MrJoel

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Posts posted by MrJoel

  1. Posted

    In dry winter months doing car wraps we have seen debris be sucked 3 feet off the ground and onto the vinyl!  (Fleet installs can’t always control the environmental conditions of where we are installing and there is only so much sweeping you can do at the prices we charge). If it’s going into vinyl when pulling the backing off, the same static charge will suck up debris off that office floor you thought was clean.

  2. Posted

    I sold my Laserpoint 2 today and ended up going with the Titan 3 15”.  At the shop I work at for my full time job we have an old stepper motor Gerber (maybe, can’t remember off hand) and we have two huge graphtec 8600s.  It astounds me how quiet they run in comparison to the stepper unit we have there as well as in comparison to my LP2.  I have two kiddos with special needs and one has some issues with loud noises, this figured into the discussion greatly with the lovely Mrs. it has more downforce as well (all I do is reflective and chrome) and both of those need it.  The fact that the servo motors are more accurate factored in as well, I did a run of punisher skulls at .75” and the holes for the nose were not achievable with the Lp2 but were with the graphtec 8600 (I know there is a huge difference in machines there too but a lot of the accuracy is from the servo (those nose pieces were less than 1/16” wide).

    I think for the current situation it is going to be a fine choice.  The one thing I did notice was a lack of videos and reviews of it.  I’ll change that!

     

  3. Posted

    I have a guy buying my Laserpoint 2 and I’m giving him the software from my new plotter when it gets here... is there a full use windows trial version of software he can use and actually cut with?  I know scal has that stupid line it cuts through your decal

    • Haha 1

  6. Posted

    I had issues with the blade holder coming into contact when I set it up per skeeters instructions.  Why?  Well, the vinyl wasn’t laying flat sometimes.  I adjusted the blade out a bit further than normal and adjusted the pressure accordingly.  Proper installation of the vinyl eliminates any slack that gear pushed to the left side, resulting in a slight wave (my Reflective I have to use a third roller on 15” pieces and wider).  All I cut is reflective and chrome so when the blade holder drags it scratches the vinyl pretty good 

  8. Posted

    Ok guys, the decal business is rocking and I think it’s already time to move up from the Laserpoint 2.  My problem is that we are in a rental and I don’t have much space inside and the garage is not able to be heated as is and I’m not insulating it for the owner.  I need a 15” table top for the house.   I only do decals, single color, in reflective and chrome.  Both are on sale right now is the upgrade to the Titan 3 worth the  $150 difference?  What are your guys thoughts on a refurb regular Titan at $295???

  11. Posted

    Ok guys, I’m removing a 2 year old wrap that someone else did... please, for all that is good, PLEASE...don’t use primer like this!  This removal should have taken about 2 man hours, we have a 3 man team on it and 12 man hours into just the removal!!!  (Another issue was the use of the wrong type of vinyl on a horizontal application...the entire hood was primed and heat baked). Plenty of Justin Pate intall videos on YouTube for proper technique and consult your vinyl supplier for proper vinyl for the job...

    B4CCFD19-F7E5-4912-B2FF-D151AA31F9E7.jpeg

    1FFEA977-92C5-46F5-9CCD-B3C8F0B00FFB.jpeg

  12. Posted

    Old decal removal is pretty straight forward with heat... once you see the color slightly change sheen on solid color graphics you’re good to just peel off.  We mostly use propane torches around the shop but hearguns and hair dryers work too.  The perfect temperature is when you put your hand on it and it almost hurts (there’s a fine line there)

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    29 minutes ago, Dakotagrafx said:

    with the trouble that it took conforming 751 I am sure I would never had gotten a decent application with anything less - it has to give in too many ways and calandared vinyl just wont do that being thicker and in the vary nature of how it is made will cause trouble not long down the road.  the c&d was from somewhere else.  

