Need Help Die-cutting labels and stickers

[InkHead]

I have a summa s2 T-160 OPOS cam and do a lot of die cut decals. Tried flex-cut but did not like the cuts especially on inside corners where it would over run the cuts so you would get an x.

Now i just cut it normally without flex-cut but have the blade dialed in perfectly where the stickers stay in place but pop out easily. Can do this with single or double pass. Has super clean cuts and no perf tabs

 

[c.march]

What are settings on the cutter to achieve these results. I’ve been trying to offer die cut as an upgraded decal option because I’ve not mastered it yet and takes a lot of tested wasted vinyl. I’d like to see what settings to start with as a good base point to achieve some of those results I saw in the video on a few pages back.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Before we got our summa flatbed, we were perf cutting with our graphtec, I bought a cheap ebay blade holder and a lot of cheap blades, it worked fairly well, I had issues on runs longer than 5 feet loosing their tracking toward the end, I assumed it was because the perf cut is very jerky.

We now cut them out on out 1612 and it does a great job, but because of the size/weight of the cutting head it can't move nearly as fast as a standard plotter, plus you can buy 10 fc-9000 plotters for the price of 1 summa flatbed and get tons more output.

 

[Goatshaver]

Great thread!
I'm looking at a Graphtec FC9000 possibly. Currently I am doing an increasing number of "die cut" stickers on my SummaCut. It took a while to find a method that worked for me. I just setup two kiss cuts but run them fairly deep, just enough to break the backer. I find one just doesn't get as clean a cut. I've tried perf cutting shapes customer shapes and it just doesn't seem to work well for me at all, and they specifically say perf cutting is only for simple shapes.

 

[P Wagner]

Thanks, everyone for your answers! I just purchased an Epson SC-s80600, summa s one 160, and a laminator. One of the techs at the supplier showed me that FlexCut can perfectly cut out stickers (with complex shapes), and what summa themselves said was wrong. It is perfect. !

How are you accomplishing this?

Historically, Flexi Cut on Summa roll-feed cutters has been optimized for rectangles only.

 

[Goatshaver]

How are you accomplishing this?

Historically, Flexi Cut on Summa roll-feed cutters has been optimized for rectangles only.

Yeah same here. Summa told me that Flex Cut cannot be used to do complex shapes.

 

[ikarasu]

How are you accomplishing this?

Historically, Flexi Cut on Summa roll-feed cutters has been optimized for rectangles only.

Summa just doesnt want to support it. Roll cutters arent "Meant" for diecutting because you need to nail the settings bang on... But once you perfect it, they work really well.

Search youtube for Summa flexcut and you'll see tons of people doing it with harder shapes than this one even.

I do thousands and thousands of perf cuts on my graphtec... My machine is 3 years old and I've never had to change the strip because 90% of what I do is perf cuts. Thats the only reason I'd get a graphtec over a Summa... Summas can do nice perf cuts as well, you just need to change the strip more often since it cuts over it, and I'm sure any knicks would make it not be perfect.

 

[martinow]

For the summa people here, do you use Turbocut?

 

[martinow]

Or opticut?

 

[balstestrat]

For the summa people here, do you use Turbocut?

Or opticut?

Turbocut you could consider using depending on your material and if you just want to push the machine to the max or would be considering a 2nd cutter.
All to their own but I wouldn't use it.

Opticut you shouldn't normaly use. I would already replace blade....

 

[Pretty Good Printing]

Theres 2 ways. You can have it in the third holder using the same blade and kiss cut and then perf cut without having to move blades... OR you can set it up to run condition 1 which is a kiss cut, then once all of condition one is done... run 8, at which point itll ask you to change the blade position and then auto start cutting without having to read again. You can get crafty and kiss cut all around the design and leave the marks... then weed and then perf cut if you want them pre weeded. I've been just perf cutting right to the edge these days though... personally I find it harder to peel the stickers off, but customers seem to like it that way.

You don't need a special blade or holder for perf cutting. I use a CB09 holder and CB09 blade for perf cutting. You just need to put it in the "third" slot and tell the condition it's in the third slot and you're good to go! You have to extend the blade more... so if you only have one holder it gets annoying constantly having to adjust it in and out, but thats the only downside.

