Wind Gatherer

Hi to you all. I've asked a few questions on the forums and folks have been kind enough to reply and make a few things clearer for a newbie like me. I realized I've not yet introduced myself. So I thought I thought it would be nice to tell you a bit about myself. I'm Vegan and been teetotal almost all my life, hardly drank at all, when I did, enjoy running. I was a member of the BWA British Woodcarvers Association for several years, the same for Mary Mays online school of woodcarving. Also for several years I've been a member and still am of the British carver, Chris Pyes online carving school. I'm also into making stained glass and also teaching myself surface etching and multi level carving into glass. I'm also into woodworking and have invested a considerable amount, that said several 2nd hand good deals, a considerable amount on bench planes, wood shaper, jointer, planer, etc. I hope to start my own one man business making custom made doors, with carving, stained glass, sandblasted glass, combined or separate. I'm also an amateur musician..... good ole Rock n Roll Pedal steel, slide guitar, lead, rhythm guitar, virtual synths, electronic drum kit, sing my own songs. I got an inexpensive Seiki cutter for a little sign making and also thought would be good enough to cut stencils out of sand blast resist.

I'm trying to find a suitable brand of parchment paper or perhaps waxed paper for vinyl layering? In the UK the only vinyl sign forums are for professional sign makers, so I 'm not allowed to join and ask someone. On Ebay a seller had available 0m Long Roll Baking Parchment Paper 450mm Wide. I asked him, " Hi, I'm after translucent parchment paper, is this translucent? Thanks. " Replied, " hi, it is more of a creamy colour, thanks " I then asked, " I'm into vinyl sign making, if you look 1 minute and 10 seconds into this You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=27&v=O_s88KjwETQ You will see how I want to use the parchment paper, it doesn't need to be transparent, more sort of translucent so I can see the vinyl that has been stuck onto the clear application sheet under it. Would I be able to see the vinyl under your parchment paper? Thanks. " Seller replied, " hi, the paper we have would not be as translucent as what is in the clip, sorry, thanks " Does anyone know of a suitable brand of parchment paper or perhaps wax paper, ideally 45cm wide available in the UK

Googled the main supermarkets we have here. in UK. From what I can see they all carry greaseproof paper. except a supermarket called Waitrose. " essential Waitrose baking parchment, 10m x 375mm, This unbleached paper has been siliconised on both sides for easy release of your baked goods. It is ideal for fat free baking, removing the need to grease cake tins, baking sheets or baking parchment. As part of the essential Waitrose range the parchment offers quality as well as value and can be used in fridges, freezers, ovens and microwaves. " Cheap enough at £2.80 a roll. Oh, just enlarged the photo of the roll, says on it, " Baking & greaseproof paper. " From what I understand, greaseproof paper and parchment are two different products and greaseproof wont do. I'll contact anyway and ask if translucent and clarify if parchment or greaseproof. I'll also contact UK Ebay sellers and UK Amazon asking if their parchment paper is translucent.

I Googled for UK, only 2/3 products came up available ion Amazon UK. Out of the 3 only one seems suitable size. Bienfang 20 Yard by 18-Inch Wide Parchment 100 Roll https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bienfang-Yard-18-Inch-Wide-Parchment/dp/B001KZH1MY/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=tracing+parchment+paper&qid=1563307964&s=gateway&sr=8-10 Is this the right stuff? Thanks.

After I used the cutter to do the word THE and applied transfer paper to it. When I removed the transfer paper with the vinyl stuck on it. I found it really hard to apply THE to foam board I'm using for a sign board, the vinyl is so sticky, if I position the transfer paper and a piece of vinyl touches the board, it immediatly sticks to it and no way am I able to lift the vinyl and reposition it. There must be ways to avoid this happening? Thanks.

In the UK we have greaseproof paper for baking. I Googled and found parchment paper and greaseproof have different properties. I'm cutting on a bit of plywood, a cutting mat would help the Exacto blades last.

Ok thanks people, the YouTube video was very enlightening. I think it would be a good idea to get a large A1 size cutting mat I bought a small one a while ago, to mount scraps on. Looking on Amazon and Ebay UK I see there are several makes, various features, are any, better than the others? I don't want to go really expensive, just a reasonable price. I used this search term A1 vinyl cutter cutting mat Ebay UK this one is double sided 390408293211 When I was looking at parchment paper I read somewhere, about brown coloured paper, might have been an Amazon reviewer. I found this on Ebay UK 261794453113 seemed best value, am waiting for sellers reply confirming that it is translucent. Cheers.

I set the origin point close to right hand corner of vinyl but why is word, THE, so far, almost 4 inches away from the left and right hand side of the vinyl? As you can see, is quite a lot of waste. I have four words to cut out, the height of word THE including line squares is 29cm the width of vinyl roll is 60cm. If I reduce the size of the line up squares and the height of THE I can still maintain an effective word size. I could then maximize the economical use of the vinyl by having one word under the other. I have done this with two words THE and HIT see attached. I'm wondering about the boarder I have left, will the machine be able to cut the two words correctly. I've tried to find out and asked here but I still don't fully understand about the origin point, could you please explain to me about this origin point, much more clearly I'm afraid I still don't get it and how to position it correctly? Thank you.

