Best way to cut and seal reflective.

[Phill Fenton]

Perhaps you could use a trade supplier to provide finished pre-cut sections based on eps files that you could send them.

Try William Smith 01833 690305?

[Stuart Taylor]

quote Ian Muir:

Hi

What are peoples views on cutting and sealing high grade reflectives i.e. diamond grade, glass bead.

My plotters don’t really like cutting it even on full force and going slow + knives last about three seconds!.

What would be a solution, I only need to cut areas 24 x 24 ” approx…

Flat bed plotter with heavy weight and big blade?
CNC machine with blade or narrow router bit?
Laser?

Sealing? – Seal it pen, fine brazing torch, liquid laminate spray???

Cheers

Ian :lol1:

Hi Ian

Most of the specialist convertors will work with a flat bed cutter – we operate Zund plotters.

Regarding the edge sealing there are two main options – Liquid edge seal usually brushed on, 3M produce 3950 edge sealer which will give a pretty good edge seal if applied correctly or an Ultrasonic edge seal which should give a much better solution. We actually have a Ultrasonic head that is attached to the Zund so therefore cuts and edge seals in one motion. This gives the most reliable seal and should be 100%, Liquid seals should give a plus 90% success. Whatever you do do not rely on the Seal-It pens, we have tested these on Diamond grade and it had a zero benefit even after multiple applications. If you do not seal products such as Diamond Grade or Crystal Grade you will experience cell breakdown and potential delamination from the exposed edges as dirt/ water etc can ingress.

There is also the option of laser cutting (we use to do this prior to the Ultrasonics being available) but it only gives around an 80% seal success rate and can discolour the edges as you are burning as you cut and seal, not a major problem on darker colours like Blue, Red and Green but can look nasty on lighter colours like White, Yellow and Fluorescent Yellow/Green.

As Phill says you can always create the artwork file and then just send to a specialist convertor to do the cutting/edge sealing for you.

Hope this helps

Stuart

[Ian Muir]

Thanks for that info Stuart and Phil… definitely food for thought.

Thanks again

Ian :lol1: