How to cut out the decal?

I have a paper cutter and a teenage son to do these menial tasks

 

you talking about cutting the decal out, along WITH the liner? most companies that do this have a diecut machine or a CNCtable with a knife/wheel cutter, but you will wear-out a vinyl plotter trying to do this yourself.

+1 to a paper cutter being easiest DIY method. chop/stack/repeat

 

Usually I'll do a perf cut on the liner and tear em on the perf. If it's a large quanity, I'll perf cut in sheets that I can fit in my guillotine and final cut over there.

 

OLFA/straight edge or guillotine.

Or if you have money to spend...... https://www.fotoba.com/fotoba-product/digitrim-64/

 

If you go that route, there is less expensive version made by Kala and Flexa.

 

if you are doing enough of this kind of work get one of these

 

We use a dedicated plotter/cutter that has a "Half Cut" setting

"Layer 1" = all graphics/decals
"cut" = contour line around decals
"punch cut" = offset line around the cut contour line about 1/8"

run the sheet through using just the cut layer on
then run again using the Half cut option and use the Punch Cut layer only.

As the half cut is going you can just and "pluck" out the decals then pull off the out edge of them.

Sounds like a lot of steps but not if you use a macro to set it all up for you. Select all your decals hit the macro button and boom!

 

Sounds interesting. What RIP software and plotter are you using to achieve this? I've been playing with Onyx cutserver and it does seem to work well with different cut layer/types.

 

We bought one of these for our trimming work:
http://www.neoltfactory.com/en/products/electro-trim-100130150200250-06-08-mm

Probably paid for itself in 6 months. Far cheaper than a Fotoba, but does require some manual work.

 

We are lucky enough that we have a Zund cutter router that we can load a 150' roll and let the machine go at it. Before the zund we would standard cut the vinyl and weed it out then cut with scissors into smaller sheets or individual decals.

 

RIP is Flexi Production Manager. RIP, in my case, is irrelevant for cutting/plotting. All layers/cuts and such are set up in CorelDraw at each individual workstation prior to producing the print file. Once it's all set up just select what is to be printed and export to the "Hot Folder". Print Tech handles the printing. And either does the plotting themselves or lets the designer know it's been printed. Open the Corel from the RIP station and use the CorelDraw plugin (FineCut 8) to run the plot/cut.