How small can you get?

[gfio]

We are looking at a new 54" plotter for our in-house print shop at an Art Museum.

From my research, we already narrowed down to a Summa machine. No better reviews out there!

Now I'm not sure if a Summacut D140 is enough or if we should fight for the budget for a S2 T140.

The main application is to cut very small text that is applied to the walls next to the artwork.
Those are viewed at a very short distance, so the cuts have to be very accurate. We're currently using Avery HP700 vinyl in matte black for small text. If not that, then we use Orafol 3640, mostly after printing it with a flat colour on our HP Latex 360, but we never go smaller than 0.5".

Would the true tangential of the S2 T140 really make a big difference for tiny small cuts? We'd only spend that much if we could cut 25pt letters (approx 0.25") frequently and still weed it and install fairly easy.

For anything above 0.5" I'm sure the D140 would be able to handle since we've been cutting that on our 12yo Summacut, but I'd love to know from you how small you think I'd be able to cut with the T series!

Thanks

 

[bob]

Find another way. Cutting vinyl that small once is a stunt, more than once is silliness.

Print them on some substrate or another, silkscreen them right onto the wall, write them with your pinkie dipped in mayonnaise, but routinely doing cut vinyl that small? There has to be a better way. Who weeds this stuff? Dwarfs?

 

[oldgoatroper]

What font are you planning to use? This can make a huge difference...

 

[Bly]

We have an S2.
Sure it can cut stuff that small but as Bob says, weeding it is the issue especially if it has thin strokes and or serifs.
Life's too short unless you have clients that want to pay top dollar for cut vinyl.

 

[Russell J. Bean]

I agree with Bob also. If you're going to cut .025 why do you need a 54" to start with? That's going to be a lot of waste, when you can get a 15" for a lot less. Weeding is a nightmare as well. Especially with 54" the issue I have with my summa dura sign is large vinyl rolls 50" usually have a wave or bubble to them. When plotting such small letters the plotter doesn't stay on track. That's why it's so large to do large jobs. On the other hand my Gerber Envision I use, to do over 20 yards of plotting (vinyl number and letters) and never have an issue. But for very small work I thermal print on clear which there's no weeding after. And from a distance it's unnoticeable.

 

[Gino]

I too, agree that printing this caption out and putting it on some sorta plaque would look nicer and also be much more time saving than weeding it.

However, if you're dead set on cutting this stuff, when we hafta cut vinyl at that size, we'll cut it and weed it on the substrate it's going on. That's far easier than weeding it ahead of time. You can even put some horizontal cuts between lines which will help speed things up.

Also, a sprocket fed cutter is the only way to guarantee accuracy. Our 30" will cut 1/8" letters and still be usable. Like mentioned, you must realize, the type style plays a big part in this.

 

[Johnny Best]

I use this guy and his six friends when weeding small stuff. Have a Summa and use 3M 7725 which has a clear plastic backer instead of paper and it weeds small stuff with ease. Also fonts like Times are bad compared to Helvetica or sans serifs.

 

[Robert Gruner]

GFIO
A lot of good responses. Cutting and weeding small text (with or without serifs) as well as cutting and weeding small graphics like pinstripes has always been a pain in the keester. That said, if you are intent on cutting small characters from adhesive backed vinyl, you will find the Summa S2T series, tangential knife cutters to be superior to any drag knife cutter, including Summa S2D seies cutters. The tangential knife is specifically designed to cut small graphics. The knife lifts and turns at critical angles. It can be programmed to cut fractional distance past corners in both axis facilitating weeding.
I would suggest you source a Summa reseller and send them a sample file to cut and weed.

Bob

 

[TammieH]

I cut down to .25" text all the time.

The trick is to make a weed box for registration and horizontal cut lines between the lines of text, weed the centers only, remove the surrounding vinyl from the weed boarder then apply transfer tape.

After you apply to your surface/substrate, you finish weeding.

Of course the smoother and glossier the surface the better.

BTW the plotter is a Graphtec Cutting Pro FC7000 MK2-130, so nothing fancy or new.

 

[gabagoo]

3M 7725 vinyl on the synthetic liner and a fairly new blade. I have to do key drop boxes for a very large car rental company and they insist on cut vinyl. Helvetica medium upper and lower case at .35" Using paper backed vinyl was near impossible but the 3M 7725 makes it a breeze.

 

[signsandsuch]

3M 7725 vinyl on the synthetic liner and a fairly new blade. I have to do key drop boxes for a very large car rental company and they insist on cut vinyl. Helvetica medium upper and lower case at .35" Using paper backed vinyl was near impossible but the 3M 7725 makes it a breeze.

 

[signsandsuch]

We can sublimate any amount of colors on aluminum, any size text . No weeding no mess.

 

[TimToad]

We have a 48" Gerber P2C that still cuts like a dream down to .25" or so depending on the font and weight of the stroke. Like gabagoo said, vinyl choice weighs heavily too.

For really small, fine stroked lettering, you have to use high performance vinyl if you can find the matching color. The cost difference is more than made up in the weeding time saved.

Museum work is all viewed at close distances and usually with focused spotlighting, so it needs to be tight if diecut. We reverse weed for all small stuff. I worked a few years for a shop that had the contract for 6 local museums and reverse weeding is the only way to quickly weed without the inevitable letters and symbols picking up and having to be manually placed down on the liner. Nothing worse than seeing a lot of the dots, commas, etc. crooked for a multi-million dollar exhibit.

 

[IGNITION]

We have a Summa D160 which I believe has the same cutting abilities as the 140 - we did an entire rollout of holographic vinyls that were cut with super intricate lace patterns and it did fine (although let's not even talk about the labor involved in weeding) - the one in this photo was roughly 6 ft x 12 ft, so literally thousands of picks. I also just produced some logos to use as stencils to deboss concrete - the tiny scales on those crocodiles were a real pain but it is possible!

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