Wildgoose

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Posts posted by Wildgoose

  2. Posted

    1 hour ago, Guest DAVE H said:

    i have the dsr version of vinylmaster. recently i viewed an instructional video of on bitmaps and images where they inserted an image into a shape. i have tried a number of times and cannot find the import image to shape button. just wondering if i am missing something or this option is no longer available.

    You are probably looking with the wrong search terms. That is typically referred to as a clipping or clipping path Clipping Mask or just a Mask. I know there is a post about there here somewhere. I will see if I can find it one maybe someone else can help out. I have a copy of VM Pro but I'm not by that computer at the moment. I am more versed in Adobe. In essence what you are doing is dropping an image in and then using a shape above it to trim (clip) off all the excess outside the top object. At least that is the Illustrator way. I think VM does similar but may use different terms to describe it.  

  3. Posted

    3 hours ago, Style said:

    ok well now its works and has no rattles, I did my first cap I need alot of practice.. still missing some screws but I guess thats no extra charge right..( be cool if I got some kinda credit for having to deal with this nonsense a nice coupon code for next purchase,hint hint..)

    This is a users forum so other than an atta-boy for being a problem solver that's about all we have for you.

    That's a big logo for a cap. If you do those that large you will want to build in on a curve. Best way I know to do that is to take a piece of paper and cut yourself a pattern of the arc of the face of that hat and then scan that in and use the image as a template to get the right amount of curve on it. You will find hats tend to vary as well so what works on one may not on another (as far as curve). My clients have mostly been doing smaller 2" to 2.5" tall by 3" wide stuff on one side. That has been the recent trend around here. 

    Do they offer different size lower platens for that press? I have a press that has several options and it definilty helps out to have a couple different sizes. I mostly use the smallest one for most hats and only use the bigger one (the regular standard sized that came with the press) for taller logos.

    When placing the cap the best method I have is to try to seat it as best you can then do a light press to pre-heat and lift the heat platen back up and stretch the hat around the lower platen now that it has some heat to help you. 

    You will find other great uses for the hat press. They work really good for shoulder or sleeve logos and stuff on things like gym shorts and the like. 

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    9 hours ago, Mjen said:

    Gildan cotton shirt with siser HTV. Applied at proper heat w circuit easy press. Preheated shirt first. Appeared to apply fine. Next day it is wrinkling. Little puckers in the vinyl. There were a couple then a couple more a few hours later.  Not sure how to post picture. 

    I do a lot of HTV work. I would concur with Dakota that the press is the likely culprit. Siser is almost never the issue. I have done literally a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of shirts with Siser and only once ever had a bad roll. There is no comparison between a hand operated heating iron style press and even the cheapest budget model of actual clam or swinger press. Siser says you can apply their product with a hand iron but I wish they wouldn't. Seems like every time we see an issue it's frequently when done with a hand iron. Heck, even with a clam press there are potential ways to mess a job up. Buttons or thick sewn seams can hold a press up just enough to cause an issue. They make press pillows and press pads to deal with that sort of thing. 

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    I had heard that the mac version of quick books was lacking. I'm glad to hear it's true because that is why I bought the laptop in the first place, just for the books. It has turned into a good workflow to use it over at the cutter so I can still have use of my mac for other work while the cutter is busy. I bought my wife a macbook pro 15" last year as a tax write off. That thing is sweet. She doesn't let me play with it much. 

    • Like 2

  7. Posted

    Be sure and try out the free week of SignCut Pro. it is a FULLY Functional trial so you can actually use your cutter without any issues. You can rent it by the week or month if you like it or buy a lifetime dongle. Either way it's a good option to test stuff and totally mac compatible. It's what I use on my mac AND my pc laptop because it will run on both. I design on my iMac and usually cut over on my windows 7 laptop when it will stay running. I know some people run a partition and run a windows environment in order to cut from their macs. I guess if you are real handy with computers thats an option. I am not that awesome and bought my mac to use because it just works. I just find mac compatible programs and don't have so much worry. I have the old pc laptop but the stupid thing gives me a blue screen literally every other time I open it up. I have had the same iMac since 2010 and just finally had a hard drive wear out about a year ago. Dropped a SSD in and back up and running as good or better than new. I love my mac. 

