Vermonster
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Posts posted by Vermonster
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sandblast material? What's that?
Just kiddin...I've only ever used scrap vinyl or paint mask. When I was younger, I worked in a Cedar Sandblast sign shop and had my fill of that.
Thanks Grace. It's really not that difficult. First thing I blasted was a glass I was fooling around with. Bought some a sandblasting kit from Michaels just goofing around and quickly got hooked. 2 Days later I had a compressor, blasting cabinet, pressure pot and an aggrevated wife
It is hard to market though. I did full wine bottles for weddings, but most of what I did were those beer mugs. Fast sellers at the holidays!! Great for the people who have someone on their list who has everything
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I was just curious. Does anyone else around here sandblast? I had a whole set up that I got rid of when I offloaded my cutters, but now that I'm going to get back into the swing of things with a new plotter, I'm thinking of building my own sandblasting cabinet.
I had a stand up cabinet with a pressure pot but I'm thinking of going simple. I still have a compressor and a gun that holds a few pounds of grit, so I was thinking of making a little cabinet for what little I'd do.
Neat stuff for those who've never messed with it. I started out using scrap vinyl, but learned how nice Paintmask was REALLY quick
Here are some pics to give those who've not ventured out an idea... I've blasted Wood, Slate, Beer Mugs, Picture Frames etc. You can use Rub & Buff (Michaels/AC Moore) to color in the etching silver, gold, red, black, etc etc Really sharp looking stuff that's unique looking. Yeah, I think once I get my new plotter I'll start blasting again, just gotta figure out how to build a cheap cabinet to blast in... Hmmmm
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are you looking for one more geared to vinyl already, or are you looking for a generic one you can set up for yourself?
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT101172551033.aspx
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Just to echo what everyone has said...the web image attached to this thread is not even the dimensions they've asked for, nor could they be stretched to be those dimensions. See attachment. The text in my attachment is about the size they've asked for. Print it out and show them what 3.5 x 1.5 looks like with that font. I've always correlated it to the endings of really bad Karate movies... Most people can relate to that. Who has never thought it was a good idea to stay up and watch the HORRIBLE ad libs while eating popcorn and laughing
This is where you have to tell THEM what's do-able and take control. People don't understand aspect ratio's
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I'm a little rusty but I figured I'd take a crack at it.
With Somthing like this...personally, I would persue
Tracing the flaming text, getting skulls as close as possible and using them (if customer is ok), find the scrolls and match the fonts.
Some things are just not easily traceable. Not without some extensive work. There are some online trace folks that charge decent prices for the amount of work (under 20 bucks if I remember correctly) and will have it done within 24 - 48 hours usually.
If someone gives me detailed work like that during the bidding process, I normally just factor in sending the artwork out if it's this involved. Save the time, headache, and let a pro do it for pennies on the dollar what it would cost you. Someone like http://vectordoctor.com/pricing.html
Of course, if this is a paying customer, and you mention that you could save him some money if he can get a usable file, they have moved rather quickly to accomodate me in the past
Usually if they had business cards done or something, they may have better usuable artwork...not always though...There's not alot that can't be easily traced if you know how to convert it to B/W and if you have Inkscape or Corel X3.
For this, I did the following in case you want to learn how...
1. In Photoshop, converted to Grayscale
2. Used the Threshold Tool to get it set B/W and as even as possible
3. Auto Traced in Corel
There are many ways to do this, but this is kinda how I did it...and didn't yeild much better results then Dawgs
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Out of curiosity, which app do you guys use to cut the job, SB?
If memory serves me correctly, SignCut has options to do those things...it's been a few months since I've used it though. Reminds me... I have to check for updates
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To me... The answer to "Which Graphics Program" has only one answer... ALL of them. I have
FlexiSign
Illustrator
CorelX3
Inkscape
Photoshop
SignBlazer (soon)
I've noticed that they each have a little something that the other misses...for me anyway. Some things trace really nice in CorelX3 but I've found that Inkscape does better traces on some things. But personally, I wouldn't design or do node editing in Inkscape. I prefer X3 for that. Personally, I taught myself to use them all so that I wouldn't be limited to the individual limitations of one program.