I recommend buying this...

https://www.amazon.com/Graphtec-Hol...?dchild=1&keywords=cb09&qid=1618359480&sr=8-5

For $16 you get a holder and 15 blades... The blades arent bad, they dull pretty quick... The holder is great for perf cutting, but theres a lot of play in it... so I wouldnt use it for small letters / kiss cutting. But it makes a great dedicated perf cutting holder! Plus you get 3 diff types of blades to play around with and find which works best for you perf cut wise. I use the 60 degree ultra sharp ones. (Be careful though...as some chinese blades call the sharp ones 60, some call it 30... so if you do ever buy them, look at the photo and not the degree size! Even if you dont perf cut much, or intend to... for $15 its not bad to play around with. It can come in useful for other jobs as well

I had already bought the blades you linked on Amazon, but this thread helped me dial in my settings and get it working great!

Do you have any suggestions for budget replacement blades? I'm only using the 60 degrees, so I don't want to purchase the entire set with another holder every time I run out.

Thanks!

 

[ikarasu]

So what I did was message this guy -

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/222123746128 I asked for a discount on 10 packs of 15 blades... And I ended up paying $100usd for 150 60 degree blades and fast 5 day shipping. I too have a handful of blade holders and blades I'll never use... Having4-5 blade holders is nice.

I painted the black caps... one is red, green, blue, black, white, etc.... Then I have one dialed in for non laminated, one for cast, one for calandered, pretty much one blade for every different thickness and all I do is pop that perf blade into the cutter and use the same setting for all materials. It comes in handy... But after 5 or so blade holders I just bought 150 blades... think I've used 1 pack in the past month, and thats using my graphtec a few hours a day.... So this is probably a life time supply!

 

[Pretty Good Printing]

So what I did was message this guy -

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/222123746128 I asked for a discount on 10 packs of 15 blades... And I ended up paying $100usd for 150 60 degree blades and fast 5 day shipping. I too have a handful of blade holders and blades I'll never use... Having4-5 blade holders is nice.

I painted the black caps... one is red, green, blue, black, white, etc.... Then I have one dialed in for non laminated, one for cast, one for calandered, pretty much one blade for every different thickness and all I do is pop that perf blade into the cutter and use the same setting for all materials. It comes in handy... But after 5 or so blade holders I just bought 150 blades... think I've used 1 pack in the past month, and thats using my graphtec a few hours a day.... So this is probably a life time supply!

Awesome, thank you so much!

Yeah, I may get 2 or 3 more of the full sets to have some extra holders on hand, then I'll looking into getting a lifetime supply of blades after that.

Thanks again, you've been a huge help.

 

[Goatshaver]

Summa just doesnt want to support it. Roll cutters arent "Meant" for diecutting because you need to nail the settings bang on... But once you perfect it, they work really well.

Search youtube for Summa flexcut and you'll see tons of people doing it with harder shapes than this one even.

I do thousands and thousands of perf cuts on my graphtec... My machine is 3 years old and I've never had to change the strip because 90% of what I do is perf cuts. Thats the only reason I'd get a graphtec over a Summa... Summas can do nice perf cuts as well, you just need to change the strip more often since it cuts over it, and I'm sure any knicks would make it not be perfect.

I don't think they are using FlexCut in this, rather just a deep contour cut. It can definitely do it with some experimentation and practice and getting every setting just right.

I also think the Graphtec would be better for this since you have a larger surface are that is flat for the vinyl to lay on. It reminds of my my Roland SP540V.
I'm in the middle of deciding between the Summa S2T or a Graphtech FC9000 for an upgrade. From what I gather it looks like they both have pro's and con's, one thing I do like is the OPOS CAM on the summa for reading the registration marks on glitter and metallic materials.

 

[ikarasu]

The fc9000

I don't think they are using FlexCut in this, rather just a deep contour cut. It can definitely do it with some experimentation and practice and getting every setting just right.

I also think the Graphtec would be better for this since you have a larger surface are that is flat for the vinyl to lay on. It reminds of my my Roland SP540V.
I'm in the middle of deciding between the Summa S2T or a Graphtech FC9000 for an upgrade. From what I gather it looks like they both have pro's and con's, one thing I do like is the OPOS CAM on the summa for reading the registration marks on glitter and metallic materials.

The fc9000 has an option to do a reverse mark. So it'll print a black square and leave the registration blank...so it can read on glitter / reflective perfectly. I use it for reflective all the time, I did it on holo once or twice and it worked good.

I don't know if there's a way to make onyx or Flexi auto use the reverse mark by default... Most of the time I do it in cutting master. But so far I haven't found a material that doesn't read perfectly with graphtec new arms system.

http://www.graphteccorp.com/product/arms/index.html scroll down to 17 to see what I'm talking about.


