vinyl cutters for sandblast stencils

[Glassroots]

Does anyone have a recommendation on vinyl cutters? I am buying stencils but am thinking I will have more control over the process and the detail of my stencils if I buy a printer. Searched the old threads and couldn't find anything. Thanks for the help.

[Wilbur]

Get a roland. hands down best quality available. i had a roland stika sv-8. great little machine and was quite the work horse. machine and starter vinyl pack with soft ware is $500

i got my cutter and all my supplies from www.specialty-graphics.com

they had the best prices i could find online.

they have bigger models for more chedda, but the 8" was totally sufficient for everything i was doing. tubes on 50mm, pint and shot glasses etc.

i cut hundreds and hundreds of pages of vinyl with that machine, and made my money back in less then two nnths slinging pre cut sheets of vinyl to cats down at cornerstone. not to mention all of my work i blasted images on.

i found it easier to apply vinyl to pieces with curvature by microwaving the vinyl, still on the backing for a few seconds before applying, makes it less brittle and easier to apply. a bic ligther works as well.

the vinyl that comes with that machine is made to be 5+ year vinyl, and has a pretty strong adhesive. i would do all my blasting, let the pieces soak in warm soapy water for an hour or so, andthat shit slides right off.

go for it. easy to use software. you can basically save an image, import it the software, extract the cutting lines and bam, custom stickers.

changing the color density of your images will adjust where the software picks up the lines to be cut, and can be very beneficial with high resloution images.

[Wilbur]

Oh, ad be careful, and read the instructions, when its time to change your cutting blade. i rushed through it, bent the blade carriage, and the machine was so far out of calibration from that slightly bent piece of metal that it was done for.

but i got a solid year or so of cutting almost everyday before i messed it up. and it wasnt even totally necessary for me to change the blade at that point. damnit!

[Wilbur]

there may be websites that have it cheaper now, but specialty had the best prces when i got mine a few years back. but get a roland. not a graphtect, not a knk. get a roland. Roland.roland roland. and one more for clarity.


roland.

[Riley]

Get a Porsche not a Ferrari.... We run a graphtec ce5000 and it's just as good as the Roland cx24. I'd avoid buying a cheaper import plotter. Also search Craigslist for "vinyl plotter". Might be able to get one local and save. Plotters only do such fine detail and you still have to manually "weed out" the negative/positive space. If you plan on doing very detailed work you will need to do photoresists.

[EFS]

I would also highly suggest the Roland sticka sv-8 as well. It is small, works great, user friendly and affordable.

[Riley]

^ those stikas are pretty sweet looking and priced like an import. Definitely something to consider.

[EFS]

I have had one four years I think and have never changed the blade and never had a problem with it.

[Glassroots]

wow! thanks for the input. funny and helpful post wilbur.

I have some options to consider now. So....Riley.... if I am doing detailed work such as peoples faces. how does one use the photoresist?

I have made plates before in offset printing or burning screens for printing tshirts. is it a similar process for stencil masks? I would take a class in this but I feel like for the simple process I am doing already, a class would be more money than I have. thanks again, Jonathan

[Glassroots]

nevermind, did some research on youtube and found this great video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqcGUKTYQmI

Does anyone have a suggestion for photoresist material?

[Wilbur]

i bought an Ikonics Imaging kit awhile back, really wasnt to impressed with the results.

trying to apply it to curvature was a pain, the shits expensive and brittlle

a messed up a few nice pieces when the resist material blasted off. and that was that. back to vinyl. i found i could get good- enough detail with the vinyl, and was much more user friendly.


but obviously there are peole out there who have had great success with phot resisit stuff,

i think the ikonics set up was much more suited to flat pane glass for awards and doorways and whatnot.

[themoch]

ikonics light kit and the ProBlue is what i use

[Dr Bill]

I use an old plotting machine and just put a cutting blade in, in place of the ink. I do sign stencils for a business and it has paid for itself over and over. I bought the machine 10 years ago from Boeing surplus. Best investment I have made. I also use it to print complex graphics, multi functional for me.

[EFS]

are you trying to do stuff like this? 44307

[Glassroots]

are you trying to do stuff like this? 44307

yes I am, is that a photoresist?

[Glassroots]

I want to mainly do faces of people I know.

[EFS]

Yes it is photoresist.