Read Tutorials Online. They are all over the place. You can pretty much google what you're looking to do in the application you're working in and find the answer. When I sit down to lay something out, I normally open X3, Inkscape and either Illustrator or Flexi before even starting.
But that's me. I'm currently without plotter right now, but I've fiddled in my absence with all of them so I didn't forget things
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I didn't like how much the Seiki Marred the vinyl. One of my biggest complaints.
The advance after cut... can't that be controlled by the software? I've not cut vinyl in about 4 months so I don't remember all of the SignCut settings, but I pretty much always used SignCut with CorelX3 Plugin.
I definitely want the adjustable rollers. My Seiki was always about 1" off in a 3' run, and they never could get it to track right
So Refine it is at this point unless others weigh in with anything largely different. I'm not overly concerned with the noise. The Seiki was loud compared to my PC-60.
Does the refine seem to be made better and less uh... light weight than the Seiki? I went from a Roland PC-60 to a Seiki and it was like culture shock
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Thanks for a quick reply. I'm assuming when we say "Refine" we're talking about the MH? Didn't see the correlation on the web on the two names
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just want to echo rebjr's suggestion of fellers. I've used them for about 4 years and you couldn't pay me to use anyone else. They're a "take care of you" kind of company. I'm lucky enough to have 2 locations within 20 minutes of me so I never pay for shipping
When I have had banners made in the past, I call it in... and they give me a buzz when it's ready. Swing over, pick it up, chat a bit, get some free samples, chat a bit more.
My local shop has some good people in it. I try to always drop off some Christmas cookies during the holidays for the guys there that take care of me. It's Fellers all the way, the only way for me!!
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I gently searched and didn't see anything that highlighted the difference in cutters, so I figured I'd just come out and ask and maybe I would get some end user insight.
What are the differences in the MH series vs Pcut?
Anyone have both that could offer an objective perspective?
I did not like my seiki tech so if one compares to that brand, definitely worth noting.
Thanks in advance for the help. I'm going to purchase one this week
Will be nice to get back on the horse again!! -
I had a roland pc 60 and a heat press about a year ago. I loved cutting & weeding thermal vinyl. Adheasive backing made it nice, but I know my roland stunk on small stuff. Pretty impressive as I'm here researching buying a US Cutter
Thanks for taking the time to do this!!
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Hey All.
Not new to Signage, but possibly might be buying a US Cutter. I figured who better to check with than the people who use them. I've been doing signs and vector editing for about 4 years now. I had a Roland PC-60 and a Seiki Tech plotter (ewww) and decided to take some time off for a while and got rid of all my equipment. I'm looking to make a comeback again with a 24" machine probably as I never really had a need to do much more than 20" or so.
Was hoping maybe to get some feedback from current owners of US Cutters. Having owned a mid priced (Roland) and a low priced (Seiki Tech) I figured since I'm more of a weekend warrior who likes designing the vectors as much (if not more than doing the vinyl work) then I would stay at the lower end of the price range...
I definitely didn't like the Seiki. They admittedly shipped bad mounting brackets, never sent the new ones, material rollers were bent and the thing didn't plot correctly. I'm really looking for the following features...
Accuracy
Quality
Ease of operation
Quietness (I do it in the basement while kids are sleeping usually)
I have 2 years left on my subscription for SignCut and I also have Corel X3, FlexiSign, Illustrator and Inkscape just to name a few of the apps at my disposal.
Anyway, thought I'd shout out and say hey and get reading this board
I'm located in South Jersey if anyone is willing to open their shop up to let me check a machine out or something...
Potentially New US Cutter Owner
in Introductions
Posted
Poor flyers
I'm about 20 min from Philly. I'm in center city twice a week usually. What part of Philly?
Out of curiosity,have you used the contour feature yet?