Silhouette And CB09 Blades

I finally bought the CB09 holder and blades for my Silhouette, for these reasons:

1. Most of all, for the 60° blade (counter-intuitively, 60° is the narrower blade). I hope this lets me cut more materials and finer designs.
2. The blades are less than 1/3 the price of Silhouette's
3. The blades might last longer

The holder came in this nifty plastic container. A bit too big.

It came with 5 blades. The seller was very nice - I asked to mix 3 60° blades and 2 45° and they obliged. The blue and red caps cover the blade, making them easy to handle, and the colour indicates the angle. They also came with 5 springs.

About the holder - I figured out how to use it on my own. The silver knob adjusts the blade protrusion ("thickness"). To install the blade, you remove the coloured cover on the blade, put a spring on the pointy end, unscrew the black cap, put the blade and spring so the blunt end is in the silver part of the holder and the pointy end is sticking out, carefully replace the black cap, threading the pointy end through the hole and tighten. While you're looking at it, wow the hole in the black cap for the blade is really small. It actually looks smaller than the blade.

Yes, it is slightly inconvenient without the "thickness-by-numbers" ratchet, but it's quite easy to test if your protrusion is enough (try to hold the blade and holder in your hand and try and cut the material), and it's ok if it's a bit too much. I don't intend to change my thickness much. Actually, I intend to only use 60° blades in the future, for ease of inventory and remembering settings. As long as they last as long as the original blade, I'll be happy.

My holder was a bit tight in the machine, but I didn't have to sand it.

I tried to improve the blade's plastic container, so the bottom of the CB09 could be suspended, in case there was some blade protruding. Here, the bottom is in contact with the container:

I cut a 3.3 mm wide piece of card with perforations every 3 mm, and folded it into a zig-zag manner. 3.3 mm is slightly longer than the length of the holder below the rim, and 3 mm is about the difference in thickness between the holder and container:

It works pretty well. You have to experiment to find the amount of overlap for the card, though.

No more touching!