How to Clean a Silhouette Cameo Blade (Tutorial)

Does this scenario sound familiar?  You’ve had your Cameo for awhile, it has been cutting along just fine, but suddenly it is tearing paper on the edges?  Or maybe you just cut some vinyl and can see a little piece stuck inside the blade?  Is your blade completely done for?  Nope!  All you need to do is open it up and clean it out.  See below for detailed directions and learn how easy it is to clean out your Silhouette Cameo blade!

The first thing to note is there are two different styles of Silhouette Cameo blades.  Let’s take a closer look…

Can you see the oh – so – subtle difference?  Blade #1 has a slightly different top than blade #2.  This difference makes blade #1 a lot easier to clean than #2!  Let’s talk quickly about blade #1.

Blade #1 has a screw off top.  Do you see how it has a little stair step (right where the arrow is pointing) – that shows you it is the screw-off type blade.  Simply grab the top part of the white and give it a quick twist!

Clean out anything on the inside and then you can just twist it right back on. Blade #1 is the newer style of blade and I am so happy that Silhouette created this new design, it is so much easier to open!

Blade #2 is a little tricker.

Blade #2 is the older version of the Cameo blade.  You’ll need the “ratchet adjusting cap” (the little gray thingy) to get this type of blade open.  Each replacement blade comes with one, but you can also find it right on your machine.

Line up the the ratchet adjusting cap (look for the little arrow) with the red mark on your blade. In order to get blade #2 open, you’ll need to turn your blade all the way to 0, so turn counter clock wise (to your right) until the arrow is pointing at 0.

Next, you’ll want to continue to turn counter clock wise towards the 10, then the 9 and so on.  It might be a little hard to do it at first, but you will not break your blade doing this.  NOTE: you should not need to grab the pliers!  If it’s not “giving” – you may want to try with another blade.  If you are really forcing it, it might not be able to be opened this way!   As you twist, you’ll start to see a gap (you’ll notice it around 5 or 6).

Once you see a gap like the one above, you can take off the ratchet adjusting cap and tug the two ends apart.

Now that you have your blade open, you can clean it out!  To put the blade back together, you’ll want to line up the little black bumps on the blade base piece with the channels on the top piece and push it back together.  You’ll need your ratchet cap again, just twist the top clockwise until the blade is back together.  You will need to push it together and should hear a little click.

Not too bad right?!  Of course we have Silhouette blades on our website, but we also have Silhouette’s full line of products too!  Check out our Silhouette category here!

Oh!  In case you were wondering, these Silhouette blades are universal so you can use them in all Silhouette electronic cutting tools, not just the Cameo!

Happy crafting!
Kala