Feeding Exact measured size Vinyl Pieces into machine

[Melissa85 0]

New to uscutter and vinyl master, I have a silhouette cameo and have it used it for 3 years. Can someone tell me what the page size actually means? Is that the size of the piece of vinyl you are cutting or the size of your project? So I make wood signs and if I’m making a 12x12 sign, I will cut and exact 12x12 piece of vinyl and center my design on that 12x12 so all I have to do is take that 12x12 and lay it on my sign and the design is centered. I can not figure out how to do this on the sc2. I like the way I function by using exact size pieces of vinyl and not having mess around with measuring and making registration marks etc. so if I had 6x6 wood board, I designed my stencil by setting the page size to 6x6, centers my design and then loaded a 6x6 piece of vinyl. How do I get the damn machine to center my design on that 6x6 piece of vinyl???? Help lol sorry for the wordy post

[slice&dice 2,450]

Hi Melissa, welcome to our full-size-cutter world.

The "Page Size" in VinylMaster can also be referenced as WorkSpace. Your design fits inside the parameters of that area.

For your purposes, you need to begin by designating the Page Size dimensions (6x6) and then drawing a square of the same size. (Align it to center of workspace, vertical and horizontal). That square is going to be cut around the edges.
Now, put your stencil design inside it.

The size of the vinyl itself is irrelevant. For instance, if I'm using 6x6 squares, I can fit 2 of them on a 15" wide piece (our vinyl comes on long rolls, not individual sheets). When the cut is finished you'll weed away the excess around the boxes, and be left with two squares that are the right sizes, and then pick out the insides (your design). App-tape that decal and drop it onto your wood.

 

 

 

[Melissa85 0]

Ok this makes sense and originally I had thought about making the squares and also was told to do that by someone else! This does seem like the most logical process so thank you for the input. I guess I try to be as stingy as possible with my vinyl/contact paper and have zero waste lol. 

[haumana 1,220]

I typically use 15" punched roll vinyl. My 'workspace' is always set to 14"h, and the width would vary depending on project, but for majority of the time is set to about 24". That the area that I will design in. If I have specific limitations I need to adhere to, such as an 18"x12" sign, I will typically just draw a box within my existing workspace - you can also use guidlelines, but those make me kind of crazy.

The reason why I do this is because I get to see what excess vinyl I will inevitably have, so I can fill it with random things to cut, and I don't have to adjust my workspace with every single project. When it's time to send the job to the cutter, I just don't select that color that I used to make my box - unless that needs to be cut as well. I hate wasting vinyl, and if I the time to weed the random stuff (niece's or nephew's names, labels, quotes or cliches, etc.), I will add it on in the 'blank' area, because there is no way that I will ever be sending a 2" strip of vinyl through my machines. Sometimes I have the time to do it, sometimes I don't.

Different methods for different users. You will figure out what works best for you.