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Should I buy a Gerber Edge?
Hiya!
Should I buy a Gerber Edge or look at something else?We seem to be doing more and more long runs of outdoor stickers that need cutting out (the majority are cut square but we do shaped ones too). We tend to print the square ones, laminate them and cut them out by hand.
The smaller ones we print on the XC or the Mimaki and they can be very time consuming. The last batch we did was 4000.
Should we keep going doing it this way or should I think about something else?I’ve thought about screen printing too but wouldn’t know where to start… and ideas gratefully received!
Cheers.
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10 Replies
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The Gerber edge needs a seperate cutter in order to contour cut.
I would go for a print and cut machine like the Versacamm. Cheaper to run, and much quicker
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Hmmm, it was more the trimming down afterwards than the print time i was looking at. We have 2 print and and cut machines and a grand format print only… once the stickers have been cut out on the machine, they still have to be sliced into individual stickers… we’ve just found it quicker to do the lot by hand.
I think I’m answering my own question here…!
I didn’t realise the edge needed a separate cutter BTW, cheers.
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Buy a Graphtec.
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Gerber only cost effective for short run and speciality colour stuff really, Mimaki, among others perhaps do die-cutting print and cut machines.
John
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We gang stickers together, and panel them out into suitably sized sheets, which we
then guillotine into singles. If you have money to spend on equipment, then a second
hand guillotine may be a good investment. You should be able to pick something up
that will cut 700mm width for about £1000-£1500. -
It all depends on what type of work you need to do, I have both large format and Edges and have the luxury of choosing which will be best machine for the job.
The large printer (HP L25500) is great for all things large and also small full colour stickers, but the edge is much more versatile when it comes to spot colours onto a wider variety of materials, and the fact that I can set up a full 50 metre roll to be printed & cut in 1000’s of stickers without a single worry as it will always track fine. But you do pay a premium for this luxury in the sense that the materials are more expensive….
I wouldn’t be without either machine.
Cheers,
George -
We just bought a graphtec FC8000, it can contour cut perfectly each time, It can decal cut out as well we just not set it up or tired it yet but i think if you have the printers already then the high end cutter would be a good match, we love ours and only have it in a month, the versacamm can’t cut or match its performance! I dont even have a blade in the versacamm anymore!
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Cheers for the advice guys, we’ve got an FC8000 cutter too so we’ll have another go at setting up the cutting.
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Looks like you need to get someone to spend a bit of time with the manuals, if you already have 2 print and cut machines and an FC8000 then you must have to much money if your looking at buying another machine lol.
Even if you are printing on the print only machine as Tim has said the FC8000 should be able to do them without any problems.
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i set my fc7000 up to do half cuts and to be honest, i think it takes too long. and not 100% reliable in cut.
compared with cutting on the bench.
if i print and cut the contour in sheets about 1370 x 1000 then when weeded on a glass top, the static normally holds it all in place, to use a long edge and blade to cut them up.
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