As for drawing, that would depend on the design. You can use permanent marker pens in the cougar cutter to draw your design, however you would need to manually change pen colour if you needed more than one colour, providing the plastic is not removed from the machine this would be quite a simple matter of swapping pens and selecting the next colour to draw.

I would strongly encourage you to contact Dawn at http://www.thymegraphics.co.uk/contact.asp and ask her to grant you guest membership to the blackcat forum where there are hundreds of very helpful crafters who will answer any questions you may have regarding the cutters, software and how to draw and cut shrink plastic

As I say to everyone though, ask Dawn for guest membership of the forum before you purchase. Ask the members as many questions as you can think of, everyone will be happy to help. These machines are quite expensive so it is best to be absolutely sure it is what you need before investing.

But I saw the cougar on create and craft and was intrigued. Im so glad I found your blog
with so much informatiion im sold I think its got to be the cougar. and im glad I did not waste
my money because these are all substantial buys at one time or another. I have made templates
by cutting out card but need a machine to do the work. thanks
and I will add you to my crafting buddies

I count myself lucky to have found your site from my first ‘google’ as you have put so much helpful information on here. I must admit that the price of the cougar is rather daunting – I am partially disabled due to having M.E. for more years than I want to think about – so my finances are very restricted but I may ask for money for Christmas and birthday etc.

I am going to email Dawn and ask for a guest membership to the blackcat forum before I make any decision but I do feel drawn towards the Cougar and it’s lack of limitations. I use graphic packages to create elements of may of my cards, as I can’t afford to buy all the necessary dies and other items I would need to enable me to make the things I want. I mainly make cards but would like to be able to make boxes and other, more ambitious items.

I have a large family, including 10 grandchildren and numerous great nieces and nephews – all the children, nieces and nephews are adults now but I like to make things for them too and I try to make individual cards for all my family and friends. Christmas is a real challenge too as I made all my cards for that last year, for the first time – they weren’t ALL individual designs but a lot of them were. My illness is often the biggest limitation but I think I would find it all much easier with a cutter – You can see I am talking myself into this.

I’ve been far too long-winded already, so will cease and desist now, except to say a big THANK YOU, for all the information.

The two machines are pretty much the same, the only differences are the force and number of steps for force and speed. The Cougar has 950g or force the lynx has 500g, basically the Cougar will cut thicker materials in one pass such as 1.5mm chipboard. You can still cut thicker materials with the lynx but it may require 2 or 3 passes, so if you would only occasionally need to cut chipboard or similar heavy materials then the lynx may well serve your needs.

Either way is is a significant purchase, I would REALLY urge you to contact Dawn (dawn@thymegraphics.co.uk) and ask her for details of the blackcat forum and a guest membership and ask as many questions as you can before taking the plunge – there are hundreds of very devoted crafters on there who will be more than happy to explain everything you could wish to know.

If you buy you get full access to the forum, it is HUGE, as a guest you only get to see a fraction of it. There are thousands of templates, if you need a template you can almost guarantee someone will have it and share it for free, the forum is worth as much as the machine!!!

Ken thank you

Ken thank you