Recently I have had inconsistent weeds. I mostly cut large section texts for museums so lots of 1/2-3/4" sans serif letters. I use a graphtec and mostly Oracal matte material. This last job was cutting on Oracal 751 had it perfectly dialed in on the previous job, cut the new job and lost about 12 letters per line!!! Replaced the blade, dialed in the force and blade height, but I still lost too many letters. Just wondering besides the basics if there are any useful tricks out there. I replaced blade, increased foce and knife height, changed blade holder, the strip looks ok, and the speed is always about 25.
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letters coming up on the weed
- Thread starter depps74
- Start date
Boudica
I'm here for Educational Purposes
Slow down when you're weeding? If you're going slow enough, you won't loose the letters. They might come up a little, then stop and take your time to get it fully separated, and back down in place. I assume you have dialed in your cutting force to leave a slight imprint in the liner. Not actually cut into, but leave a marking, so you can see where the letter goes.
Texas_Signmaker
Very Active Signmaker
One day I was weeding and letters kept coming up..so in anger I ripped the whole thing off in half a second and didn't loose any.
Boudica
I'm here for Educational Purposes
Tex's lucky day! Did you go buy a lotto ticket?
Johnny Best
Active Member
Could be you got a roll of old material.
Try backing off the force. It sounds counterintuitive, but when I'm do a demonstration on small cuts, I'll set the force 1 or 2 lighter than what I would normally cut at - and replacing the cut strip.
Also, are you letting the vinyl sit between cutting and weeding? Sometimes - especially if it's warm the adhesive can flow back together and hold the letters to the background vinyl. Weed as soon as possible.
Good Luck
Also, are you letting the vinyl sit between cutting and weeding? Sometimes - especially if it's warm the adhesive can flow back together and hold the letters to the background vinyl. Weed as soon as possible.
Good Luck
bob
It's better to have two hands than one glove.
The 'just rip it off' technique works just fine. Especially if you do the ripping in a series of sharp tugs instead of one mighty snatch and jerk. When possible I try to reduce frustration by running a weed line horizontally right through the center of the text. How you do this depends on what software your wrangling, some packages are easier than others and with some it's not worth the effort. Whatever method you use, technique is vastly more important than plotter settings.
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jtiii
I paid good money for you to read this!
This is far from a universal solution but when it's appropriate it works. If you are applying yourself, weed out all the letter centers, apply the not-weeded lettering to the substrate, and just pull the trash off the sign. Works great with small text and the right vinyl/substrate. Be SURE to weed the holes though, otherwise that gets old fast.
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
Similarly, sometimes it can be easier to weed small lettering by masking it before weeding, and weed from the masked vinyl.
jtiii
I paid good money for you to read this!
That sounds... sticky.
Geneva Olson
Expert Storyteller
751 is cast. Cast always seems to be a bit slipperier than calendared
I usually have it dialed in so well that I can pull a whole 24" sheet of 1/2" text 20 lines or so and loose less than 3 letters and a fe I dots. If I had to slow down to the pace your talking about I would be out of business as its only me. The down side is that its a deep cut so sometimes on the install paper will tear up but recently got it to weed well and separate perfect too.
yes I have done that. We call it weed on wall, or WOW techinique!
how do you do that in illustrator? Is there a way to do that all at once. like if you have hundreds of letter?
Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
Nobody weeds slow so they don't have to cut stuff again? Be careful and you won't have this problem, even if the pressure isn't exactly right.
Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
Im sure illustrator is similar but in Corel, convert to curves (outlines) select all the nodes and filet by .01. Then the knife won't pick up on corners. Like Bob said, you can also cut a middle line.
Geneva Olson
Expert Storyteller
So, I was playing around in Corel trying to follow your instructions. I just typed in a name in a cursive font. I welded it..I can't select convert to curves because I welded it. BUt then I need to do what? where is the filet? do i add an outline at .01?
d fleming
Premium Subscriber
Put a weed border around lines of text with a cut being horizontal at halfway thru the letters. Then weed top half, bottom half. Helps with smaller text. I normally rip weed small stuff off of my graphtec. My wife simply can't do it from fear, lol. It is either cut right or it isn't.
