ShaneGreen

I like your vinyl storage solution Mz Skeeter. I need to give that a try with some of these rolls I don't need to get at very often, the rest is hanging on the wall. What I'm really looking for is ways of storing completed decals. If I'm cutting a file that doesn't use up the full 24" I'll sometimes cut misc. decals out of the excess at the same time. Just stuff I give away as samples. But they start to pile up after a while and need a decent way to store them. Going to try Dakota's accordion file one of these days.

Can you get a screen shot of the left-hand menu and then the bottom of your work area? That will tell what mode you are in, etc. It will make trouble shooting a whole lot easier.

That's a "context sensitive toolbar" so it's content changes depending on what you are doing. Does it disappear and the work area moves up into it's place or does it just turn gray or does it go black? It will turn gray/tan when you are using a tool like the node-editor that doesn't have any extra settings until a node is clicked. Once you click on some part of a design the node-editor has something to work with and the toolbar populates with usable tools. I occasionally have the entire upper set of toolbars turn black when I have too many large tabs open. The only way to get it back is to close down a few files.

Took a week to get an answer, but VinylMaster tech support says that "Favorite Fonts" isn't part of the US Cutter version of VM Pro. I love the software, but trying to figure out which options go with what versions is a friggin nightmare.

I like that idea. There should be an accordion folder laying around here somewhere, I'll have to give it a try. Thanks! Now to find something for these longer ones.

Thanks Haumana, but that's what I'm doing and it's not there. Even tried pulling one from the Font Manager and it doesn't show up.

I went to Future Corp for the VM support. Hopefully they will be quicker than US Cutter. I haven't had the best of luck with them. Love the products and pricing, but customer service seems to be hit-or-miss.

Yes, I think I'll have to send a support request. I looked and some of the files have Saturday's date on them, so it did update something.

Yes, ran the exe.

LOL. . .Dakota. I read that and went "well crap, I did reboot...didn't I?" So just to make sure, I've rebooted and reopened VM. No change

I went to the website and downloaded the latest. Still says V4.0 and "updated 12/19/17." Is there another way to update it? I thought it updated automatically.

The blue arrow to activate the menu doesn't appear until you start typing text on the arc.

You also have to start typing some text on the arc before the blue arrow appears. It's not exactly intuitive, but it does show up.

I have VM Pro V4.0 and can't find that heart shaped button.

Reverse graffiti is just starting to catch on in the US, but it's been going strong for quite a few years in Europe. As long as you aren't slandering, advertising for profit and you stay on public property it's usually not considered vandalism by the courts. I've been looking at doing some to promote the local public library.

I went to VM's youtube channel and whatched EVERY video, even the ones that didn't apply to me, and took a ton of notes. Rewinding and watching important parts over again. Then I upgraded to VM Pro and haven't looked back. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but it's a well thought out piece of software. It also has a number of features in Pro that are great when you're cutting multiple designs or copies. It seems to be focused on you running a vinyl business vs crafting. Just my 2 cents. . .

I got a bunch of Greenstar interior and exterior vinyl with my cutter and burned through a lot of it learning. Then I ordered some Oracal 651 and couldn't believe the difference. The 651 is 10x better to work with. It doesn't stretch as easily, it cuts smoother in curves, finer details hold up, etc. Do yourself a huge favor and stay away from the Greenstar, and cricut and any of the other low-end "house brand" vinyls. The little bit of price difference will pay for itself in how much better it cuts.

Love this idea Haumana! I just did some temporary and it was a royal pain to remove. Next time I'll use your trick!

Definitely get you a "CleanCut" blade. It cuts reflective so much better. Slow down as slow as it can go and you may still have to do 2 passes. I have a LP II and have spent days testing and retesting reflective. I've finally settled on: - a 60 degree CleanCut blade, - 450g of force. "Force" seems to be pretty relative and varies from machine to machine. I cut 651 at 125g but I've seen people say they use anywhere from 50 to 200. But mine needs roughly 3 1/2 times the force to cut reflective. - a speed of 100. That's the slowest mine will go. - two passes. It will cut in one pass the majority of the time, but I cut larger decals and when it doesn't complete the cut I'm wasting a lot of time and money. - weed immediately. Reflective seems to self-heal a lot quicker than 651. - be careful of fine details. Things like the dot on the letter "i" may cause you problems staying stuck to the backing paper. - Test, test and test some more.

