How to Cut Siser® Vinyl on the Romeo® 24″ High-Definition Cutter

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? For some of you the answer may be right next you or in your workshop or on a shelf at the store. If you’re the latter, what are you waiting for? With Romeo® in your life you can cut quickly and quietly while taking on large projects or lots of little ones. From vinyl like HTV and PSV to cardstock, craft foam, and so much more- Romeo rules them all. But don’t be shy of this extraordinary cutting king- keep reading and by the end of this blog post you’ll be ready for your first adventure with Romeo!

All the accessories that come with the Romeo™ 24 inch cutter including the Romeo Roll Holder.

Romeo™ comes with a 12" x 12" High Tack Cutting Mat, two 45° Blades, one 60° Blade, Blade Housing, Marker Adapter, Material Roll Holder, USB Cord, Power Cord and Power Supply.

Adjust the Blade

Before we begin, let’s take a look at the main characters in this cutting show. Each Romeo comes with 2 types of blades and 1 blade holder. The 45° blade and 60° blade both fit inside the Blade Holder so when buying replacements, you only need to purchase the blades themselves. A 45° blade is great for general use and a 60° blade is ideal for thicker materials (like Brick® 600 and Glitter HTV) and extra fine details. These are also the same accessories Juliet® uses so you can interchange them easily if you have both Siser cutters!

Blades and Blade Holder for the Siser Juliet High Definition Cutter.

This style of blade is common for professional cutters and gives you the ability to finely adjust how much of the blade is exposed so you can have super precise cuts. Small, but mighty- you’ll need less of the blade out than you might think! The length of a credit card’s thickness (that’s less than 1mm!) will do the trick for most projects. To bring the blade further in or out, loosen the golden screw at the top then twist the red barrel until the blade reaches the desired length and tighten the golden screw to lock it in place. Check out this video to watch how the blade is adjusted.

The proper way to load the Blade Holder in the machine head on Romeo.

Once adjusted, be sure to place the Blade Holder so that it’s groove is below the knob on the Tool Holder (as shown in the image above.) If the blade is placed with the groove above the knob, it will not be able to cut properly (as shown in the image below.)

The improper way to load the Blade Holder in the machine head on Romeo.

Keep in mind that some materials (such as glitter cardstock or felt) wear down a blade quicker. Many people set aside certain blades for certain materials so other blades can stay sharper longer.

Cut With or Without a Mat

Romeo is well equipped for matless cutting of many sizes! With 4 grit rollers and 7 grit markers, you can cut materials from 2″ wide up to 25.5″. Cutting without a mat can speed up your workflow, but if you prefer a cutting mat there are many that are compatible.

Siser Cutting Mats come in several sizes:

12″ x 12″ Light Tack
12″ x 12″ High Tack
12″ x 24″ High Tack

The 12in x12in Light and High Tack Cutting Mats as well as the 12in x 24in High Tack Cutting Mat for the Juliet cutter.

Align and Load Material or Mat

Whether you decide to use a mat or not you’ll want to load the media in the machine as straight as possible. We made this super easy to do by providing a few guidelines. When using a cutting mat, line up the edge of the mat with the arrows on the left edge. When not using a cutting mat, you can take advantage of the full 25.5 cutting width and ignore the arrows. From there you can choose the front lip or first crease line to bump the mat or material up to and lock it in place.

Feeding a long sheet of material through the Siser® Romeo™ 24 inch cutter.

While adjusting the material, make sure the main lever in the back is lowered so that the pinch rollers are up and out of the way. When everything is lined up nice and straight, raise the lever to bring the rollers back down. Lastly, use the arrows on the touch screen to move the material until the blade is aligned with the bottom left corner. Now you’re almost ready for your first cut! Want to watch one first? Check out how Romeo slices through StripFlock® Pro with ease in this video.

