Scratchthejeepguy

I have an SC2 and have no HTV or heat press, but she wants me to make her a custom shirt. I've never even seen HTV. Can I get a small roll of vinyl and use an iron... successfully? I've heard using an iron for t shirts is a pain in the ass. Is it even worth trying?

I got a vinyl cutter so I could add fine details to my plasma cut metalwork. I've had the vinyl cutter for about a year now and still haven't combined the use of metalwork and vinyl...But a friend of mine is holding a Rib Fest and invited me to come, so I told him I'd make some sort of award like a plaque or something. I originally thought I'd simply cut out a piece of metal in the shape of a rack of ribs and decorate it with vinyl lettering so the winner could hang a plaque on their wall. Then this 30" tall thing happened... Can't wait to eat!

Congratulations, and the signs do look great! What's the size of the black section? Did you make them yourself or buy them built and painted?

I always bring a few small samples and try them on the walls. If they don't stick well for me, I won't even give them an option, I would just say something like "You have paint that is not good for vinyl" and walk away from the job. Life is too short to deal with difficult jobs, trying to find work-arounds for it, and ending up with a nightmare. That being said... I haven't encountered paint that my vinyl won't stick to. ...yet...

Thanks for the compliments. From the videos I've watched, a lot of them made a point to mention that the key to vinyl stencils was very little paint. I wonder if an airbrush would work? I think I remember that they put out a very light dry coat as it was going on. I think I still have one somewhere, maybe I'll dig it out and try it. Of course as long as I don't use boards with beveled edges, I should be ok.

Well, nobody seem to know a good answer for this and since I need to have it done by tomorrow morning, I decided just to try figuring it out myself. I did watch some YouTube videos but nobody covered the pallet seam issue. I think the main problem is that this pallet board has the edges of the boards beveled. If you flip it over the edges are not beveled and I wouldn't be having this problem. But it's too late now I pushed the vinyl down as best I could on the beveled seams, then did my basecoat, then topcoat. After it dried I peeled off the vinyl and there was some ugliness in the seams, so I got a toothpick and some gray basecoat paint and touched them up. It doesn't look perfect but it's pretty good still. I'll know not to use pallet boards with beveled seams anymore. Here's a finished pic;

I've done stenciling on wood signs before and they've turned out great. Here's my process: I paint the board, and once it's dry I apply the vinyl stencil. Then I paint the board again with the background color. Then once that's dry I paint the topcoat color. Once dry I peel off the vinyl and I have nice sharp, crisp lines with no bleed through underneath the edges of the vinyl. But with pallet boards I don't know how to do the seams of the pallet boards. I feel like if I use spray paint it will work good since the top coat will go straight on and won't get under the vinyl too much, but I think I remember having problems with the spray paint causing the vinyl to shrink. What's the best way to do this, I have attached some pictures of the places that I expect to have problems.

Nice! What's it say under THATS ENOUGH?

Thought I'd show off my biggest job to date. It went on both sides of a 21' racing sailboat. It was almost 20' long and almost 24" wide. Used black and red 751 and cut with my SC2. Turned out great and the customer was very happy! Before: After: I was (am) concerned with how long those very thin lines will stay as he told me he hits driftwood, dead fish, docks, buoys and other boats regularly, but he also said that if most of it is still there by the end of the season, he'll be happy. The last decal he had on there which was about half as long, started getting knocked off right away also.

Because of circumstances, I have a nearly endless supply of old 4x8 voting signs made of coroplast. I also have 20 acres of hiking trails, off roading trails and a private gun range that I make signs for, so I use those old signs since they're just for me. I tried a bunch of different methods of painting the coroplast with not very much luck until I found that if I use Rustoleum's plastic primer first, then plastic paint over that, it seemed to last and not peel off. But in my case, I could still see some of the screen printed lettering on the voting sign and didn't really like that, so now I just cover the entire sign in whatever vinyl color I want for the background, then layer the vinyl letters over that. Here is a recycled trail sign covered in brown 651 then white for the lettering.

I have a job coming up that will go on the side of a racing sailboat. It's a somewhat complex design with a lot of thin pieces on it. All black. Should I go with Oracal 751 or better?

I have an SC2 (the 28" size) and have had it for about 10 months or so. Keep in mind that I've never used a vinyl cutter before and have no experience with any of the better quality models out there, (and yes, I completely agree that there are better quality models out there) But I was up and running in minutes with mine, and haven't had any problems with anything. I keep mine in my sunroom, on the carpet, and keep all the vinyl stored below it. Never done anything to treat static, and have never had any problems. Most of my work is about 12" square or less though, but I have had a few jobs that were 4-6' long. I have no desire to own a better unit, and my only complaint about this is that the stepper motors are noisy enough that I can't do any cutting late at night because my wife will hear it sleeping. I'm using the included VM software and love it, and have no plans to upgrade yet. From the complaints I hear online, the SC2 is the lowest model you would want to purchase. I'm so happy with my SC2 that If this were to get stolen and I got insurance money to replace it, I'd have a hard time deciding if I would upgrade to a better machine. (but I probably would...)

I'll play... This is from last summer on a camping trip.

Oops missed that. Good catch.