 at 7:47 pm

    Oh, I didn’t know Silhouette was formally CraftRobo. Thanks for sharing

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