Dano

Thanks, that is a big help. Looks like I just need to practice a bunch. Dan

Thanks, I do use the live trace feature a bunch. It works great in CS3. But I often find myself tracing things in pictures when there is too much going on for live trace. I have come to realize that Signblazer has a better manual trace feature than Adobe. So I have just been using that!

I was wondering the same thing. A buddy of mine has had his cutter 2 years and is on the first blade. He uses his cutter every day. It still cuts great, Infact it cuts as good as my 2 month old blade. -Dan

Thanks Bruce, I

I do the same thing. I draw a box with a circle in it, then copy and past it in the desired locations. If I'm only doing two colors, I cut the box/circle with each color. Then I weed out the circle on one color, and weed out the box on the other. Works Great! -Dan

Thanks Guys! Bruce, I'll send you that serial # as soon as I find it. Thanks so much!

I know the version of SignBlazer that came with my Pcut is only a one machine, one time install. I have only been running it for about 2 months and my computer died. Do you think the folks at SignBlazer will give me another activation code to install on a new machine? Or do I have to buy a new copy? :'( I actually will install on the same computer, I just have to rebuild it. Thanks, Dan

Welcome, I'm new here too. I got my pcut about 1-1/2 months ago and have run a bunch of vinyl through it. There is no question that it isn't the quality of the Rolands and such, but for the price it's much better than I expected. A friend of mine has been running his hard (every day) for two years and it keep cutting away. Noisy? Yes Keystock to tie the pinch rollers together seems feasible. But I don't see a big advantage. I guess it would help it the initial alignment of the vinyl, but I haven't have any problems yet. If you go ahead with it, post pictures and tell us how it turned out. I found loading the vinyl to be a pain too. I was using one of those floppy plastic cutting boards for trimming and cutting, and found it works great as a guide for the vinyl. I just slide it through from the front, and then push the vinyl trough over the floppy cutting board. That way the edge doesn't catch in the grip roller area. Slide the board out, flop down the pinch rollers, and you're in business. Good luck with your cutter! At first I was very frustrated with mine. After reading posts on this forum I learned how to work though some of the problems and tweak the cutter. Now it seems to be cutting great every time with very little adjustment needed. -Dan

Anyone have any pointers how to effectively use the pen tool? I'm trying to trace an image in CS3 with the pen tool. Block type shapes I don't have a problem with. It's the curves. I know how to make curves, but it seems really difficult to trace a curve. I like the Polly line feature in Signblazer. Simply hit the "c" on the keyboard to turn the anchor point into a circle, then just click along the curve. It works great. Is there a way to do this in Illustrator? Thanks -Dan

No problem. The few I ordered from Grimco were the first I have tried. But they look great and are a quality product. They look even better with vinyl on them.

If you are talking about the metal blanks, I got a few from Grimco last week. But most sign suppliers sell them.

Hawaii Five-O was a great show. Not to mention its classic theme song! Thanks for the offset tip. I just gave it a shot and did a few test cuts. It is like night and day. Now the cutter is spot on. I just cut some very small lettering and it weeded easily. The start/stop points are barely visible now and some cases not at all. So, how does the blade offset work? I don't fully understand how it fixed my problem, but glad it did. Thanks Dano

I was able to try out the higher-pressure settings last night. It seemed to take care of my problem. I have backed it off to 130 and still seems to be cutting smooth. I'll keep you posted as I do some more cutting. Another problem I have is the accuracy of the Blade down/up spots on a cut. I get a little spot where the cut doesn't line up just right. It isn't a big deal, but it does throw a wrench in the mix when trying to weed something delicate. Is there some adjustment I can make for this? My friend has a JPI cutter that looks Identical (everything is the same except the nameplate) to my Pcut, and his seems to cut much more accurate. I would guess there is a setting that I could change to fix it. I just don't know what. What should I try? Thanks again for all your help, Dan

I was sort of thinking the same thing. Is there any preferred lubricant for this application? Thanks, Dan

After adjusting the blade height to the aprox 12 of a credit card, the problem persists, but not as frequently as before. I have noticed that it only happens when cutter is moving from the left to right. I suspect this has something to do with the blade holder being cantilevered on the right side of the carriage (not sure of the correct name). The internal arm of the blade holder will have different loading from cutting one direction to the other. Just a thought. Are there any mechanical adjustments I dare try? Other than that I will keep playing with the blade depth, cutter pressure, and cutter speed. Thanks, Dan