    • Like 2

  8. Posted

    I realize and agree that the corners are well rounded but I don't think it looks bad. Sort of a true stencil vibe to it. 

    Start with your blade exposed length as the first thing to dial in. Most new users have way way way too much sticking out and can even break a tip off. Once set then you can dial in the pressure and do a blade offset test like the one shown, probably at the same time.  Just make a series of about 3 small squares about 1/2" each and cut them and play with the offset until they are crisp.  You should cut all the way through the vinyl and leave a scratch on the paper backing that you can't feel from the back side. Do not set your pressure on HTV. In the end your regular sign vinyl pressure will probably be about the same but the adhesive carriers are much harder to tell whether you have too much pressure. 

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    59 minutes ago, vyrus74 said:

    Yet no one addressed the question on if carriers can be used and if so, do any changes have to be made? I get alot of 12x12 pieces and 3 pinch rollers wont let me run two different colored pieces at the same time. Hence the need for a carrier... is it possible?

    Should be fine. I never liked the cutting mats but most machines will feed them through. I have seen some flexible cutting mats that looked a lot better than the Cricuit mat I bought which is stiff and can get caught on the front or back edge if you run to close to the edge. Meaning that as the stiff mat is all the way back like you would be at the start it will tip down in the back due to weight and inflexibility and the front edge can poke up and find things to catch on, the same will happen in the back if you get to near the end. I watched some video with some soft semi-clear mat that looked much better for a roll feed cutter. Cricut mats are made for Cricuts specifically that have that flat landing built into them so they don't need or want to bend. 

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    Slice, this is a USERS forum and therefore a place where true users can voice opinion and real world experience. Your opinion is as valid (and diverse) as anyone else. If we weren't honest with people we would be doing them a disservice in the long run. Being that we are all just users and not paid employee's we are giving our opinion and most of us recommend spending more money on a better cutter if the potential buyer can afford it (or if they actually do a little research before jumping in). This is basically an up-sell so in a way we are actually helping the company who hosts this site by inadvertently talking people into spending more.

    30ft away like your picture of the truck shows is NOT a fair representation of what someone who is planning to go into business can expect. Any buyer who pays good money for a truck logo or a sizable sign will be looking at it up close and personal. YES you CAN get by with a budget cutter but with each step up in value you definitely get a better end product. YOU should know this as you have stepped up from the MH to the SC2 (I think that's what you have now). From what I have read you have never owned a top dollar cutter so you're basically talking out of a different orifice of your body on some of these points. For a basic crafter beginner the lower budget machines are sufficient but spending more really does get you more in this instance. I think for this customer has already jumped in so the point is probably moot.

    To the OP JSAX. When my budget cutter struggled with longer runs I was able to "get by" with a feature that my cutting software of choice (SignCut Pro) has that is called "step-by-step cutting". Not sure what you are using but SignCut Pro has the option to turn on this feature that only cuts a certain amount of a design before moving on down the design. This amount of length is determined by the user so say you have 4ft long stripes like you described. You can set the cutter to cut it in12 or 13" steps. I say 13" on a 48" design because if you miss the length by a small amount at the end it could cause some issues so it's better to give it a little free spaced make the cutting as simple for the machine as possible. This feature works great on simple designs like you are struggling with but does not work well on intricate ones like large strings of small text. The budget cutters are not accurate enough to cut part of a small F or R and be able to come back to it and continue on. The software even has a preview feature that will show you a little video of how the blade will progress though the cut so you can see where you set your sections and decide if you need to make some edits. I suggest you go to the SignCut website and try out the free trial and see if this is something that will help you out. The program is free for a few days or a week but then costs money. When I bought my first cutter they included a years subscription. I ended up buying the lifetime dongle and still use it with my high end $3500 cutter. (I no longer need the step-by-step feature though due to the new cutters excellent tracking)

    Good luck JSAX and don't be discouraged with your MH. If you stay within the limitations they do fine. Really big or really small detailed graphics you will struggle but text over 1/2" and length below 30" or so can be done fine if the machine is properly set up.  

