Assistance with setting up multi-color job in SCALP Pro 3

[jskwarek 13]

Good morning all, I've got a job I'm doing for a buddy that requires three different colors of vinyl. I've completed the graphic in AI and imported it into SCALP Pro 3. Does anyone have any good tips or tricks on printing, weeding and then layering the three different colors over each other? This is the first time I've done mulitple color overlay and want to make sure I do it right, first time out of the box.

 

Thanks in advance for the tips and tricks,

 

Jason

 

[Tenfour86 41]

Probably best explained by this video.

 

http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php?/topic/48792-layering-with-parchment-paper/?hl=layering

[jskwarek 13]

Awesome, never thought about parchment. That should make things a lot easier on me.

Does SCALP3 have a built in option for registration marks, or do I simply add a small graphic to each layer and line up from there?

 

I've got 100 decals of varying sizes, each three colors. I was thinking originally that I would print all 100 of each color in one pass and then layer them that way before cutting into individuals. But, that seems to be a bad train of thought, as it would be difficult to do a 30" x 3yd placement of three colors and I would be wasting a lot of vinyl to do it, that way. Might have to rethink my approach.

 

Thanks, TenFour86.

 

JS

[Tenfour86 41]

As far as I know, there isnt any way to have SCAL insert registration marks for cutting like that.  It only has a feature for printing registration marks used for contour cutting.  You have to add in your own shape for that.  Any shape will do, but some advice I've seen advises staying away from circles and going with a shape that has corners to make lining things up easier.

 

If you use SCAL for design, you can add registration shapes to your design and use the "cut selection only" feature in the cut settings window to cut only the layers you select.  This ensures your registration shapes stay in place relative to what is being cut for every layer.

 

Not sure what to tell you about layering all at once vs individually though.  Can't say that I've really played around with that myself.  In theory, layering a lot of individual decals on the same sheet should be possible because the registration marks are providing alignment.  However, theory is ideal and reality is not, so I can see size becoming an issue at some point.  Any small inaccuracy in alignment will be amplified over long distances.