The window perf I had was something like 90% solid. It takes very little "holes" to allow in light and to see out, but you still get the vast majority of the heat reflecting benefits. It was way better than window tint.

I used to have a back window "tint" film that was regular black vinyl with thousands of small holes in it. It blocked the sun extremely well but still let in light and you could sort of see through it from the driver's seat. I've seen some fast food restaurants use something similar for printed window ads, I think they call it "window perf." The point I was getting to was, why not cut some tiny details in the vinyl to allow in a bit of light and add some style.

Most, if not all, of the cutlery and knife manufacturers have been designing with solid modeling for 20+ years. I don't recall the name of the function now, but unfolding and flattening the design is pretty simple and is perfect for a project like this. They can then export it in a file format you can use. It can't be too difficult, because they never complained when I'd ask for one. All of the tooling, jigs and fixtures I had to design as standard, flat blueprints as most of them where still manually made. The marketing department would have them convert the solid models to "3D" perspective illustrations for ads. The folks who designed packaging, well they literately took a flat blueprint and cut out a chunk of wood on a bandsaw for their mockups. I'd ask to talk to one of their draftsman and explain that what you want. It should be quick and painless.

I tried Adobe Bridge for a while and spent the a lot of time cussing it. If I added a new sub-directory it didn't always find it, which is a really weird problem for a piece of software to have. Then it would gobble up resources and bring my system to a standstill once or twice a day. I tried reinstalling, but it didn't help. I really wanted it to work, but in the end I began to wonder if it was written for a Mac and ported to PC. Maybe I'll give it a try again one of these days.

I was just using the reflective as an example. It being constructed the way it is, it has a tendency to delaminate if you do it wrong, which makes it easy to see that you're doing something wrong. I learned the right way through a few very expensive lessons. No matter what type of vinyl you are using, ALWAYS remove the backing paper from the vinyl & transfer tape. Never try to "lift the vinyl" from the backing paper. It may seem like two ways of saying the same thing, but it isn't. Peeling the backing paper back over the top of itself and sliding it off is the correct way to do it. Someone on here once gave a great description and I wish I could find it. Let me see if I can do it justice... A. The adhesive on the vinyl has to be strong enough to permanently stick to the final surface (rear window, wall, bumper, mug, etc.). B. The adhesive on the vinyl has to be week enough to release from the backing paper. To help this, the backing paper has a slightly waxy finish. This bond is also designed to release when the angle of force is greater than 90 degrees, so pulling the backing paper back over the top of itself goes way past 90 degrees. Simply put, you can't pull the two slices of bread apart on a grilled cheese sandwich because all of that gooey cheese across both surfaces is fighting against you. But if you grab one corner and peel it back you are only fighting the thin line where it's trying to separate. C. The transfer tape adhesive must be weaker than the bond between the vinyl and the final surface (bond A). If not, then you'd never get the vinyl to release from the transfer tape. D. The transfer tape adhesive must be stronger than the bond between the vinyl and the backing paper (bond B ) Logic says that the transfer tape can't be both weaker than and stronger than at the same time. Two things allow this: 1) The substrates. The adhesive has to stick better to the final surface than it does the backing paper, hence the waxy surface. 2) The removal force. Bonds A & C are almost always fighting forces applied to the vinyl at 90 degrees or less which is where they are the strongest. Bonds B & D are broken at an angle greater than 90. . . by folding the backing paper back over itself and that's where the bond is weakest. But if you try to break Bonds B & D by pulling up the transfer tape and vinyl you aren't passing 90% and you're fighting the strongest bond.

Keep in mind that the transfer tape should NOT "lift the vinyl." The backing paper should be peeled away from the vinyl. And be sure that you're pulling at a much larger than 90 degree angle...the backing paper that has released should almost be touching the backing paper that still needs to come off. It makes a huge difference on some vinyls and colors. I've got some Oracal 5600 white reflective laying here and reflective is sort of two-ply. The backing paper and adhesive are stuck to the bottom reflective layer and then the top layer is a semi-transparent colored vinyl. If you try to "lift the vinyl" with the transfer tape you'll end up with spots where the reflective layer stays stuck to the backing paper. At the price of reflective you'll learn that lesson real quick.