Kronick Designs

Reflective

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This may have been asked before but I am going to cut some reflective vinyl for the first time. I am using 3M  5100 and cutting with a Laserpoint 3, i have the 60 degree blade in my machine but I'm not sure about pressure. Any advice? Thanks...

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You'll have to go a little heavier on the force. It will be a trial and error kind of thing.

I have an original LP, and my usual pressure for colored 651 is about 88, for the reflective, I slow it down a little (from 60 to 40), and increase the pressure to 94.

I haven't tried cutting reflective on my Graphtec yet, but I would probably do the same thing.

Good luck. Let us know what works for you.

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Definitely get you a "CleanCut" blade.  It cuts reflective so much better. Slow down as slow as it can go and you may still have to do 2 passes.

I have a LP II and have spent days testing and retesting reflective.  I've finally settled on:

- a 60 degree CleanCut blade,

- 450g of force. "Force" seems to be pretty relative and varies from machine to machine. I cut 651 at 125g but I've seen people say they use anywhere from 50 to 200.  But mine needs roughly 3 1/2 times the force to cut reflective.

- a speed of 100. That's the slowest mine will go.

- two passes. It will cut in one pass the majority of the time, but I cut larger decals and when it doesn't complete the cut I'm wasting a lot of time and money.

- weed immediately.  Reflective seems to self-heal a lot quicker than 651.

- be careful of fine details.  Things like the dot on the letter "i" may cause you problems staying stuck to the backing paper.

- Test, test and test some more.

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As weird as this sounds - sometimes I need the reflective to be temporary. If anyone has tried to peel off reflective, then they should know that it comes off in small pieces and is a total pain to remove. So when a temporary application is needed, I will often pre-layer the reflective on some 651 (whatever color I have the most inventory in), and then run it through the cutter, doing two passes. The end result is a pretty thick decal, but removing it is a breeze.

Ditto on the Clean Cut Blade!

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Love this idea Haumana!  I just did some temporary and it was a royal pain to remove.  Next time I'll use your trick!

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