Brand new wondering how I will know if I can do vinyl

1839 Views 15 Replies 9 Participants Last post by Corel Whisperer, May 9, 2012

drdoct

Discussion Starter · May 6, 2012

I'm sure I'm searching wrong but I'm brand new like waiting on my replacement blade and blade protector strip brand new.

I have a dumb question but am trying to get ready while waiting on the little brown truck which doesn't deliver over the weekend.

How do you know if you can cut a design with vinyl? Is there a program or something you can use as a measure to tell if it's going to be too thin or small? The only reason why I even suspect there is something like this is because I sent something to Stahl's for a quote and they responded back that they couldn't cut it. Is there some sort of general guidelines or rules I should follow? Also a way to measure it would be greatly appreciated.

I got a used gx24 and the blade and protector are really hosed and don't cut very well (nothing usable anyway). I purchased a cleancut detail 45degree blade and a replacement protector which should be in hopefully Monday if it even shipped yet. Right now I got a few different rolls of sign vinyl because it's cheap. I also got a little t-shirt but don't want to play with it since it's triple the price or more.
oh and thanks

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lben

· #2 · May 6, 2012

2

You can get cheap shirts from thrift stores to practice on.

What you need is vector file artwork. If they couldn't cut it, it might be because the graphic was in raster rather than just too small. You can get some pretty hairy details with a good blade. I'm including 2 pics to give you an idea of detail. One is a deer head that I cut on sign vinyl to see if it was possible to cut this kind of detail. The graphic is about 1.5" square.

The other one is a monogram for my nursing uniform that is about 4 inches high. So as you can see you can get some really detailed cuts, but you absolutely have to have vector art in wire frame for it to cut. And a lot of patience when you are weeding it!

Programs that create vector art are adobe illustrator, coreldraw graphics suite, and then there is at least one free one that you can get online, but I don't remember the name of it.

I have a graphtec ce5000-60 cutter/plotter and mine came with software the works directly through illustrator and coreldraw. I don't know what kind of software comes with the roland, but there are a lot of people here who have a roland and I'm sure they'll know if your cutter came with software or not and what it's compatible with.

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mmonk

· #3 · May 6, 2012

Couldn't or wouldn't?? I am just getting into vinyl cutting. The biggest thing is that it has to be in vector format...adobe Illy, coreldraw, Inkscape etc. From what I understand, it is possible to have to many "complicated lines" in some images making it hard or impossible to cut with a vinyl cutter.

drdoct

Discussion Starter · #4 · May 6, 2012

Pretty much everything I do is in vector format. It was a simple design on the left chest logo spot. Maybe the lettering ended up being too small. I just remember that they wrote me back saying they couldn't do the work. I ended up getting transfers from F&M, but I was just wondering because of that. I figured if Stahl's couldn't do it then it must be impossible, but I guess not. I think once I get my machine to cutting I'll try it out just to see.

Blue92

· #5 · May 6, 2012

You can take the detail level down to the point where weeding it is more of a problem than cutting it.

This is a partially weeded left chest 4" tall by 3" that we do fairly often.

When completely weeded all of the leaves on the outside vines will look like the two leaves on the bottom left and the vine on the right will be separated from the shield just like the left side is.

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lben

· #6 · May 6, 2012

There is always the possibility that they didn't want to spend hours doing the weeding.

ChefScott

· #7 · May 6, 2012

Could you post an image of the design? That could help us understand why they could not do the job.

Nick Horvath

· #8 · May 8, 2012

I would like to see the design as well.

drdoct

Discussion Starter · #9 · May 8, 2012

Let me figure out the picture posting and I'll get it up. Like I say... I think it was the small font under the graphic, but that's just my guessing.

drdoct

Discussion Starter · #10 · May 8, 2012

Hopefully this will work.

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Nick Horvath

· #11 · May 8, 2012

drdoct said:
Hopefully this will work.

We recently began custom cutting a wider range of materials that we carry, so this logo may be do able now. I am suspecting that it was declined because of the level of detail was too much for the material selected.

drdoct

Discussion Starter · #12 · May 8, 2012

I went back and searched through my emails and found it. I didn't start this trying to bash y'all, in fact I love Stahl's. There are things that are near impossible to cut and I didn't hold it against Stahl's at all. In fact, it was just because I tested out a bunch of samples that you had sent that I even thought about doing this with vinyl instead of plastisol from F&M. I went with F&M and it was great. Here's a copy and past of the email. I wasn't that satisfied with the weight of the cad printz or I would have done it that way. I was wanting to do it in premium plus because the sample was so awesome that I couldn't even feel it.

Hello: Your design is too small and detailed to be cut in Premium Plus or any other Cad-Cut material. This estimate is for a Cad-Printz Digital Transfer in Expressprint. We will need to add an outline around the design in order to be able to cut it. Please NOTE that our minimum Cad-Printz order is $25. For your design, that would be a quantity of 30 pieces. Please call with questions. Thank you.

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34Ford

· #13 · May 8, 2012

I recently did 83 shirts for a local retirement home with more detail than this using easyweed and although the weeding was long and boring, the final outcome looked way better than the screen pressed shirts they had done previously.

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Leachcd

· #14 · May 8, 2012

They just want to do easy jobs, and make fast money.. You can do it but it will take some time to weeeeeed.... Somthing like that I use CorelDraw X5 and cut from there.. and make sure you slow down your cutter and check your overcut..

mmonk

· #15 · May 9, 2012

Leachcd said:
They just want to do easy jobs, and make fast money.. You can do it but it will take some time to weeeeeed.... Somthing like that I use CorelDraw X5 and cut from there.. and make sure you slow down your cutter and check your overcut..

They have good prices and selection on their vinyl heat transfer, but its 1/4 of the price now that I can do it with my cutter.

Corel Whisperer

· #16 · May 9, 2012

drdoct said:
Hopefully this will work.

Depending on the finished size, my quess is the issue was with the "Home Health Services" it it was a full back it would be cut and weedable without issue. However if it was for a left chest the bottom line, depending on the material would be a PITA to weed and not loose letters. If you are going to do this in-house I would but a box around the small text so it could be weeded after the rest of the design was done.
Just my $.02
CW

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