cardudenc

cutting mylar

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so I did  search. most newer post weren't answered. I did find an older 1 which most responses was no 1 had tried to cut mylar before. well im looking to cut it for the same reason that I saw most have posted asking about. making stencils. with our other biz chalk painting is big part. we paint furn or sell everything to DIY. so the wife ordered a few stencils from 1 of our suppliers, guess she didn't like using the 1s I cut from vinyl since it was hard to have something reusable , sometimes I was careful and got more than 1 out of vinyl, but it isn't going to be like the mylar 1s. I haven't measured what we have yet. but im planning on trying the 4 mil. so anyone have any info/tips

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Ok, so I had to go look up mylar stencils. When I, and probably most people, think Mylar, I think mylar balloons or mylar blankets, thin shinny material. Cutting that on a cutter would be virtually impossible I think. However, from what I can tell, they type of mylar you are talking about is more of a thin plastic or a thick film rather than the shinny stuff I'm thinking of.

At 4 mil you shouldn't have too much trouble. standard vinyl is around 2.5 mil so increasing the pressure, adjusting the blade depth, and possibly making 2 passes should get you a decent cut. The next question though, does the material have a sticky back and come on a carrier sheet. If it does you should be good. If it does not, you'll need some sort of carrier sheet to attach the mylar to in order to feed it into your cutter. If you try to cut without a backing material or carrier sheet you'll ruin your cutting strip, not get a good cut, and waste your material.

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yes, and I think that's y most use the cheap hobby cutters wal mart sells for this since most us a mat to hold the material for the cutter

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You can buy those mats individually and use them with your cutter. If they're not big enough you could try making your own. Get some poster board and a light adhesive, cover the board, apply the mylar and hope for the best. ::)

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I have cut mylar stencils using a piece of clear app tape as a substrate. You could probably layer a couple pieces of paper app tape to get a little more body to the backing if you don't have clear. The clear is not all that stiff anyway but the mylar is stiff enough that it worked fine for me. 

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actually prob have the perfect app tape for it. lol I think I  posted about it in some of my 1st post when I was listing my newbie mistake.  I have a clear I bought off amazon and with my 1st attempt lettering a commercial vehicle, tried wet apply and his phone # is still on my shop fridge, app tape and all. lol

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time to revive this 1.

so I ordered cutting mats similar or maybe the same as a cricket/ hobby cutter uses, and some clear  5 or 6mm mylar. any tips of setting up to cut this? my concern is the thickness of a cutting mat + the mylar  versus the thickness of vinyl.  I can take a set of calipers and measure the difference if needed  or do u just jump in and run it thru and hope for the best? lol  I have an xtra tool holder I can put a different degree blade in. seems I read somewhere someone using a 60* blade for mylar and thicker vinyl

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5 MM is something like 200 mil. I doubt it's THAT thick. More likely 5 or 6 mil which is .005 or .006 inches (around 0.15 mm) If it's 5 mm you aren't going to be cutting it with a regular cutter.

Assuming it's not too thick to cut through. Stick it to your mew mat and start some test cuts. You may find that two or even three passes is necessary. I have some stuff I had to do two passes or one nearly maxed out pass and I liked the two passes better because it wasn't dragging so hard on the plastic which caused more weird deflection during the cut. It's a PIA to figure out what pressure to use for a two pass cut and I just dedicated a scrap to mess with and kept slowly increasing the pressure until I got it where I liked it. With a cutting mat you don't have to worry about cutting through. 

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yep, error on my part. 6 mil is what I have. should've had it in my hand while posting. just laid a piece of mylar on the mat and it really doesn't seem as thick as I expected.  that was my next question, what pressure to start with. ive played around with setting my blade depth that I guess im at the very bare min sticking out for cutting vinyl. I had to move the pressure up quite  bit from when I 1st setup my cutter.  I prob have this 1 not set as shallow as that 1. so not sure if I should cut back on pressure or just let it ride and start a test cut

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You will want to hold your blade up beside the mylar to make sure it will be able to cut all the way through. In this instance you will want the bare minimum blade exposed to cut the 6 mils. I think you can cut upwards of 10 mil with a standard 45deg blade if that helps. I don't know whether a 60 is advantageous or not on something like mylar. The angle is steeper but the tip will be a little leaner. Not sure how that will do when turning corners in hard plastic. They make 30deg blades for cutting hard products like window tint, just makes me wonder which would be best between the standard blade and 60 deg.

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Its been awhile since I read the info on which blade. im sure I prob have that incorrect too. I do good to rem what I did yest, which reminds me, what day is it? lol.  when I started reading all the tips and tricks on here, plus getting 1 on 1 help from a couple of the members, I bought a tool holder for each degree blade. I will check the blade when I get home then do a test cut like I do setting 1 up to cut vinyl. just making sure it cuts all the way thru. thanx for all the help. this is why I didn't try to do a cut last night. I figured would get more info if I waited. I could just see it trying to do a cut and ripping the whole tool holder out of the carriage somehow.

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"I do stencils in mylar on my xy-380 and have no problems. I'm sure it will cut on any machine. I get my mylar from michaels and use a 60 blade"

I found where I read that, old post on here about mylar

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This is exactly what I'm trying to cut.  How did you end up cutting this?  What machine did you use?  Did you use a Cricut mat and 60 degree blade?  

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28 minutes ago, KandGMakeIt said:

This is exactly what I'm trying to cut.  How did you end up cutting this?  What machine did you use?  Did you use a Cricut mat and 60 degree blade?  

His picture is showing a UScutter SC model. (no longer sold new here, But SC2 is) and he is using a cutting mat. 185 grams force.  From his post above, He used a 60 degree blade.   You can zoom his cutter picture up pretty good. You can even read the cutter display good. 

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Don't forget about a carrier sheet if you're using a regular cutter.

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I am experimenting with cutting stencil sheets, too, using an SC2.

I was trying to cut these sheets:

https://www.hobbylobby.com/Crafts-Hobbies/Stencils-Craft-Paints/Stenciling/Stencil-Blanks---8"-x-10"/p/27039

And per advice from various YouTube videos, I bought a Circut Strong Grip (purple) cutting mat.

I am using a 60 degree blade, and have been experimenting. I've been able to easily cut the Test square/triangle if I run it a few times, but trying to repeat my fancier patterns doesn't line up and I get double lines, so that doesn't seem to be an option.

This stencil material seems very thick to me, which may be my problem. Even at max (500) pressure, it won't cut all the way through unless I do repeated attempts.

Measuring this material with my caliper shows it to be just under .4mm. This seems awfully thick, and I wonder how well this type of stencil even works with paints (even though the packing give instructions only mentioning using it for paint).

Any more tips to a newbie? I've had the SC2 for a few months and have used it to make various yard signs and even one jumbo sign (and a multi layer multi color logo), but this is my first attempt with trying to cut a stencil.

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Ref the Stencil Vinyl, or low tac vinyl - works really well for one off jobs, at a push you could re use if you were carefull, Weeding can be a pain for small lettering and can also be time consuming !! - for a proper re-useable stencil you do need to use something a bit more suited for the job - I have used A4 paper soaked in linseed oil for a cheap and easy Stencil for home use, works well and cuts easy :-)

I have an ancient CAMM-1 PNC-1000, steam driven for the Job !!

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