NickP

Using vinyl as printer for contour cutting

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Hello, I have used the boards for the last few months and it has really excelled my knowledge and ability, Thank You!

So I have been looking to see if i can use black vinyl as the "printer" so i can contour cut a design.

I am not looking to do anything complicated to start, but basically I have a few designs in black vinyl i want to cut and weed out with registration marks on my titan2, then overlay it on white vinyl to contour cut them into uniform 3x11 bumper stickers. I know that I can manually cut them but my ocd would not allow for it and I would throw it all away if they are not correctly centered.

Has anyone successfully done this and bypasses the printer?

Thanks!

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Would this be for a couple of designs for yourself on your vehicle, or would you wish to offer for sale?

If its your own vehicle - you can just layer it on the bumper / window-- easiest.  If you want to layer them in your shop, t--o ship out you can try with the parchment paper method -- search forum (by member Wildgoose).

If you want to cut and weed a grid of decals - overlay them all on say 24 inch white at once--THEN contour cut 3 x 11--- that will be tricky - Can your cutter and software read "Crop" marks?

If you try and guess on the origin for final finish cut - the alignment for the squares wont be precise.

 

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The second option.

I am looking to sell these. My design is in black vinyl and it does not look good in other colors. So for better visibility I wanted to make it a more traditional bumper sticker.

I'm using the titan2 so it can contour cut and read registration marks but i have not used it to this point yet as i have just been cutting single layers of vinyl.

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Ok then--

make black layer, and include the crop marks as black vinyl-- weed and then apply whole thing to white vinyl.  - Place in machine then cut the next layer, which would read the crop marks and then cut the squares.

verify that your software has this capability-- reading crop marks, and transferring a "bank" of decals to the white will be the hardest parts--i.e.

The other solution may be to have them printed ( thermal / eco-solvent) if they are for outdoor.  try and install the finished product yourself also - see if end result would be acceptable to your customers.

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You can also rework the design so that it works in other colors. Here is an example. The original graphic was black, but it doesn't look right in light colors since the black is also acting as shadows. Don't know what your image is, but you might be able to rework it in a similar fashion.

Something else to keep in mind if you do the black vinyl on white and then contour cut it. Pulling the application tape off the black once it's on the white will cause bubbles and headaches so you'll want to leave it on. Which then means you'll need to adjust your blade depth and pressure to cut through the application tape as well as the white vinyl. Might also make pulling the application tape off when installing the decal a bit harder.

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This has been very informative. Thanks. I cant really change the colors because its a face, so I think I'll just end up ordering bumper stickers. I'm going to take the gamble and hope they sell mainstream.

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