Wildgoose

Tyson, get a year or two experience with your cutter, then upgrade to a higher end unit and you will look back on things much differently and the comments that wouldn't sink in this time around just might make sense. 5 post in and you are already telling long time members that they have their head in their rear is a ridiculous way to start things out. I can already tell you that 3 of the best, most experienced and friendliest forum members have probably written you into their get-lost list. How's that saying go? Experience is a cruel teacher but a fool will learn no other way.

I think I hate Papyrus more than just about any font. Had a customer who wanted 15" letters down the side of a 15 passenger ford van. Thank goodness he decided maybe he would like something else once I blew a letter up for him to see what it was going to look like up close. Whew.

If you have seen the cutter cut from his computer then all this running around is just academic because you WILL be able to make it run on yours one way or another. I think you are worrying about that item more than you need. Graphtec is one of the top brands as far as cutter go and the design/cut combinations are many and varied but have been figured out so many times that you can rest assured that it will work provided the cutter is still in good shape and working correctly.

Sounds to me like you are about ready to go for it. If you can live with NO income (from your end) for 6-9 then you must be setting pretty good. You will have a little investment here and there but the cutter and CS6 were the worst of it to get going. My day job is construction management so I hear you on getting tired of the daily grind. Just about every phone call I get is a problem somewhere. Vinyl work is a great distraction from the stress for me. Sometimes hectic in it's own way but so much different that I love the change of pace. With your background in autocad you'll catch on to the basics of CS6 in no time. I'll help you if I can. For cut vinyl the parts of the AI program you will be using are all relatively simple once you learn a few basic functions and operational rules of thumb. Illustrator is huge but 80% of it is aimed at print or web based designs and vinyl is just simple solid colors so much of the other stuff is irrelevant and can be learned as you go along, if ever. I took a course on Illustrator and have forgotten a lot of the fancy stuff because I never do it. However after a few years of busting out vinyl I could school the teacher on this side of the coin.

Welcome from Idaho, been up your way several times.

If you are thinking punch then it will need to have some room between other vinyl. So if you have a background design and some text over the top you will want to create a gap around the lettering. I do this a lot for readability reasons anyway. Other than that layering with adhesive vinyl is no biggie. HTV on shirts layers fine on small stuff like 4" crest prints but as Skarekrow mentioned it can be too much on bigger stuff causing poor feel.

I make a few things for myself but never for anyone else. I did quite a bit of research on the fair use thing along with copyright and trademark laws, even going to talk to a very good attorney frined and in the end dakota pegged it best. They don't have to be right they just decide they're going to sue you and then you have to defend yourself. At that point you can use the fair use protection but it's called protection for a reason. Protection from what? A huge A$$ lawsuit that's what. Like I said I make a few shirts or decals for my own use but that comes with a certain amount of risk and then all your buddies are like "hey make me one of those dude!" and you have to explain why you can't even GIVE them one so it's mostly more trouble than it's worth.

Huh, My cards from vista are twice the quality at half the price of the locals and look smokin good. I designed them myself of course but they are the high gloss with info on the back. Other than the slew of email that they throw out they did a great job. Yes they print shirts but all my work is so much more custom that they don't pose a threat to me at all. I don't aim anyone there way mind you, clients I mean. I have never had anyone ask me to print cards. If they do I'll design it for them and then have vista outsource it for me with a little mark-up.

I work an involved day job and manage to squeeze in the signs, vehicles, t-Shirts etc... in the evenings and weekends for now. I am a ways out from retirement but can see looking forward that this might be something for me to retire into. I make too much money to stop my current career and have a large family to support on it so full time signs would be out of the question so I am simply working on building up my equipment and getting it all paid for at this point. If I was better about re-investing every penny it would already have a huge bankroll but life seems to get in the way and I drain off a few hundred a month here and there to subsidize my bad habits. LOL Get your feet under you with enough time to have the experience you will need for full time before you jump. To get it producing an income you will not be wanting to be trying to learn CS6 or figure out apparel and heat presses etc..(In my opinion you will want to reach into as many aspects of the industry as possible, I started out just sign vinyl but now do more shirts and clothing than signs) you will need to be hitting the streets building a clientele which you can incidentally be doing now while you learn. If you leave will there be an option to go back to what you are doing if it doesn't work out? I'm a pansy and like to have a safety net.

Here is another side of the coin that no one is probably thinking about except adobe...what motivation do they now have to even mess with upgrades? They control a large part of the market. The only reason to sink R&D money into the existing program would be to stay ahead of the competition. In the past they always had a new version and folks who were worried about it did the upgrades but there will be less motivation for them to do anything major. Some of the other utilities in the entire suite may see the need for big changes but not Illustrator specifically yet the CC subscriber will be paying for all and then some. I have never upgraded from the CS5 so far because there wasn't really anything new to blow the money on. I don't use the other programs so I have no need for the entire suite and just bought AI as a stand alone program. I'm going to at least try the CC version out at some point in the future if for no other reason than to try out a few of the new tools they came out with but I may not become an automaton and just sit there plugging in hard earned cash every month when I can just use my CS5 version which I own. On the other side of the coin, watching Skarekrow bust out quick work with PS to AI conversions I can see that the two programs work pretty seamlessly together and while using the CC I may find that it's pretty great having access to some of the other programs that I have not had to date so.....eh maybe it will end up being the way I go and the CS5 will be my back-up who knows.

