Cutting Straight?

[hagen8492 4]

I need help from anyone who can help as soon as they can.  I am trying to cut 4" x 126" reflective striping for a fire truck and while cutting the plotter moved the vinyl side to side and completely ruined 10 1/2 feet of material.  Can anyone help me figure out how to keep this from happening?  Thank you.

CH

[BannerJohn 1,324]

that's a long run for a perfect cut. The tracking has to be 100% dead on. I've never been able to get a cut that long with the cheaper cutters. For a straight cut, I found it easier to use a straight edge and an exacto knife. These days, though, I just keep pin stripes of various widths in stock.

[hagen8492 4]

Do you think a 65" cut would be too big?

[BannerJohn 1,324]

It depends on how well your cutter tracks,and how good you are at adjusting the vinyl to track straight. It even depends on teh vinyl. Experience has taught me that some vinyl tracks better than others. But I sure wouldn't waste expensive reflective vinyl trying.

[mars 45]

Like BannerJohn says the factors are

1- how well does your cutter track -

2- how well did you align the vinyl in the cutter to track that far without running off the edge.

I would guss the cutter will track ok for at least 65 inches and probably for the full 126 inches.  You need to work on getting it aligned as close to perfect as possble.-- you can manually advance and retract the vinyl and watch to see that it runs true for the distance needed - adjust until it does - put the pinch rollers far enough from the edges so they can't run off the edges - turn the speed down as slow as you can - make sure there are no obstructions to stop the movement of the vinyl in either direction. -- Good luck!

-Mike

[Alien 11]

We have been cutting custom size pin stripes for a customer. We found that narrower strips of vinyl tracked much better than whole rolls. When we get ready to make the pin stripes we cut the vinyl to just a little longer than we need and then cut it into 6" strips then cut the pin stripes. Do not know why it works but it does for us. We wrecked a lot of vinyl learning this one.

[MZ SKEETER 4,709]

also if you have a software that optimizes the cutting order, it works alot better,  I just use Flexistarter and tile it from beginning to end, it doesn't make cross cuts on the stripes.  It ends up just being 1 long pinstripe. Works great and the vinyl is not moving long distances at one time. Example.  cutting a 1/4 x 120"  I put it at 7 tiles, so it will cut both sides of the first 17.14" then advance to cut both sides of  next 17.14" and all the way to the end. Nice clean straight cut. Of course you still have to have a machine that tracks well, and your vinyl set up in your machine good.  But this way, you don't have the vinyl moving from starting point,way to other end of vinyl and back to the starting point again. 

[mars 45]

Good to know Alien and Speedoggy - I'm going to try both ideas on my next stripe job -- Thank you!

Mike

[Buggie Pilot 4]

I find that the thing that influences inaccuracies with longer cuts is that the you need to have enough material rolled out so the cutter does not have to unroll it and there are no other obstructions that would make it pull otherwise crooked

[hockeygirl 30]

If you're having trouble with tracking, definitely try Flexi, and cut in tiles... then the vinyl isn't moving back and forth an even if it's off track it wouldn't matter, because the cut line would follow the track.

[signman911 1]

Hi you can get this guy send you 2" 4" 6" or 8" precut x 37.5 feet    http://www.autopinstripes.com/