Maxdaemon

I'm so excited - two big boxes arrived from 3M today. I won't have time to look until later, but .. this is no 1 page sample .. one of the boxes is 16lbs. Vic

BTW - I noticed someone earlier ask about printing inkjet on the 3M stuff .. it lists in the tech specs whether it's inkjet printable or not - for instance the reflective I sampled is listed as ink jet printable.

What a weird coincidence - just as I was reading that, 3M called me! Nice gal on the line, we talked about signage, I told her I was just getting started and that I was mostly doing it as hobby stuff. She asked me about reflective and I told her I'd like to do some of it for street signs and she told me to go back on the site and pick out some reflective and submit that and she'd sample me some of it too. Wow .. guess I'll be buying 3M next time I need something.

In Corel, there's a snap-to-guidelines option - maybe you have that turned on? Vic

Ah, obviously I didn't read every message! Then new link works perfectly, thanks Zaxxon! And thanks for pointing me to the new link, Sandman. Vic

MH721 cutter, I downloaded the Rainbow CUT OK program which cuts ok. At least from Corel X4/WinXP. It's not got any settings though, at least none of any particular value. It's sole virtue is that it .. well .. cuts ok. I'm printing straight serial, but I'm more than happy to change to Parallel or USB if I could find a better driver. I bought the cutter used, so I have no software, manuals or anything else except a truly bodacious supply of vinyl. And .. I've never cut anything before - until now. But I kinda like it. Um .. one stupid question to add .. when you look at the blade, it's angled but I don't see any pointer or anything that says "point it this way" or "install it that way". It seems to me that should make a difference too? But maybe not since it has to go in all directions anyhow. Vic

Is that in software, or something from the front panel? I don't seem to have any software controls, I think I may be using the wrong driver. Any chance there's a manual for this cutter floating around someplace? Vic

I have something of the same problem on my MH721 - it works just great on most letters, but on things like P's and Q's (have to mind my p's and q's) it leaves a .. gap. Like on an "O" on the left side of the letter where the cuts meet, the top bar of the O is wider than the bottom bar - so they don't quite meet, making it a challenge to weed. I've adjusted the cutter to be "barely visible" and fiddled with the pressure - none of it seems to really make much difference. It weeds just fine on everything else except the letters where the cuts have to line up correctly, like P, Q, O and the like. And things like the tail of the S, it doesn't line up and that bonds the S to the vinyl - always have to cut it lose. Am I just expecting too much? I've only been playing with this for about 48 hours... Vic

WOW - that's great. I had no idea. I mean, I thought maybe that was how it was done, but thought I must be complicating the issue. And YouTube .. who knew .. Thanks!! Vic

Ok .. so I'm new. And this is probably obvious. BUT .. how do you cut in color? I mean .. if you want a flag, for instance, do you cut parts in blue and parts in red and layer them on top of each other over a piece of white board or some such? And I see some people cutting out things that are printed on - so you run a chunk of vinyl through a printer and then run that chunk of vinyl through your cutter? On the layer thing - if you had several colors, wouldn't it get kinda thick? I mean, as you added more layers of different colors. Or do you cut out parts where the OTHER parts are going to go, and then it's all on one layer? BTW - if you DO print on a printer first, then cut it out - what sort of ink do you use? I mean - standard ink will fade in a very short time and leave you with a blank sign, right? Please be gentle - it's my first time..

Get one of him stuck in a chimney - "Santa came for Christmas and never got out" or some such. Then you can have a celebration of Christmas in July with Santa still there .. considerably slimmer, prob'ly. Vic I make that suggestion 'cause of the plethora of pics of Santa and a chimney.

Thanks! I'm pretty impressed by what I'm finding here - I think it must be a relatively small brotherhood of vinyl cutters that makes everyone want to work together. Hey, I'm in Eastern Washington too .. Wenatchee, as a matter of fact. Vic

Ok .. I'm an idiot. I just needed to outline the text and it prints perfectly without all the tracing and converting etc. <blush> But the rest of my message still stands .. I think.

<laughs> Apparently I screwed everything all up, but it seems to work. I have an MH721 that I just got used a couple days ago. I downloaded the Rainbow CUT OK driver - it was in the MH721 download area so I thought it must be the right one. And glory be, it works. No idea why, I'm cutting directly from Corel X4 to the cutter though, it's just really finicky on where it prints. I'm sure it has SOME sort of internal logic, but I sure can't figure it out. I'd like to install the "right" driver that has a little more in the way of available options though. In the same vein, I'm having some trouble figuring out how to make things print. Right now, I'm setting up some type and then converting it to a bitmap, then auto-tracing it and then outlining it and then cutting it. Now, this works. Don't get me wrong. But it seems it's too many steps to be taking for me to be doing it "right". And this is just playing around with one word or one picture. If it gets much bigger, it's just weird. SO .. please offer ideas - tell me what I'm doing wrong, mostly. Thanks! Vic

Howdy! I just .. more or less on a whim .. bought a used MH721 cutter. It came with 23 50 yard rolls of six inch vinyl, so I have lots to play with. I've used Corel 8 for years, so downloaded a demo copy of X4 to try. It seems to work great, but it's very picky about WHERE it prints, I still haven't figured out the logic. Anyhow, that's for another forum, I guess. I have several questions about "how the heck do I do this" or "this" or "this" so you'll probably see me about. Vic