Vendor Spotlight & GIVEAWAY!: Spellbinders Grand Calibur

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Reported by Kandi Phillips
The Grand Calibur by Spellbinders is the latest and greatest in the die-cutting world! With its innovative wider platform for cutting multiple dies, and the brand new Grand Nestabilities, this machine was made for die-cut lovers! The Grand Calibur was made specifically to cut and emboss all Spellbinders die templates, and also works on a variety of other dies including Cuttlebug® and Quickutz® dies, along with Cuttlebug® embossing folders and Fiskars® texture plates when used with a spacer plate.
Upon opening your box you’ll find the instructions, plates and handle in the top of the package.

The handle is easily attached by sliding it in place on the silver post on the right-hand side and snapping it into place.


There is a white knob on the front of the machine to engage the rubber base to prevent from sliding while in use. Move the knob to the right to gradually increase the pressure. Now, I may be a wimp, but I found that it became increasingly difficult to lock it into place the further I went.



On both the packaging of the dies and on the sliding tray on the machine it shows instructions for cutting and embossing so you can start right away. No need to read lots of instructions, you’re ready to go as soon as you put your handle on!





One of the complaints I’ve read about on this machine is that when using paper that is 8 1/2" wide, a 1/4" paper edge gets curled up when passing your plate sandwich through the machine. I honestly didn’t have a problem with this as I as working, but if it bothers you or you’d rather not fuss with it, you can always remove your tray. This video from Spellbinders shows you how to remove the tray safely.



One of the things I was most excited about was the large plate size! You can fit numerous smaller dies onto this plate and cut your die-cutting time in half!

I loaded the base plate up with dies from PaperTrey Ink® and two Sizzix Sizzlet® dies. Unfortunately the Sizzix® dies I used were too large to pass through the machine. I had to reverse the handle to get the sandwich back out and you can see exactly where it failed to cut through; however, I was very pleased with the quality of cuts and the ability to cut several dies in one pass.

I read that you could use Sizzlets®, but after doing some research on the FAQ page it states you need the W-025 Raspberry Spacer Plate in place of the cutting plate. Unfortunately you can’t cut the large Bigz® dies with the Grand Calibur or emboss with the Sizzix® embossing plates as they’re too large to fit in the machine.

I then moved the dies that were cut out on the Grand Calibur over to my Big Shot Express® to do a side-by-side comparison. All dies fit onto my Big Shot Express® plates, and as a plus all I had to do was push a button to roll these through. That is one of the downsides to the Calibur in my opinion. It takes at least 30 revolutions to get the plates to completely pass to the back side and after working with it a few hours my arm definitely got a work out!
Although I love the quickness and ease of using my Big Shot Express®, I can’t neglect how crisp the cuts are from the Grand Calibur in comparison. Also, since I had several dies on the plate I wasn’t able to get an even pressure and two dies didn’t cut all the way though.



Although this picture may only show a few flaws and you can’t see the small fringes on the edges of the Big Shot die-cuts, I can promise you the difference is clear when viewing them in person.

I recently purchased some dies from PaperTrey Ink® that I was having difficulties with in my Big Shot Express®. I couldn’t find the right stack to get complete cuts and was feeling very frustrated with my purchase. Seeing how well the Grand Calibur cut through those other dies I thought this would be a perfect test of its cutting abilities.

Sure enough each piece cut through perfectly and left no edges. Imagine my excitement and relief!

As you can see each die has issues in my Big Shot Express®. Some areas are cut while others you’d have to actually cut out just to get to the die.

After getting a good idea on what this machine could do I pulled out various items to test and compare to my Big Shot Express®. In the picture below you can see what an incredible difference using the Grand Calibur makes.

When using the Big Shot Express® with the cork I was able to cut out a fairly accurate shape, but it still left much to be desired. The felt didn’t go through at all, and with the balsa wood I had to manually cut it out in one place and had frayed edges from the paper backing.

Next, I thought it might be fun to cut out some shaped Post-Its©! I’ve seen adorably cute shapes in the store but never wanted to pay the outrageous prices for a simple shape. Keeping the top sticky half below the top of the die I lined them up to create the shape.
They came out great and now I have some cute sticky notes to use as I please for a fraction of the cost!

Looking around my craft room I wanted to find more medi to cut with. I grabbed some tissue paper and the largest scallop Grand Nestabilities die to cut out over eight layers at once!

I then tried the same thing with a sewing pattern and the smaller die to create a flower blossom. Start by punching a hole in the center and adding a brad. Crinkle each layer to the center and then smooth them back out to a flower shape.





As a side-by-side comparison you can see the difference from the largest to the smallest scallop die:


EDITOR'S NOTE: How super cute are these flowers?! Kandi had so much fun playing, we had to split her article up into two parts! Stay tuned to see what else Kandi did with the Spellbinders Grand Calibur!

GIVEAWAY!
Our friends at Spellbinders have given us a set of Grand Scalloped Circles AND a set of Large Format Circles (which coordinate) to give to one lucky reader (that's a $100 value!). Just leave a comment on either of today's blog posts answering this question:

Check out the new line of Grand Caliber Nestibilities Dies... which set is your 'must-have'? What would you do with it?

One comment per person, per article, please. Winner will be selected on Friday, April 29, 2011.

Disclosure