A score in the paper world is a deep crease in the paper that allows the fold to be crisp and clean. Without it, paper projects can show cracks and become crooked on the fold areas.
If you spend most of your crafting time working with vinyl, then you don’t have much use for it. But if you create cards or boxes, then you’ll definitely want to know the tricks to making them.
There is more than one way to create a score in Silhouette Studio. Cricut users also have score options, but since I’m a Silhouette crafter, I’ll be stepping you through that software. I’m also using a Cameo 3, which has a blade holder that accommodates two blades.
I have two favorite ways to create a score in Silhouette Studio:
- The faux score, which is really just a small perforation cut
- The Silhouette Studio Score, which still isn’t a true score, but it’s a little more finished looking.
I probably use the faux score 99% of the time, partly because it’s the easiest to set up, and partly because I don’t mind the end result. It’s really a personal choice – I encourage you to try out both on some scrap paper and see which way you prefer.
Faux Score
To create a faux score in Silhouette Studio, you’ll want to open a design file that needs a score. In the Design Menu, select the lines that you want to change to scores, and then choose a dashed line pattern from the line menu. There are several dashed lines to choose from – I usually pick the second dashed line option (it’s in gray in the screen shot below).
Many file designers (myself included) will indicate the lines that need to become scores with a color to make it easier to find them. I also make those lines a compound path, so if you select one, they all get selected and you can change them to the dashed line all at once.
And that’s it!
Send the file to cut using the correct settings for the paper stock. Once the file is finished cutting, remove it from the mat and then fold it on the score lines to assemble.
Silhouette Studio Score
It’s also possible to create a score in Silhouette Studio that doesn’t have the dashed cuts. That score option is located in the Send Menu. To use it, you’ll open your file, and get everything but those score lines all set up to cut. Then choose Send from the upper right corner.
In the Send Menu, select the paper stock for Tool 1.
Then expand the menu for Tool 2 by clicking the triangle next to the blue dot so that you can see the options there.
In the Tool 2 menu, make sure the material selected matches Tool 1
Select the lines you want to score, and then choose “Score” as the cut type in the Tool 2.
If you don’t see the option for Score, then you may have a material selected in Tool 2 that is too thin for Silhouette Studio to recommend a score (like vinyl or copy paper). Be sure both tools show the correct cardstock setting for your project.
If you’ve done this correctly, you should have lines for your project that are red which will cut, and lines that are blue which will score.
You’ll need two blades for this – put the blade for the cuts in left (red) slot in the blade holder, and put the blade for the score in the right (blue) side of the blade holder. Normally on a Cameo 3, the left blade is the autoblade, so you don’t have to set it up, but the Ratchet blade in the right side needs to have the depth of the blade set manually to the recommended setting (in the example above, I set it to “2”).
Load your mat with the paper, and send the file to cut. The machine will make two passes – it will cut all the cut lines first, and then reset itself to go back and do the scores.
The difference is slight, but might be important to you, depending on the project. Below is a photo of the inside of this box I’m cutting – the box on the left shows the Silhouette Score, which is smooth. The box on the right is “scored” using the dashed line, and you can see the dashed cuts.
The difference is slightly more visible on the outside – this photo shows the Silhouette Score, which is straight line.
And this photo below shows the dashed cut lines that result from that faux method.
As I said at the beginning, I usually just go with the dashed line method since it’s a little easier to set up (only uses one blade) and I’m not sure the end result is that much different. But that’s the great thing about crafting – to each his/her own!
Now that you know the ins and outs of setting a score, how about a project to try it out on? Through the end of February 2020, you can score a 20% discount on a gift card holder box in my Etsy shop. Just use code SCORE20 at checkout.
Pin this for when you need to set up a score for a project in Silhouette Studio.
