Basic cutter recommendations please

[Doug Pulver]

Hello Martin,

I would go with one of the 3 major brands. Summa Graphtec or Roland. Do some thinking ahead and decide if you are going to want to do more than just boat names. Will you want to purchase a printer in the future, you might want to think about it. You’ll then want to consider one that will contour cut.

Check with your supplier to see which brands they carry and if they are well stocked with consumables.

I have a Summa D-60 24" cutter, it’s my first cutter and I’m happy with it. On 15" vinyl I can get 13.5" letters and 24" vinyl it’s 22.5" letters. It tracks well and has never let me down.

I hope I have helped, I’m sure others will offer some things that I didn’t think of. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Martin.Smith]

quote Doug Pulver:

…if you are going to want to do more than just boat names…

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the thoughts, we have been applying vinyls for a good few years as supplied by a then local signmaker. Having relocated to a remote community we thought it would be sensible to make them up ourselves.

It seems unlikely that we would want to do anything more intricate than smaller vinyl names, most are 18" wide so a two-foot cutter seems like the most economical way to do 80% of the work. Occasionally (now) we have a larger name to make up, about 48".

In six years only one person has wanted a graphic including, more common is people wanting a variety of smaller size stuff for equipment and locker labeling.

[John Harding]

Hi Martin

quote :

It seems unlikely that we would want to do anything more intricate than smaller vinyl names, most are 18″ wide so a two-foot cutter seems like the most economical way to do 80% of the work. Occasionally (now) we have a larger name to make up, about 48″.

remember it not the overall length of the name that matters but the height of the letters ie a 610 (24") cutter will cut letters that high of infinite length bigger than this you can tile (overlap join) so the only thing you cannot do is print ie colour graduations therefore from what you have said you should be able to achieve all your workwith a 610 plotter.

John 😀

[Martin.Smith]

quote John Harding:

remember it not the overall length of the name that matters but the height of the letters ie a 610 (24″) cutter will cut letters that high of infinite length…

Thanks John, mot names are in pairs so even with the bigger (48") ones that still leaves scope for lettering 10" high before we start using up large quantities of vinyl.