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    On 6/27/2020 at 10:21 PM, Guest Boon’s Graphics & Design said:

    Ok I know I’m late to the party but I just got VinylMaster this week and going to do for somebody what no forum in any regards has done for me...Calibrate cutter Bla bla bla Yep pretty good advice...except I don’t think it solved many people’s issue especially mine. Could not for the life of me figure why I would set the image size only to find out when I sent it to the cutter that the dimensions had been changed by a half inch or more. Simple solution that noooooobody offers up. Set your page dimensions for the measurements you want to cut. Stretch and pull and tug on that image until it tells you the image has reached the page bounds. Shows up like a ruler . Now send that sucker to the printer and when you see that your measurements stayed intact you can thank me for giving you this fix in plain English 

    Boon, if your cutter is out of calibration with your cutting software this will not fix it. If this worked for you then your software must be right and your other original method of trying to size your work must have been flawed somehow or something else is wrong. Bottom line is if you make a square that is 12" and cut it and it's not 12" then you have a problem. If you made your page dimensions 12" and then stretched your square to match that (which it should already have been if you made it correctly) it shouldn't cut any different. If you make a square 12" and still have to stretch it out to fit your 12" page then you must not be understanding your design measurements. What Skeeter was describing is that you can cut a specific size and measure it and make calibrations to bring them into sync so that when you design something 12" that's what you get. If your other setup items are incorrect such as too much blade sticking out or too high uf cutting pressure it could effect the cut by causing extra drag (usually in front to back movement) which may throw your whole process into a real mess. This is why we always suggest dialing in the cutter before trying to figure out all the other intricacies. Exposed Blade is the very first thing then cutting pressure then cutting speed.

    • Like 3

  12. Posted

    So he is saying use the low tack as a new carrier so you can cut right through your original without having to dork with the perf/kiss cut? Sounds plausible as the myth busters might say. I have done similar with cutting stencils. I usually had to use more than a single layer in that application to create enough stiffness and if you are doing lots of these that would become cost prohibitive.

    If you have the option, how about up-selling the perf cut so you still get your full price and sell them on the roll at regular price and then if they must have the perf maybe you can at least make a little more to offset the PIA factor. 

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    There may be another product identifier on the back or the bottom somewhere. I'm not having any luck with the numbers and name on the front panel. I used to have  P-Cut 1200 but when you looked on the back it was actually built by a company named "Creation" Your cutter is probably similar. Most cutter technology is old stuff and some generic drivers may work for you. 

  14. Posted

    Does it work ever or never? Have you checked with Graphtec support. This is strictly a users forum so you will only be hearing from users and most do not run mac. I DO! but as mentioned earlier I don't run Graphtec so I don't have any solutions or experience. You might try the 1 week free trial of SignCut Pro and see if it will run and maybe rule out the cutter itself and narrow things down to the cutting master plug-in. SignCut Pro has both a plug-in for AI and also is a stand alone that lets you just open the program and open a cut file and cut it without having to work through AI if you choose not to. That's how I run so that I don't tie up my design ability while the cutter it working. 

  15. Posted

    4 hours ago, PM-Performance said:

    Gotcha, so the carrier isn't the issue, just the blade depth. Sorry I missunderstood 

    I think the blade depth currently is fine. I may try going back on force again to see if that helps and then maybe a better blade. 

