Cutting Dies 101

If you can imagine a cutting tool has very tight tolerances so that it only cuts through the material and adhesive but not through the liner or (backing Paper, see image below). The tolerances of a cutting die is literally fractions of inches. It must cut the substrate, cleaning cut the adhesive but not go through the thin liner. Some liners are as thin as .92

A.) For cutting tools to cut properly they must be set up to cut to the liner, so if a liner material changes from a Kraft liner to a Poly coated liner or to a PET clear plastic liner the tolerances are all different. So you cannot inter change these tools. As an example; it would be like trying to cut a pieces of 2×4 lumber and a sheet of metal with the same saw blade, you would destroy the blade and most likely not get a clean cut, if it cut at all.

The other thing that can affect the tool is the substrate. A tool that is set for a BOPP will not cut at Paper liner for long without it wearing out fast.

B.) Another issue you could have is the type of cutting tool and what size it is. There are two types of cutting tools 1.) Magnetic and 2.) hard tools. Mag tools are like a sheet of metal with small cutting blades on them and they wrap around a large magnetic cylinder. Hard tools are solid cylinder of machined metal. I mages of both below.

C.) The tool size can cause issues too. A 13” wide tool will not fit on a 10” wide press.