Nick manufacturing

What are nicks

Nicks are notches made on the cutting rules to prevent the cutting of the media at the respective locations. The resulting uncut sections ensure that despite having being cut, the media remains in one piece and can be moved on further to the next sections stages of the converting process. The nicks can be made manually, by means of a nick grinder, by a rule-bending machine, or with digital machines.

Types of nicks

In Package Designer you can use three types of nicks:

Gaps (Applicable for the machines of the Israeli manufacturer of digital cutting and creasing machines Highcon) The place on the media where the cutting line is interrupted so that the cutting design remains in one piece.


The nick as marked in the bridges drawing	In an exported file, the gap indicates the place on the cutting contour where the digital machine does not cut the media.

Rule-bender objects (Applicable for rule bending machines) These are objects that indicate the places where notches must be made on the cutting rules by a rule-bending machine.


The nick as marked in the bridges drawing	The visual division indicates the place on the cutting rule where a notch will be made by the rule-bending machine.

Position markers (Applicable for manually made nicks) These are physical markers that indicate the places where the diemaker makes a nick on the cutting rule by using a cutting tool — most often an angle grinder or nick grinder. In the program you set the marker's length. In exported files, the places are indicated by the point that separates highlighted and nonhighlighted sections. When the drawing is sent to the CAM module, you can associate the nicks with a tool filter — for example, in the Engraving style. Position markers appear engraved on the dieboard — the cutter only engraves them: it does not cut the entire thickness of the dieboard.

The position marker (in black) as it appears in the bridges drawing. The marker's length is the actual length of the marker on the dieboard.