MrJoel

Weeding suggestions

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Ok y'all, I have an order of 50 small (4x6ish) us flags... my eyes are hating me on the stars!  Any suggestions?  I'm not opposed to explosives at this point :ph34r:

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Are you wedding the stars out of a solid background or weeding the background off the stars? Sometimes you can reverse the process and it will go better. I do that on HTV quite often. 

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2 hours ago, Wildgoose said:

Are you wedding the stars out of a solid background or weeding the background off the stars? Sometimes you can reverse the process and it will go better. I do that on HTV quite often. 

Taking the stars out of a solid pattern 

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2 hours ago, mb20music said:

How much are you charging for them.

I"m well covered in price, unless surgery is required to fix the eyes after this :o

first, they are chrome...

second, the chrome I had at first had a protective film over it that I didn't remove prior to cutting

third...i'll snag a star with the ultra sharp weeding tool and then I find out it's just the protective film that came up, not the actual vinyl.  I ran some R-tape chrome that a friend had and It is much better.  Trying to decide if I want to continue with further batches or not.  on my reflective stuff I generally just take a larger piece of weeded material and gently dapp it on the smaller stuff...that pulls it right up, the larger chrome pieces don't pull it, maybe some reflective could do it?

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So I went and got a pair of needle point tweezers, but they didn't work.  So I took my sharpening stones for my knives and went to town on making those bad boys fine and sharp.  The result was a pair of tactical weeding tweezers 

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10 minutes ago, MrJoel said:

So I went and got a pair of needle point tweezers, but they didn't work.  So I took my sharpening stones for my knives and went to town on making those bad boys fine and sharp.  The result was a pair of tactical weeding tweezers 

you can also use the back end of a bic pen with a small piece of double sided tape on it .that you just dab the stars out with , if you understand what im saying..

Or the weeding tool for HTV that has a really nice hook style on it ,grabs really good. Siser Weeder Pick Tool  from uscutter.

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1 hour ago, MrJoel said:

So I went and got a pair of needle point tweezers, but they didn't work.  So I took my sharpening stones for my knives and went to town on making those bad boys fine and sharp.  The result was a pair of tactical weeding tweezers 

I've used needle nosed, sharpened, tweezers for years. Best weeding tool yet! 

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2 hours ago, MrJoel said:

So I went and got a pair of needle point tweezers, but they didn't work.  So I took my sharpening stones for my knives and went to town on making those bad boys fine and sharp.  The result was a pair of tactical weeding tweezers 

That's pretty much what I like to use. I buy some hand made tweezers at a local machinists supply store that a retired guy makes. They call them machinists tweezers and are for picking little bits of steel out of your fingers. They work fantastic for HTV and small elements. They are almost too sharp for some of the regular work so I use a larger pointed pair I bought somewhere for regular size regular vinyl. Biggest problem I have with the sharp ones is I live in a house full of girls and they are always taking them for their own use and don't put them back. They are pretty expensive at around $25 a pair but are made from spring steel and should last forever.

Tweezers.JPG

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On 9/4/2017 at 7:18 PM, Primal Decals said:

you can also use the back end of a bic pen with a small piece of double sided tape on it .that you just dab the stars out with , if you understand what im saying..

Or the weeding tool for HTV that has a really nice hook style on it ,grabs really good. Siser Weeder Pick Tool  from uscutter.

So, after about 1 quadrillion stars, I have found that if you roll the vinyl slightly it loosens than and makes life a lot easier 

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I have several straight point tools and happened to drop one some time back, which bent the point. Turned out to have formed a slight hook in the point. I modified slightly with some fine grit sand paper and work GREAT  for small weeding projects. 

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On 9/4/2017 at 9:21 PM, Wildgoose said:

That's pretty much what I like to use. I buy some hand made tweezers at a local machinists supply store that a retired guy makes. They call them machinists tweezers and are for picking little bits of steel out of your fingers. They work fantastic for HTV and small elements. They are almost too sharp for some of the regular work so I use a larger pointed pair I bought somewhere for regular size regular vinyl. Biggest problem I have with the sharp ones is I live in a house full of girls and they are always taking them for their own use and don't put them back. They are pretty expensive at around $25 a pair but are made from spring steel and should last forever.

Tweezers.JPG

I wish I could find some of those locally... I just picked about 4200 1/8” ovals... can’t feel my fingers now!

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Warm HTV weeds better.  You could lay it on a warm press for a few seconds prior to weeding.  Some $2 3X reading glasses help.  I do it when I am wearing contacts as the near component of my bifocal contacts ins't as strong as glasses.  No shame.  I am oldish.  Means I survived thus far.

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