    I think you'll be surprised at a Clean Cut Premium blade. When I bought my first one for my old P-Cut it was almost half the cutting force vs the cheap $5 blades I had been using. With the higher end cutters there is less difference. My Summa blades are only 36deg and cut like a hot knife through butter and are a little tougher than the CC blades (because of the lower cutting angle) so I stick with the factory blades for this machine but the Clean Cut are fantastic and a nice upgrade for the budget cutters. Your machine is sort of middle ground as far as budget but might have lower quality blades.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    You are not understanding my comment. To set your blade properly regardless of cutting force/ pressure applied is to remove it from the machine and drag it with some force (not excessive) across a scrap piece of sign vinyl. The idea is to set it so that the blade can cut all the way through the vinyl but not all the way through the paper carrier too. Once you have this set then you re-install the blade holder back into the cutter and begin adjusting your cutting force from a light setting working into the cut until it cuts all the way through and leaves a light scratch on the paper carrier. It is fine to see a scratch on the carrier but you should not be able to feel it from the back side. When you get your blade set and cutting like this you should still be able to see some clear space between the blade holder and the actual surface of the vinyl. In other words when you are cutting (after having done the proper set up) your blade holder should still be slightly above the vinyl while the blade cuts. You will have to bend down and look at the job as it's cutting and perhaps shine a light from behind or something so you can see if there is a tiny bit of clear space. It will be less than a piece of paper wide but visible by the eye.  

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    45 minutes ago, PM-Performance said:

    So I still struggle sometimes with HTV cutting with no mat and wanted to get some input from people with more experience. 

    Since moving to my new machine and having more pinch roller area, I feel I have more adjustability, but depending on the size of HTV I run and how big the cut is, I still am ending up with misscuts from the vinyl pulling up when the machine is moving the head from the outside in it seems. 

    Some things I have learned are:

    1. Spread the pinch rollers out as far as I can and keep the cuts within them
    2. 15" HTV seems to fit the rollers best if I put it to the far left of my machine and I just just barely get the pinchrollers on the very outside of the vinyl
    3. 12" HTV seems to fit the right most rollers the best. Again I can just barely get them to the outsides of the vinyl. 
    4. Unroll enough for my job so that I am not pulling from the roll directly. 

    Doing these steps makes life easier, but I still feel like I am having occasional problems. I am not sure if it is dependant on the cut, or just workable area. I would like to figure out what I am doing wrong as this just wastes material and it sucks stressing about finishing a job due to wasted material

    I do not prefer using the cutting mat most of the time just because I can just run a bunch of cuts in a row if needed without having to worry about setting the mat up for every cut (assuming all goes well). Another reason is because I need to pull my machine out another foot from the wall to run the mat and that can get annoying as well.

    Any suggestions for the pros on more efficient working with HTV when you do not have a machine with vacuum built in to suck it down?

    Have you tried out a premium blade? They cut with less force and therefore less likely to bunch vinyl ahead of the blade. Also when doing your blade set-up which consists of the tips Skeeter posts, some misunderstand so be sure that there is still a tiny amount of free space between the blade holder and the vinyl. With regular sign vinyl some people let the blade holder actually drag on the vinyl, this is not the best and it will cause problems with HTV due to the soft carrier. There should be just a sliver of light between the holder and the material when it's cutting. 

  18. Posted

    3 hours ago, sdgirl said:

    I will have to look into the thicker brand. I am not to found of the see through ones that I got!

    I think one was the Gildan 42000 if my memory is right. The others were from Conde specific for sublimation and are very thick but also pretty expensive comparatively. 

  19. Posted

    5 hours ago, sdgirl said:

    Thank you Wildgoose. Looking more into it, it seems to be more of a 2 step transfer paper type of thing. It isn't like the jetpro but it doesn't seem like the ink actually goes into the shirt like regular sublimation paper. I could be wrong , still looking into it. I have a few people that want pictures and designs that is just easier doing this way then with vinyl. 

    Yeah if you can convince them to that in order to get a good look they need to use a white polyester shirt it's fantastic. There are some thicker than normal options out there that don't feel too bad and aren't see though.  If you haven't done sublimation it enters completely into the poly fibers and there is zero hand it's pretty awesome. I had troubles with dark navy blues coming through as dark as I wanted for a particular client but I went the cheaper Epson printer way and it may have been that choice which caused me trouble. As long as the colors weren't too bold it was real handy for certain applications. 

