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Cutting thick vinyl on versacamm
hi all, in a bit of a dilemma, i wonder if anyone can help?
We are producing some printed stickers for a customer on our versacamm that are laminated with "thick" laminate, making it about the thickness of about 3 or 4 layers of normal vinyl.
The problem is that the versacamm isn’t really capable of dealing with this type of cutting, can anyone suggest an alternative, other than with a sharp knife?
Someone did at some point somewhere over a pint or something suggest a company could die cut them for us?
Any help or advice appreciated
cheers
stephen -
18 Replies
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Hi Stephen, why don’t you just cut it twice through the RIP, I’ve done this a few times with our 1210 works a treat, not tried it with the versacamm yet though.
Jason
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Hi Jason, thanks for the reply.
I tried that and we encountered a couple of problems, firstly it doesn’t always cut accurately back over the same cut lines, most of the time it does but it also seems to "nick" the corners of some of the stickers.
Also an issue we have is with quantities, we will be looking at producing 200 sticker sets at 2 metres in length per set and each set is made up of about 10 pieces, so time consumption is gunna be a problem too.
Surely there must be an alternative way of cutting them?
cheers
stephen -
How thick is your material?
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Dont you have an alternative stand alone plotter Stephen?
most plotters will cut to that thickness with ease, I haven’t a clue about versacam but don’t they have an alternative blade for thick material?its not necessarily the extra pressure you need, just more blade protruding from the holder.
Peter
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hi peter, yeah we have a summa plotter but it doesnt read the reg marks produced by the printer so not sure how to accurately align.
the thickness of the material is i think they refer to it as convex 12mil which is probably as thick as three or four pieces of vinyl laminated together.
cheers
stephen -
I guess it’s for Motocross or Kart graphics? What base material are you using? Im cutting 18mil in total and it seems to be OK.
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Clear your schedule for at least 4 hours……………………..
and ring Harry at Mathias :lol1:
He’ll put you right.
Cheers
Joe -
I’ll second that, I contacted him a few weeks ago about cutting through magnetic material with our Graphtec – outstanding.
He’ll sort you out.
Jason
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Try a 60 degree blade.
Also the bloke up in Scotland that has a versacamm has cut this stuff, just can’t remember his name at the moment (must be all that Turkey and beer)
Do a search on Convex vinyl and I’m sure you’ll come across some of his posts.
His user name is Forbie
http://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … vex#195245
has a discussion about convex vinyl and 12mil laminate (by the way 12mill is 12 thousandths of an inch, about 0.3mm)
Hexis also do a thick laminate that works out cheaper than the Convex one, did you use the convex one?
Steve
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cheers for the replies.
steve do you know what the hexis stuff is called or a product code?
had a look on their website at their brochure and can’t see it.cheers
stephen -
I do have the codes some were, but err I can’t find them.
They do 3 different thickness’s and it’s car guard, expensive but you can buy it by the metre and it’s 1440 wide.
I got some samples from them some time ago but I’ve not used it yet.
They have also started doing a hi adhesive print vinyl for plastics, like bikes etc.
I’ve got some of this and it’s very sticky, not the same as the Convex stuff but it works and even if a corner comes up the power washer doesn’t bring the rest off like normal vinyl on bike plastics.Steve
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hi steve, just a quick update on the thick laminate…
i spoke to hexis and they sent me some A5 sized samples, seems like not too bad material.
rang the rep back for prices and he said have a look on the web site there is an on line price list.
so went on to have a look and to say i was "surprised" is a slight understatement….
the high tack print media is over £4.00 per metre which compared to about £1.50 we currently paid is….not that bad i spose
however, the laminate works out at £27.00 per metre….which equates to about £1300 per 45 metre roll…..blimey!!!
so i rang him back up, thinking i had misunderstood the pricelist and he confirmed it was right…
cheers
stephen -
what width are you using Stephen?
Peter
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hi peter, the width we usually use is 760mm but the hexis stuff is either 380mm or 1220mm.
cheers
stephen -
Yes the print media is 1440mm, I got it slit down.
Even without that it was cheaper than the Convex prices at 760mm.I think the laminate worked out slightly more per sqr m but you can buy it by the metre, I think if you were buying a whole roll the price would drop a lot. (or I would hope so)
My convex prices were from Print 1 and they were shocking to say the least.As I said I’ve not used the Hexis laminate though, I’m using a thicker normal laminate but I’ve also not done much with the super sticky stuff.
How much are you paying for the Convex materials?
Steve
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hi steve, we don’t use the convex print media we use some oracle stuff with rubberised adhesive.
the laminate prices dont differ, regardless of quantity, thats what i was told…
stephen
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Mmm
What’s the Oracal media, I didn’t know they did anything like that. Is it for sticking onto plastics?
I got the impression that if you were buying a full roll of the Hexis laminate it would get cheaper, however if you are only using 760 then a 1440 roll split will be no good anyway as the off cut will be to narrow.
I got the 1440 print media split to 760 and the off cut, this meant that I can use the narrower off cut for smaller stickers and the full width for large graphics.
Bit annoying if Oracal do a similar print media as it will be much cheaper.
Steve
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hi steve, yeah i use the oracal stuff, i cant for the life in me rememebr what the product code is but they do a couple of thicknesses of high tack.
stephen
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