Is there anyone on the forum who has experience with CS5 or CS6 that has upgraded to the new CC version of AI? If so what are your thoughts? I have been mulling over getting a subscription to utilize some of the new options they have out. CS5 to CS6 wasn't much of a leap in technology (love the new look though) so I didn't drop coin on it but I'm liking the sound of some of the new options in the cloud based version. Just not liking the monthly payment idea. Some of the features I see being real useful wound be the new Touch Type tool that lets you manipulate type way more while still remaining live text. The On Art Free Transform tool looks more intuitive than the old style and probably a lot faster and the ability to adjust lines and curves by just dragging them from somewhere on the line rather than from a node is much more like you can do in Inkscape which I have always thought they should figure out. Oh yea, variable width strokes! Way cool! as are the new features in the pattern brush tools menu. I'm probably going to end up trying this out sooner or later but if anyone has already made the jump and has previous experience to compare the older versions I would love to hear some input.

Sarah, You have it right. The only thing that wasn't going right for you was that to see it properly you needed to make the outer two offsets into a compound path. I ungrouped your file and selected the outer two lines and then either select object>compound path>make or use the shortcut command>8 (Cntrl>8 on pc). Offset lines will sometimes have extra nodes in corners etc but the nodes themselves are irrelevant so you don't need to remove them as long as they are in the right place. If you go the route of using a stoke and outlining the stroke you will often get strange things going on so use the path offset that showAndGo said. One other helpful thing is before you offset any paths select the whole set of numbers names or objects and do the Command>8 function to make them a compound shape then illustrator will treat them like one object and any overlap of the offset line will be more what you are looking for. If you just leave it as a group any overlaps will then have to be welded together. This graphic had no overlap so it is a non issue but for future reference... Also as a side note, your file didn't look correct but it would cut correct and you could just weed out the inner area to create the same in the end. Just harder to see when building things that way but the cutter will cut all the lines. Numbers w-outline.ai

Hard to beat vistaprint for price and quality. You just have to be prepared to be blasted with emails afterword. You can just set up a filter and send them to junk mail.

I think 'm going to try the demo if for no other reason that to check this thing out. Problem I have is it's evidently not mac compatible. I still have a windows laptop although it does the bluescreen thing any time I let it update.

Skare will it cut from multiple pages/artboards? If so that would be interesting.

If you have Illustrator CS3 you just need to do a little homework and you are good to go. Illustrator is tough to learn at first but well worth learning. There are a bunch of upgraded versions but most everything you need to start with is all there. Once you are opened up in the program use the white selection tool (quick key a) to work with individual nodes. If you need to modify, add, remove nodes there are specific node tools in the node tool (pen tool) array. I don't know exactly the look and feel of CS3 because I have CS5 but you should be able to click and hold on the pen tool and it will show you the other three options which are also accessible by quick keys (the key shortcuts are listed beside each option so you can gradually learn them)

I have another that sometimes beats sanmar for prices on certain things, Thinc Actionwear. Yes it's spelled funny.

Ya upload the file is going to be the best way for us to figure it out. There is often an outline or a clipping path when importing other files. In your layers panel you can click open the little triangles to view each sub-layer. As noted above, you may have to ungroup a few times to get things opened back up. You can usually grab that pesky box and delete it.

I am also guessing that english is her second language. LOL

while in the tiles menu there is a red X or a series of smaller x's denoting the tiles. You just use either of these to click on the tile you want to cut. Typically everything cuts and you will use the X to tell it to skip certain sections. There should be red X's though any tiles that are not going to cut. If you didn't set your vinyl size in the boxes on the main page the program will only let you cut what will fit within the parameters you entered. Some cutters will measure this for you most of the budget cutters you need to measure the distance between the pinch rollers and at least guess at the length of the roll and it will automatically tile anything that won't fit within that size.

Hi Alinn, welcome from Idaho. Don't know my way around SF so can't help you much with directions. So do you own a vinyl cutter?

6oz cotton is thick and tough. 90% of my people want something like that. I don't have a real brand preference except I don't like Anvil 100% cotton. Too rough after washing. You will have to try a few brands out and see for yourself. I shop the sales when possible. I just put in an order today and double checked the price comparison to Jiffy. Sanmar=$160 Jiffy=$217. With Sanmar (and most wholesalers) if you can get over the $200 mark you get free shipping too, although seems like they won't count closeout sale items toward your free shipping. This order had about $21 in shipping which was included int the $160 number. Well worth the effort to sign up if you have a legit resellers permit.

You would be surprised how many people have a fobia of paypal. Not necessarily warranted but won't touch it.

If you can produce good looking vinyl graphics on your car you can do the same for shirts. Even easier IMO. Same principal as regular adhesive vinyl except for press part. (mirror image reverse cut though, you are cutting the adhesive side of the vinyl) Press one layer at a time. No big deal at all. In the proper application I think it is superior to most other options. Proper application being simple solid color graphics. If you have a million holes to weed out it is a lot of work and the screen or direct to garment printers rule but for basic graphics it lasts as long as the shirt, stays vibrant the whole life of the shirt and generally speaking ain't coming off there. I have 3 or 4 converted customers who used to get screen printed shirts. I did a shirt or two for them and they loved the feel and color so much they have been with me several years and several thousand. Welcome from Idaho.

It does but if you can sign then your good. If it's a phone order you have to enter the numbers and no signature