How To Test Cut with Romeo

A test cut is the most important step you can take at the beginning of every project. This small act is the best way to reduce wasted material, time, and effort. We treasure test cutting so much that we built it right into the home screen on the user interface! Look for the little t-shirt shape in the bottom, right corner of the touch screen and tap it whenever you want to do a test cut right there on the spot!

Romeo's touchscreen showing material settings and the test cut feature.

The touch screen holds more than just the test cut option! It also comes loaded up with a variety of pre-set cut settings to choose from. Select whichever is most applicable to your material and press the t-shirt shape to perform a test cut right on the spot where your blade is positioned. Once cut, there’s no need to unload the mat or material. Simply touch the down arrow to advance the material forward, weed the test cut right on the machine, make your adjustments, and test cut again if needed.

How do you know if you need to test cut again? Keep reading to find out!

Weeding a test cut from Pressure Sensitive Vinyl on the Romeo 24 inch cutter.

How to Spot A Good Test Cut for HTV and PSV

A test cut is great but if you’re not sure what makes it good enough to move forward with then it’s not going to be much help. Here are the 3 signs of a good cut for any kind of vinyl:

Sign #1: Easy Weeding

Start by weeding the innermost circle then the t-shirt shape. If you can remove both shapes with little to no resistance, that it is a good sign!

Sign #2: Barely There Cut Lines

After weeding out the shapes, look closely to see if the shape is etched into the carrier. If you can’t see any cut lines on the carrier after removing the t-shirt shape, or if they’re faintly visible- that is a good sign!

Sign #3: Complete Shapes

If each shape weeds out complete without catching in any corners or resisting being removed away from the rest of the sheet- that is a good sign!

But what if your test cut didn’t give you any of these results? Here are a couple common bad test cuts and how to fix them.

How to Fix a Bad Test Cut with HTV and PSV

Scenario #1: Cut Too Light

If your shapes are impossible to weed out, or you can get them out but it takes some effort and the edges are stuck in spots so it’s not a clean cut, then it’s likely the cut was not deep enough.

Scenario #2: Cut Too Deep

If your shapes weed out easily, but so does the backing of the vinyl then you know you cut too deep. Cutting clear through the material is an obvious sign of cutting too deep. But you can also get a clue the cut is too deep by feeling the material from the carrier or liner side of the material. If you can feel the cut line from the opposite side that you're cutting on, then you most likely to back off a bit.

The Fix

So how do you fix these flawed cuts? The first step is to adjust your force. Using the arrows or sliding the bar across the screen, select a lower or higher number (all the way up to 160!) depending on which problem you’re experiencing, and test cut again. If the cut is still not quite right after going through the force numbers, then you can adjust your blade length and try again. All this trial and error may seem unnecessary, but it’s better to fine tune your settings on a smaller scale before tackling a huge project and finding out the vinyl is impossible to weed afterwards.

Once you’ve found the sweet spot setting, you can save over the pre-set or save it as a brand new one right on Romeo’s touch screen. Just keep in mind that over time, the blade will wear down and the setting may need to be adjusted again. That’s why we recommend doing a test cut before every project.

Start Your First Project with Romeo

Now you’re ready to start your first project with Romeo and Leonardo™ Design Studio! You can learn more about the compatible software in this video. And you can even download a trial version right here on the Siser North America website before purchasing Romeo from retailers like Michaels Craft Stores, Joann Fabric and Craft Stores, or your local Authorized Distributor (email us at Info@SiserNA.com to find an Authorized Distributor today!) Of course, if you already bought Romeo then Leo comes along for free!

Need a refresher on the vinyl basics before jumping in? I got you covered! Check out this Beginner Basics blog post for a list of terms you need to know!

Or maybe you’re ready to move on to something more complex? Lucky for you, Romeo is also capable of print and cut so you can make full color logos! Plus you can even swap out the blade for a Siser Sublimation Marker. Keep your eye on our YouTube channel for these tutorials and more coming soon!