Wildgoose

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Posts posted by Wildgoose

  1. Posted

    Ok so I got the bug thanks to you guys and ran out and got a 20lb Harbor Freight unit and the table top blast cabinet. I bought a 20 lb container of aluminum oxide 80 grit media which was about all they had in stock besides some walnut (and some soda blast which looked like you need to convert over to use)

     

    Is this aluminum oxide 80 grit going to work for most applications or is it too course? I plan to do a mix of mirrors and glass and hopefully some granite and floor tiles. Some river rocks too. I probably won't be able to get this together and try it out until early next week.

  2. Posted

    I haven't moved up from CS5 but I don't think anything drastic has changed. On a lot of tracings Illy will have underlaying layers. You may be able to get this to stop by the tracing preset. Look in the live trace menu options (right above the workspace on CS5) after you have traced and see what the preset is. Don't know what your final output is but for vinyl you're usually going to be wanting one color. There are a bunch of presets that will get you close and you can dial in from there with number of colors or threshold and minimum size of the smallest object etc. You can play with these to make changes before you expand it. Once you have expanded the object be sure and look in the layers panel, usually set up on the right hand side. click some of the little pull down triangles and see if you have any objects that don't show any color (in the little preview box). If you find a non colored or white object select it by clicking on the square to the right side of the item in the ;ayers panel and then go to select similar objects which should also be somewhere on the top of your workspace and select "objects with similar fill" and it will select any objects that have no fill or white fill. then just delete them and see if anything bad happened. If no elements you wanted disappeared you should be good to go. 

     

    (If this goes through I will have posted a pic of my layers panel and one of the similar object selection pull down.)

    post-20133-0-37546600-1385858676_thumb.p

    post-20133-0-63372400-1385858909_thumb.j

  3. Posted

    You are right on track. I just lay it right over the whole window and then either mark the cuts and take it back off or if you're careful you can slip an exacto knife right there in place and slice it. Thats what I usually do. I go ahead and put enough tape on it so the alignment stays straight and carefully cut it in place then your overall look stays in the proper line. 

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    Don't forget to 'mirror' the image for decorating t-shirts, and such. Especially if you're cutting a dozen or so, at a time.

    Ouch! I've dome several one at a time but a dozen would hurt the pocket book. Always seems to invoke Murphy's Law when its the last few inches of the color you need.

  8. Posted

    How about we start a thread dedicated to those MAJOR DO's or Don'ts that we have learned through sad experience? 

     

    I'll start it off:

     

    DON'T let your brand new expensive 24" R-tape roll fall off the bench and land on a corner mashing the edge. This will seriously mess up you day and several in the future. 

    • Like 3

  9. Posted

    Your format looks a little different from mine but I would try what Mopar suggested and also see what that "use the sign concept" button does. I actually don't recommend resizing at cut time because if you ever have to replace something or if you screw up an install its real tough to remember what you set things at. I build it to scale every time and if there are multiple sizes for a certain customer I label the file with the size in the file name for distant future use. IF I do resize, in my version I watch the numbers and if I constrain the height I make sure the length number jumps accordingly and I've never had a problem like you are seeing. SignCut has a great support team that responds quickly, If you can't figure it out go to the website and put in a request. 

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    Another trick I have learned is that if you are layering smaller vinyl and need it to be perfect you can pull the transfer and vinyl off the backing and lay it on a piece of parchment paper which is nearly see through and then get it right where you want it. I usually leave a little hanging off one end and once I get it where I like it I tape that end down and slip out the parchment for perfect alignment. I use this with or without registration marks but mostly on smaller >14" designs. 

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    Just picked up a Summa cutter and a heat press, still got a lot to learn. This was on 631 and I believe a 30 degree blade.

    Ya fellow Summa aficionado! My standard blade is actually a 36 deg. I don't know what model you ended up getting but kudos man! 

  15. Posted

    Ya man paper is where its at. Each machine seems to have its own quirks. I ran a P-Cut for a couple years and I couldn't do more than about 8 or 10 copies of anything or it would just freeze up. Also had a lot of static electricity issues like Darcshadow mentioned. Try a Dryer sheet to remove static in the area. I eventually bought a can of static guard spray and would do a shot around the back and under the machine before I cut. That pretty much cured the worst of my craziness. 

  19. Posted

    Ya a lot of CS5 files will be too big especially if they have a raster image in there or even if they were there and were removed it causes a larger file size. Well. For a test run go into AI and write some text and then convert it to outlines by the keystroke shift>control>O (all three together) or shift>command>O on mac. There is also a pull down menu on the top in text where it will give you the options to convert it from that direction too (and shows you the keyboard shortcut). Once you have the text converted save it and it should pull up the first save dialog box where you can name the file and choose the destination then after you do that it will give you a second dialog box where you can choose the file type. It will have CS5 as the default but there is a pull down and choose Illustrator 8. After that it will probably give you a warning about saving in a legacy format but you can ignore the warning. Once you have done these steps go to SignCut and open the file you just made and is should pull it right in. If you can get to that point then you will be over the first hurdle. Continue to give us feedback.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    We need a little more information to be of much help. #1 What program did you use to open it? I assume you are talking about a cutting program that wouldn't open the drawing, signcut, sure-cuts-a little-pro, signblazer...which one are we talking about. #2 Did you draw the design in illustrator? if so upload it here and we will take a look. Depending on whats going on there could be several reasons for having a problem. If you drew in illustrator then it should be a vector already but if you simply imported (placed) a picture in illustrator then you still have a raster image. Assuming you actually drew a vector then perhaps you saved it at the wrong setting for your program to open it. SCALP will open CS5 versions but just about every other cutting program out there needs to be saved as Illustrator 8 which is much older before the CS versions came into being.  

     

    Hang in there. Once you figure out the basics it will start to be easier.

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    http://www.signcutpro.com/

     

    If you didn't get SCALP then I can't in good conscience recommend that you buy it but SignCut Pro works great in opinion. Try the free trial, looks like it might just be 7 days but I think you will like it. Has great cutting tools like tiling, registration marks and you can cut in step-by-step user defined lengths if you have a lang design that the tracking is giving you trouble. Just save to Illustrator 8 and then open that file in SignCut Pro and you're ready to go. (you will have to load the correct drivers when you install but it will give you a list to choose from and it has most of not all the USCutter machines as well as high end cutters. 

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    I would recommend a pillow or two and press pads. I have one pillow for regular size shirts and one that is about 5"x18" for sleeves. These work great if you are fighting seams or collars, also keeps most of the heat off something on the opposite side.  I only have one press pad 5"x6" but it is very well used especially for crest prints near pockets or buttons. 

     

    Oh, I almost forgot, I have a roll of the green heat tape that I use once in a while when something has to be held perfectly in place and I use it almost all the time on the hat press. A little goes a long way and you can re-use it 10-20 times at least if you're doing multiple items.