I did but they couldn't help on that particular point.

Design is feeding into machine, left to right. I'm putting the words onto some foam backed sign board using temporary application tape The small squares are to let me line up the words on the sign board. No not layering vinyl, I'm happy with how I'm getting on with SCAL, get fast friendly and effective support. " When are you setting the ORIGIN point? Most cutters say ORIGIN SET. or show 0 0 for XY." Getting quite late here in UK 21:27. Will look into this Monday and get back to you then. Thanks for input.

I have a new Seiki T series cutter and using scal 5 I've Googled quite a lot trying to understand about the origin point but I'm still very much mystified. I seem to find conflicting views.Can't get my head around it I can't find any info specific to the Seiki or a clone. So far I understand how to go offline can go offline ( leave button ) and move the carriage x/y left and right. That said I don't understand how to position the carriage in relation to the text I want to cut. I've read the origin point.... doesn't specify where the cut starts so even more confused. Any help on clearly demystifying this would be greatly appreciated. Oh I've just read, putting one of rollers inside the vinyl roll Is this correct? Until I read that I thought the roll just sat on top of both the rollers. Thank you.

" you cut a square and triangle up in the right hand corner " That was a test cut I did sometime before cutting out THE. " "Do some test cuts with the test feature on the vinyl cutter and get your blade depth correct." I bought a A3 size cutting mat I'll use some of the offcuts, cut into small squares and mount them on the mat and use the test feature to get the blade depth correct. Thanks.

I set the origin point close to right hand corner of vinyl but why is word, THE, so far, almost 4 inches from the side of the vinyl? As you can see, is quite a lot of waste. That said I did cut off the larger section, as might come in useful for future projects. A couple of small areas had a perforated cut line, should I increase the cutting pressure to avoid this? I have 4 words to cut out, the height of word THE including line squares is 29cm the width of vinyl roll is 60cm. If I reduce the size of the line up squares and the height of THE I can still maintain an effective word size. I could then maximize the economical use of the vinyl by have one word under the other. I'm wondering about boarder size or whatever I should leave to do this and still not sure about this setting of the origin point in regarding setting up to cut two words parallel to each other?

Ah OK hadn't thought of that, thanks for the tip.

Well I think I might be making progress, a little, anyhow. I cut the word THE ok. Though the position on the vinyl could have been better, for economical of use of the vinyl. Speed I thought I set at 300 but display is showing 260, pressure I set to 100. Test cut when peeled it of,f had cut into backer but looks minimal. From reading up a bit, think will need to play around with test cuts quite a bit to get very good, near perfect results. One reason I got the cutter was for cutting sandblast resist, stencil masks. No way would I be able to afford a 24 Graphtec. In past have read about disadvantage of a stepper motor compared to servo. Though that said, finding out a little more about vinyl cutters, slower and faster speeds for different size projects with varying degrees of intricacies etc, other types of angles on knives. I'm starting to think I can get perfectly acceptable accurate cuts with my Seiki 720T, even though it has a stepper motor, perhaps reducing number of nodes in design would make for a smoother accurate cut too. Is quite late here in the UK 20:53 and not had supper yet and a few other things to attend too. On Saturday,will have a go at weeding out the word and mounting it and forum can see what I've done. Cheers, Peter.

Thanks. I intend to have a go at cutting later this afternoon and will get back to the forum saying how I got on. Oh I ticked, notify me of replies but didn't receive any notification?

OK thanks.

I have a SEIKI SK720T 28" vinyl cutter plotter. I have positioned the blade correctly in the blade holder. Fitting the blade holder itself into the cutter? The Chinese/English user manual says, Installation of blade holder. 1 turn off power. 2 Loose the locking-screw of the holder bracket, then put the blade holder in the V breach and ensure the blade tip to reach to the protection strip.Fasten the locking screw clockwise at last. 3 After turning on the machine, the tip should raise around 1/8 inches away from the protection strip " After turning on the machine, the tip should raise around 1/8 inches away from the protection strip. " It doesn't lift up an 1/8 of an inch. I think I need it to lift up so can line up edge of vinyl with end of machine. I cut the vinyl off at the end after it got chewed up at my first attempt at cutting vinyl,the cut end itself is not square. See my other post, Newbie Loading Vinyl Onto Machine. Thanks.

OK cheers will look at link. 22:40 here in UK off to bed, catch up later, thanks everyone.

So I roll the vinyl up as tight as I can?As tight a roll as I can get it and make sure is taught when I do the initial feeding in? Thanks.

I'm still not sure how I go about squaring up the vinyl to the machine?

OK so just push it down but not hold it continuously down? Would having the US cutter driver instead of the correct Seiki caused it to chew up the vinyl like it did?

Sure thing, thanks

No I didn't do that, should I hold it down continuously, same with send a pattern to the cutter? Why must I do this? As it did the test cut OK?