rrc1962

(1) Just increase the stroke weight. (2) Use the outline tool. Select the clear center option in design central. After creating the outline, right click and "Separate Outline". The outline and the item outlined are now two separate pieces. Delete the original leaving just the outline. This assumes you are talking about Flexi, not Inkscape.

If you already have an XP machine running, I'd just stick with it. USB is notoriously problematic on these cutters.

What version of Flexi do you have? If 8.1 or better, set the over cut distance to the same as the blade offset. I believe that feature wasn't offered until V8.1.

You can't print on vinyl with standard ink unless it's vinyl made to be printed with standard ink. Papilio sells something in small sheets, but for production work, that's not the way you want to go. for printing a decal or two now and then, it works OK. CIS is cheaper because you are buying bulk ink in bottles and refilling your ink reservoirs.

I just cut out the registration mark on the upper most layers leaving a hole the shape of the registration mark in the masking paper. Line the hole up to bottom layer registration mark and you're done.

Are you planning on printing and cutting decals? If yes, then you need contour cutting, and if you plan on doing a lot of it, you'll need a good cutter and some decent software. You can contour cut with cheaper cutters, even cutters not designed for contour cutting, but you wouldn't want to do it all day long. For cut vinyl graphics a cheaper cutter will get you started and depending on how involved you get, may suit your needs for quite a while. How big depends on what you want to do. For cutting small decals, a 12" cutter may work for you. If you want to do graphics for signs, vehicles, etc. then you'll want at least a 24" cutter.

Your welcome. Glad it worked for you.

The image is really too small to do much with. I drew this from scratch. ag.AI ag.AI

The best way would be to find a local shop with a flatbed printer. They can print on just about anything up to a couple inches thick. One shop here gets $250 for a 4x8 print. There are places on-line that do it cheap, but shipping a 4x8 sheet would cost more than the printing. Alternatively, you could have it printed on vinyl and laminate it to the substrate.

There are print houses out there who do nothing but print vinyl 24/7. Since it is what they do exclusively, they do it cheap. So cheap that unless you are doing some volume, it's hardly worth owning an expensive printer.

Thanks...This may not work as I'm not doing the printing. I had some limited success doing this a couple years ago. What I did was draw a bounding box and place the design(s) inside the box, then export that as an EPS and send it to the printer who printed it on 8.5x11 sheets (offset printing). I then took the same file and saved it under a different name and outlined the designs, separated the outline and deleted the original designs leaving only the solid outline and the bounding box. I then loaded the 8.5x11 printed decal sheet into the plotter and lined the knife up the front right corner of the box and hit send. The plotter cut the outline or contour and the box. To make this work you have to set all margins in Flexi to 0. Also a good idea to plot the contour file to paper first and make sure that plotter scaling and printer scaling matches. My plotter cuts slighty larger than real world. IE: 6" = about 6.125" on the plotter. It's not something that mattered until I started trying to match contour cuts to printed designs. If the scaling is a little off, I just scale up or down by a very small amount in production manager. The process worked quite well but when I saw your post I was hoping for a simpler solution through Flexi. I looks like in order to make it work through Flexi, I have to do the printing, which isn't an option. I'm thinking of doing the same thing, but using a different printer who will print larger sheets and print on Orajet vinyl rather than offset printing.

Isn't that a Disney character? Might be walking a thin line there. They have been known to protect their copyrights and trademarks over small infractions.

How do you line up the registration marks on cutter that doesn't have a laser? Can you walk me through the procedure. I'd like to experiment with that. I'm also using 8.1 Pro. What cutter do you have? It's a Refine MH781.

You got a grant or a loan? My dad used to be involved with SCORE. Do do what they suggested would have cost me easily 3K per month. When I told them I had no budget for advertising and I needed to be creative, they (my dad) was totally lost. Most of them come from a big business environment were dropping a few grand a month on advertising is nothing. They offered to help me get a small business loan. I went through the motions for a $10K loan and was turned down...with a 720 credit score. The business was not making a profit yet and I had no other income. I said...Duh...I need the seed money to invest in the business so it WILL make a profit. This was back in the late 90's. Maybe things have changed.

How do you line up the registration marks on cutter that doesn't have a laser? Can you walk me through the procedure. I'd like to experiment with that. I'm also using 8.1 Pro.

24x6 inches or feet? Too high if it's inches and too cheap if it's feet. I price based on the local market and I try to be competitive. Every area is different. What does your competition charge for banners?

I quoted a 4' x 8' corroplast one side two colors for $100 and never got a call back.

Pro Use the distort tools to wrap text around a circle.

Set the grid settings and turn on snap to grid. That makes drawing to exact dimensions very easy. If you use the 4 view display, you can jump from view to view while drawing to design in 3D. If you want to change the size of something you drew, turn on control points and drag the points. To snap a point or object to the grid, turn on "snap to grid" and select the "near" option. select the move command and let the cursor snap to the object, then move it so it snaps to the grid.

Are you still using USB on a laptop?

I just had our logo digitized for $14 online. I think they are in China. The service was great. Their website is http://www.a100-digitizing.com. You'd be VERY lucky to find someone with the Frito-Lay logo already digitized. Brandsoftheworld logos are in EPS vector format. It's not just clip art.

What do you mean by CNC ready? Just about any CAM program can read a DXF. Most can read a EPS also.

Figure out your materials so you'll at least come out flush, then add some labor. It's your first job so it will be a learning experience anyway. If you feel you didn't make enough, charge more next time. If you quote too much, you probably won't get the job. Unless you're the only shop doing wraps within 50 miles or so, the customer has probably got quotes from other shops. What is your competition charging? That should be a good indicator of what your market will bear.

I'd hand trace it. It would tale a couple of hours but it's too rough for an auto trace. You can use Inkscape to hand trace it.

I use Rhino 3D most of the time. I only use AutoCAD if a client request it specifically. Even then sometimes I use Rhino and just export a DWG. Are you doing the machining? If not, What file format does the machine shop like? Depending on which CAM they use, they may have a preference.