uksignboards.com | Jagged edge cutting.

Vinyl

Jagged edge cutting.

Posted by Michiel on 17 March 2013 at 22:34

hi all,

I’ve stumbled into something weird this afternoon, hope you guys can help:
I wanted to cut some text and decided to make a scaled down testcut on an old piece of 3m vinyl I had lying around. Worked fine, so I put in my brandnew sheet of Avery vinyl, scaled the text back to 100% and it ripped all through the curved lines. S’es en O’s all have jagged edges. It looks really bad. Any idea what causes this?

Michiel replied 12 years, 6 months ago 4 Members · 10 Replies
10 Replies

Robert Lambie

Member
17 March 2013 at 22:43

some cutters have preset cut options.
i.e.
option one – cut vinyl
option two – cut reflective vinyl

basically two different pressure settings. its easy to double tap the option button and send the wrong settings.

also, the 3M vinyl maybe a thicker series of the vinyl than the Avery one.
if you are running test cuts you really should be testing the vinyl your about to cut.
Michiel

Member
17 March 2013 at 23:05

true, the test run wasn’t intended as material test.
My cutter is an old one. Roland PNC-960. Not much settings.

Aside from that I noticed that the 3M vinyl was significantly thicker than Avery.
Do I need more or less pressure on the knife?
Robert Lambie

Member
18 March 2013 at 00:01

the 3M is much thicker, then reduce the pressure for the Avery.
Michiel

Member
18 March 2013 at 09:22

Tonight I’m going to experiment with different pressure settings.
I’ll keep you posted.
Ruairi O'Boyle

Member
18 March 2013 at 11:03

Did u zoom in on the font to check it was a good version? I have had issues with free font downloads that gave jagged edges!?
Michiel

Member
18 March 2013 at 11:40

Font’s okay. like I said: I cut the same characters at half the size and they peel off smooth as butter.
Avery vinyl rips off, really ugly.

If you hold against a light, you can see the material isn’t cut evenly along curved paths. (starlit sky)
Michiel

Member
19 March 2013 at 10:55

Didn’t get around to it last night, but I did make a picture of it.

No comment. The vector (not in the picture) is the same quality.

mod-edit Please use upload facilities provided

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Michiel

Member
21 March 2013 at 08:57

Well, turns out that I needed to apply almost full pressure on the knife to get it right.
Strange when you consider that the avery vinyl is thinner.
It feels more brittle so it must be harder.

Time to get some new knives as well.
Nick Minnery

Member
21 March 2013 at 11:58

Hi Michiel

I don’t know if you have ‘copied’ and ‘pasted’ the wording from one programme to another perhaps??

If I design an image in Corel, then copy and paste into my sign/cutter software – then cut the image, the lines are fine but curves are ‘jagged’.

It’s probably not that, just in case though.
Michiel

Member
21 March 2013 at 13:31

I know what you mean.

The beauty of Inkscape is that I basically do all my designing within the program.
Just a few things need to be done outside (skewing/perspective warping and such.) For that I use Gimp.
When all that is done is drag everything to Inkscape and trace it to vector.
No jagged edges.

I was sure all along that the problem was at the end of the line. Either the Vinyl or the knife. Turns out to be the knife, altough it only shows with this particular foil.