    We do things all the time that shouldn’t be able to be done... the trick is being able to see what the vinyl wants to do and being able to persuade it to do otherwise...then accepting the comprise (the guys I work with for installs have done this much longer than I and I just recently introduced them to wet applications...they didn’t know about it and rarely needed it.  It amazes me the things 20 years of experience does to people)

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  16. Posted

    I have a Laserpoint 2 but it works for any machine.  I just cut a 1” strip of vinyl and put it all the way to the right of the cutting area by the measuring strips on both the front and the back. I put the roll on, pull it through, line up the right side in front and back (with some slack off the roll), put the rollers down, manually tighten the slack and slide the roll over slightly to make it straight (no slack on the vinyl left or right). After that, you can take a sharpie and just mark your rollers.  I had to do the same thing on the left side but because of its design the cutter can’t use the last 3” of the left side...so I have a piece of vinyl marking the 3.5” mark on the left, front back and a sharpie mark for the rollers.

    on long cuts I always run a foot or two through just to make sure I’m tracking straight.

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    I fought this forever too!  Check your calibration on your printer and software.  Either cut a 1”x1” square or a 10”x10” square and then actually measure what gets cut out.  My 1x1 was .96x.97”...found out during a large batch of reflective rectangles that got cut undersized

  19. Posted

    18 hours ago, Dakotagrafx said:

    I personally use a second blade holder and after I have used my cleancut first in the primary holder for regular vinyl I move it to the metallics, glitter holder as that will eat any blade up faster and I want my regualr vinyl to always be trouble free.   that way I get double duty out of the cleancut blades too as you generally do not do as fine of cuts with metalics

    I actually only do chrome and Reflectives in my little niche so I’m a blade eating machine!!! 

    • Like 2

  20. Posted

    On 10/23/2017 at 8:56 AM, Dakotagrafx said:

    Remember before installing to drop you pressure 50 percent and start with too little blade working your way up so you don’t break a tip. 

    Clean cut blade is in and I used 1/2 the pressure and almost no blade as suggested.  My cutter was running Chrome at a pressure setting of 300, I started at 150 and ended up at 145 making perfect cuts.  Combine that with the offset issue that was fixed by calibrating my cutter to the software and...BAM!!! Cutting perfect!  The most trouble i had was with the punisher skulls I did for my boys party.  I couldn’t get them any smaller than 1” without eyes and nose holes and teeth not cutting right... just for giggles I made some at .6” and they look awesome!  Btw, the eyes on that are tiny but the nostrils are almost too small to weed with a pin...

    • Like 3

  21. Posted

    I’ve have this Laserpoint 2 since July and you can go back and look at the issues I’ve had... my offset was never quite perfect, and the overlap was causing issues sometimes leaving little .2mm slices into the design that sometimes causes a catastrophe when weeding.  Then I ran some simple rectangles and found out (after $30 of Reflective was cut undersized) that my scaling was off.  On a 1” square it was off.. it was .96x.97”.  It doesn’t seem like much but when I recalibrated it in the software, all the other issues went away.  This should be a test you run when you get your cutter or you are having problems.  

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    I found a spot on UScutter support section on how to do it, but it was wrong on how to accurately fix it.  basically you design a 1" square and cut it.  mine cutter had it a .96x.97" square, the solution was to go into the cut screen, click on settings and under x resolution I changed it to 1.04 and y to 1.03.  on a 10"x 10" square I am now at 10.002 x 10.0012...close enough, a little extra is better than the mess up I just made.   (the solution from them had it going the wrong way and just entering your measurements of x and y which made the square smaller.

  23. Posted

    Just noticed this on another big reflective job I'm doing so the mistake is fairly costly here.  I have 24" wide material running that measures out at 23 7/8" which is typical.  This job had a bunch of 5" X 30" rectangles that I started on and after the first row of 4 I noticed I have 4.5" of left over material. I am pretty good at math and even with no spacing between the larger ones I should have been less than 4" left.  So I got my tape out.  5x30 actually cut at 4.832" wide and 29.61"  unfortunately that's not gonna cut it for the customer.  I'm ok with loosing those but then I went back to the 6x10's I cut yesterday and the 4x9" I cut with them and they are all undersized too.  How do I fix the problem here?  There are a crap ton of these that I am going to be doing but no I know that everything I cut is off.  where can I calibrate this?

  25. Posted

    My wife was weeding for me on the stuff that was cut with the chipped blade...umm...well...I appeased her by just throwing it all away! Apparently, a good practice in marriage is to make sure your wife is happy (been married 22 years, yes to the same woman too..) we switched to orafol 352 from our normal chrome from H&H (from griff I believe)...she hates the orafoil, any nick in that stuff and it tears...with a broken blade there are lots of nicks..thus it is gone!  Btw, anyone need about 5 yards of 352?

    • Like 1