  20. Posted

    I don't know anything about that "for dark" stuff but as for shirts the higher the polyester content the better. The 65% will look washed out. That isn't always bad if you are going for the old shirt look. You can sublimate a dark color on anything lighter like black onto grey or red. Getting a picture quality like someones actual face or a real mountain scene you will want to be on white. I tried it out for a little while but just couldn't find a market in my area of influence. There are really fun things like flip-flops and key and dog chains and even clipboards that are probably big sellers for people with walk in brick and mortar stores. Mugs are a big market too. 

  21. Posted

    Yeah Tessa you're going to have to help us out with more details. 

    PC or Mac?

    What is the name of the program that you are sending the file from to the cutter?

    What type of file are you trying to send? Did you make the file or buy it or what? 

    I would be very surprised if it was the Graphtec FC cutter that has the problem those things are tanks. Pretty sure we just have new user syndrome which is great news because you can fix that yourself. (meaning you can learn what's going on and be good to go)

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    For the 2 or 3 members who were recently in a topic called "help" with a brand new person asking for help. I had to eject them from the conversation and ban them due to immediate attitude, foul language and an apparent unwillingness to take well meaning help with even the slightest grain of salt. I do think sometimes you guys get a little tough on the Mac people and I AM a mac people so I can say that without it being racist. <sarcasm> He/they read the worst possible tone into Skeeters response and while I was trying to send a calm down and rethink your response post he/they posted an f bomb thus ending our association with them. That kind of thing doesn't belong on the forum and I am writing this hoping they read it and realize they probably just pooped in the best bowl of cheerios they could have and good luck finding helpful people on any of the other user forums. 

    • Like 5

  23. Posted

    You basically just need to practice and be sure you understand the principal and process of moving your cutting head to where YOU want zero to be (X/Y location) Then be sure you know how to zero out those values and the machine at that point only knows it's now at the starting corner of the design. Most designs are not built with a square corner so you are really just telling the machine where the useable edge of the vinyl is and the graphics sits to the left of that point plus a little room for a weed border if you are using one (recommend). Your software should tell you how wide your overall design plus extra weed borders will be and you can easily use a loose ruler or tape to measure to the other side from your chosen zero point to be sure that you have a wide enough vinyl. 

    Higher end machines measure this on their own and place the cutting head in the correct spot and also send that info to the cutting software so it can calculate how many copies can be made in a given available area etc.... When I load my Summa it runs a length of vinyl out equal to about 1.5 times the width and does a side to side measure so it knows what area is available. If it finds the end of the roll before it reaches that 1.5 length it records that too so it knows exactly how much working space there is and sends all that info over to my cutting software (in my case that is SignCut Pro). When it reaches that point in the cut 1.5 times the width then it stops cutting for a sec and rolls out another length verifying that there is still vinyl and keeps the vinyl pulled off the roll so it's not trying to roll the vinyl while it's cutting and then goes back to work cutting the design. It will repeat this process over and over if I happen to be cutting something very long or making multiple copies that are many cards long. I input my design and tell it how many copies I want and push go because the head already settled on the zero point and it's ready as soon as it's done it's measure process. I assume the Graphtec is very similar and probably the Roland cutters as well. More budget friendly machine have you do this kind of thing manually but it's all the same in the end. 

    • Like 1

  25. Posted

    20 hours ago, PM-Performance said:

    Do you always try to keep the rollers to the edge of the HTV? Or doesnt really matter as long as you are cutting on the inside of the rollers?

    I do if possible. My old original P-Cut was interesting and had several varied sizes of grit areas so I had to get creative with it. I think as long as it's not causing potential wadding up it probably doesn't matter. If you are cutting regular sign vinyl with a good stiff carrier you can likely sneak out beyond the rollers as well. My Summa has such crimp force that it ruins the vinyl where it rolls so I always stay within just because of that.