Discuss the various aspects of heat pressed vinyl transfers. Popular and new types of vinyl media, suppliers, vinyl cutters /plotters, press times, quality, how to instructions and more can be found in this heat press sub forum.
Hi there all,
been following this forum for a while, as I am interested in all sides of print.
I have a question that you guys might be able to help me with.
I am based in the UK and I am trying to find a small cheap cutter which has an optical eye for the reference marks, def smaller than 30cm cutting width.
This is not for work its mainly because all my friends keep wanting me to make them t-shirts and it seems to be a fun thing to do.
All the cutter that you talk about are too expensive for what I need it for.
the problem with the smaller ones is you are limited from the start to how big your design is and from my experience the small ones are not much good.
I bought a Cutok A3 and sold it a week later because it was useless. The rollers could not be adjusted so I always had to cut an A3 sheet, which wasted a lot of vinyl and I could not cut offcuts unless they were A3 at least. The cut was not good and if I tried a simple circle it would come out oval or the cut would not line up. I don't know about other A4 or A3 cutters but if they are the same as mine was I would say stay away.
A larger one can be bought off ebay for £180-£250 which is not much more than the small ones.
Why do you need an opical eye? That's used to cut around printed transfers, are you using transfers or garment vinyl?
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trying to help, sometimes i don't!
Thanks for the reply,
Yes, if i get a cutter I really would like one with the laser eye, so that I can use it for vinyl or transfers. giving me the option of making full colour graphics for the t-shirts.
also the main reason i don't need a big one is because all the work done on it will be small and i will be keeping it in my bedroom, and although my bedroom is big, with a computer and desk i have very little extra room for a free standing cutter. there must be a soloution out there.
or do you think I can get away with cutting transferes by being just carefull on how I feed the paper? to me that sounds like its a recipe for disaster.
They are not that big really, I kept mine under the bed for a while, it was not on a stand so I just got it out whenever I needed to and put it on a small table.
The problem with 'making do' and being careful is you will find yourself wasting a lot of materials and it's very frustrating. They work so quick sometimes, the machine starts cutting, you realise it's going wrong and by the time you are able to stop it the damage is done.
I take it you have a heat press?
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trying to help, sometimes i don't!
hehehe yep i got a 38x38 heat press from ebay a few months ago, a bit battered but its worked fine on the 4 transfers that i have done, and cutting them out by hand is a real pain. this is why I thought of asking.
can you recommend a brand to use, which cutter to go for, if the bigger ones are better then i'll go for it. As i have no experiance in this field I am not sure which cutter will be good for an amature like me.
its the Craft Robo cutter.
It says it has an optical eye for refrence, any1 use this cutter before and is the optical alignment any good.
For small runs of stuff would this be a good buy for me.
Hi,
Since you're only planning to do your designs less than 30 cms then the craftrobo could be a good choice. But as Lee said you will be limited to that size unless you can break your design for it to be in two parts.
small vinyl cutter. 
Re: small vinyl cutter. 
there must be a soloution out there. 
