slice&dice

Dunkin' is throwing away the ‘Donuts' in their name brand. Dunkin' Brands Group Inc. announced Tuesday that it will officially change the chain's name from "Dunkin' Donuts" to simply "Dunkin.'" The change will be effective January 2019, and will be reflected on all packaging, as well as the company's advertising and website. All new and remodeled stores in the U.S. will use the new 'Dunkin' logo on interior and exterior signage. (Boston Business Journal)

To directly answer Brandi's specific question --- IrfanView is free and can be used as a 'canopener' for these types of files and then transferred into SBE.

I assume that dakota opened this file in Adobe Illustrator and saved it as a legacy version (v.8 and prior)? (and provided you with that Back_saved file) SignBlazer chokes on current versions of .eps files -- the program has not been updated in many years, so it doesn't have the code to import stuff created more recently.

My favorite lube for anything metal-to-metal is white lithium spray. https://www.wd40specialist.com/products/white-lithium-grease

Arch and Arc are two different things.

Yep, that'll work.

Constance -- do what I suggested, please. I have no idea what was just said by darcshadow, it just got me confused and I'm not a fresh newbie! I'm sure he is correct but really, it seems like a lot of hoops to jump through when SBE does it in a jiffy with a single command and that is just PunchThrough, within the Arrange menu /Weld/ --> PunchThrough. You DO NOT weld. (EDITED: After you achieve the punch-through, you can then select JUST the script text, which apparently requires welding to connect the individual letters, but that is a completely different issue than what is being asked here) Once you have installed SBE, you'll be able to do this without breaking a sweat. And, if anyone using VMCut can chime in, perhaps there is a way in that program, I just couldn't spend my time searching. (it is not listed in the HELP search)

I wonder why they did that with the U/c 'A' ? It does seem strange. You know what else is strange? MarkS didn't hit it right off the bat -- I'm shocked, I tell ya, shocked!

Can you provide the steps in Inkscape to 'Punch Through' ? What PATH menu function will do that? I've tried them all and don't see what we need here. Union - Difference - Intersection - Exclusion - Division - Cut Path - Combine - Break Apart (SignBlazer does it with a single click into the Arrange menu /Weld --> PunchThrough ) I wouldn't sent a newbie to play around with Inkscape, honestly. Just the interface itself will explode her head! (It is similar to Adobe Illustrator in complexity, and certainly NOT for a raw novice).

The Lowercase letters are correct to the example provided (The A and S were just stretched bigger)

Just use the RedSail driver.

Hi Constance, you'll be fine, just have patience. I looked through my VinylMaster program and couldn't find this functionality (in VM Cut version). It's called "Punch Through" Can I offer a suggestion? Download and install SignBlazer Elements, the feature is within the Arrange menu --> Weld -- Punch Through You can then export the design as .eps and import it back into VM for cutting (or just cut directly from SB).

Cindi is all over the place, with several threads on this already, her budget is limited, and if this had been me, I would have already ordered the SC2 24" and had things up and running with a cheapie Dell Inspiron running Win7 driving the cutter operation, and if she wants to keep designing on the mac, and transfer with USB thumbdrive to the PC unit, then so be it. I'm outta here. I got nothing else to add.

...if I could find a cheap PC laptop and just put the software on that ... Yep. SC2 24"

Ka-ching!!!! Jackpot. Only took three months to get it figured out. But we have a WINNER!

https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/01/corporate-logo-font-typeface-digital-studio A digital studio called Hello Velocity has created a typeface that embraces well-known corporate logos. I disagree with their choice of "h" --- but I don't know what else they could have chosen. Maybe Hasbro? (the toy & game company).

https://www.uscutter.com/Christmas-Vector-Art-Package-for-Vinyl-Cutting and https://www.uscutter.com/Holiday-Clipart-Package-Vector-Art-Images OK, now with that out of the way -- the question becomes, how to cut this stuff?

Y-W

Just cut, and weed that extraneous little stuff out later.

The easiest way is to Duplicate (CTRL + D keyboard combo) the object as many times as you want and position these dups. within your workspace. In other words, make your copies in the design layout itself.

" I want to take "friendship" out of the equation though. " Well, in this case, you will have to lean on it. What to do is prepare a job sheet, and create a 'proof' of their finished work using a technique called Mock-Up --- You take pictures of the three walls as they are now. You then work inside the design program to superimpose the design you've got (with the 23" letters!!!) onto the walls in the photos. Most professional sign shops do that -- so should you. They say OK to that, and you're golden.

No, why would you do that? Just reduce the vertical heights on everything a teensy bit. Nobody is going to look at these decals and notice a slight 1" reduction in height. What possible reason do you have to avoid making that 1" adjustment? This is a big sign, six feet long and three feet tall. One inch less won't be a problem.

L+W 2 That is the formula I still use for RTA. 24 + 24 = 48 \2 = $24 for the stacked words. 24 + 46 = 70\2 = $35 for HDS. (RTA is Ready To Apply decals --- although the 3 words require some finesse for the customer to apply, as you noted, so that's another story, but yes, it is a standard practice to nest objects together to save material, and then arrange them onto your substrate individually later) Overlapping transfer tape is a terrible idea. (creates bubbles when applying)

HDS cannot be 24" tall, because your effective cutting width on 24" vinyl is just around 23" (routinely, I design anyting for 24" vinyl at 22.5", and if I need larger, I'll jump right to 30" vinyl which gives me 28.5" width to work with, or 29" if I really must). Same thing for the other words, you cannot have 8" letters, and then stack them like that -- the math doesn't work. You have to allow a fraction of an inch between the words, and then a slight margin at the edges of the vinyl. You better have tracking dialed-in perfectly if you want to have less than 1/2" on each side of the vinyl for margins.

Have you removed those covers yet and looked inside? The top portion contains an electronic connector 'ribbon' for the carriage and it moves/folds/unfolds, so I doubt there's clearance for foam. The left side has some space available to add foam, but there's no motors in there. The right side has motors, but less room. Let us know how it goes for you.