If you do 30-50 ft at a time.... Buy the take.up reel! I'm selling my 8600 to get a 9000 with a take up reel at home because I love it at my work. Nothing beats hitting a button and just walking away while it does an hour of cutting.

 

[Goatshaver]

The fc9000

The fc9000 has an option to do a reverse mark. So it'll print a black square and leave the registration blank...so it can read on glitter / reflective perfectly. I use it for reflective all the time, I did it on holo once or twice and it worked good.

I don't know if there's a way to make onyx or Flexi auto use the reverse mark by default... Most of the time I do it in cutting master. But so far I haven't found a material that doesn't read perfectly with graphtec new arms system.

http://www.graphteccorp.com/product/arms/index.html scroll down to 17 to see what I'm talking about.


If you do 30-50 ft at a time.... Buy the take.up reel! I'm selling my 8600 to get a 9000 with a take up reel at home because I love it at my work. Nothing beats hitting a button and just walking away while it does an hour of cutting.

That's good to hear on that material!

I'm still not sold on the take-up reel yet. Pretty much all my stuff gets cut down to sheets or individual stickers so I don't see a need for it. In my setup. yet.

By the way what angle blades do you use in your Graphtec for doing through cuts on stickers? I'm assuming you use aftermarket blades for that kind of thing as the official blades are pretty dang expensive and you don't want to be swapping those out very often depending of amount of work.

 

[Kim Stevenson]

Any reason you're ruling out graphtec?


I don't know if tangential helps with perf cutting at all. It's great if you're doing really small cuts since it's not dragging the knife... But I haven't found anything our graphtec can't cut that our flatbed with tangential can .. except for thick small diamond grade cuts.

I think you'd be fine with the drag instead of tangential.... I imagine the blades are way cheaper too.

Which is another thing... Check blade costs. Cutting through paper is what dulls blades quickly .. I don't know what the market is like on summa, but in graphtec I can buy cheap crappy blades for $1 each that does perf cutting perfectly. I still use the $40 blades for kiss cutting because they last forever, but I can throw away a perf blade everyday and have it cutting just as smooth when blades cost $1 only.

Would you have a link to the $1.00/blade for Graphtec?

TIA!

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Would you have a link to the $1.00/blade for Graphtec?

TIA!

He posted it yesterday... it's 5 posts before yours.

 

[ikarasu]

Would you have a link to the $1.00/blade for Graphtec?

TIA!

eBay has them Amazon has them... They're everywhere. I don't recommend them for kiss cutting... They may do fine but the Quality control on them sn't the best, so you might get a blade with a Nick or slight defect that doesn't cut 100% perfectly. For perf cutting it doesn't matter....

For kiss cutting I use original blades (they last month's) or clean cut blades.

The cheap blade holders also have a lot of play in them and make them not as.useful for kiss cutting.

Both cheap blade and holder work ok for large stuff... But they suck for intricate cuts so it's best to have an OEM blade and cutter on hand!

 

[ikarasu]

That's good to hear on that material!

I'm still not sold on the take-up reel yet. Pretty much all my stuff gets cut down to sheets or individual stickers so I don't see a need for it. In my setup. yet.

By the way what angle blades do you use in your Graphtec for doing through cuts on stickers? I'm assuming you use aftermarket blades for that kind of thing as the official blades are pretty dang expensive and you don't want to be swapping those out very often depending of amount of work.

I perf cut 99% of my stuff. The tension 9n the graphtec isn't strong enough to knock the perf cuts out.... So I'll load a roll, kiss cut it in one direction... Reverse it and perf cut it in the other (so I don't have to swap blades... Some people kiss cut in the channel so they can do it all at once, but I've never tried. And since it's on the take up I just walk away and it's not an issue having to reload)

Then I throw the roll on my laminator so I can pull 8 ft off and onto my 4x8 table... Sometimes I can grab the end of the material and "whip it" up and down and all the stickers just fall out.. works for circle / square stuff, not so much intricate stuff! Or I pop out the intricate stuff one by one... And the excess material slides.right off the table into a garbage pail.

I'm not busy enough yet to do rolls a day of perf cutting.. But back when Covid just started I did 5-6 rolls of distancing floor decals everyday and it was crazy fast this way. I plan on integrating it into my "custom sticker" workflow once I buy the 9000 for my home business.


Angles are tricky because half the Chinese sellers and graphtec label them opposite to eachother. I use the pointiest tip blade... I find it gets the cleanest cut and the holder doesn't smash into the material causing an indent on the sensitive metallic materials I print on.