My Process -- Any Feedback?

[cuttingGuy33]

The product I create is essentially wall decal stickers. The final product is a sheet of 1/2" stickers, normally a grid of 5x5, so about 3-4" square sheets, weeded, with 1/8th inch in between. So my process is like this:

1. Feed roll of oracal material into my cutter (I have a cheapy UScutter mh series and use SCAL pro software).
2. Cut the 1/2" squares into grid sections with about 1.5 inches between each 'sheet'.
3. Using a rotary knife, hack of 2' segments and weed.
4. Using a hand rotary cutter I cut each sheet into final size (about 3.5" x 3.5" with 25 stickers on it).

There has to be an easier / better way to do this... it's pretty darn time consuming. My machine is fairly slow and of course, all of the hand work is tough too.

I have heard people mention making a 'perf cut' -- I'm guess I would need a new machine that would cut the grid and then make the 'perf cut' around the sheet. Then I would weed the roll in sections and simply tear the sheets off individually right? Is that the best way to handle this?

I've got some fairly significant wholesale orders lined up and I really need to scale up operations and producing only 50 or so sheets per hour myself is not going to get me there.

Thanks for any help you guys can give me!

 

[cuttingGuy33]

Perf cut would likely help although I must admit I've never even tried it before.

In the meantime, you could invest in a guillotine cutter. Cut as big of a sheet as you can handle, weed, cut into long strips, staple end of strips together 4-5 thick, then chop them on the guillotine.

Otherwise you could get one of these............. http://www.fotoba.com/index.php/en/digitrim-20-44-64-en

That thing is awesome! I can't find a price but I'm sure it's not cheap.

Are there any tricks to the 'weeding' process? Right now I'd say my cutter can cut about 60 sheets an hour (is that slow?) and I can weed about 60 sheets an hour... so my total sheets per hour is about 60 finished. Does that seem slow? These things need to retail in the tens of cents per sheet but that's not really backing out on time investment.

 

[rjssigns]

Sub out to a place that does labeling. Even if you don't need anything printed the laser cuts stupid fast.(nearly one meter per second) The waste gets stripped and the finished product gets rewound on a core.

 

[cuttingGuy33]

Sub out to a place that does labeling. Even if you don't need anything printed the laser cuts stupid fast.(nearly one meter per second) The waste gets stripped and the finished product gets rewound on a core.

That sounds perfect... Know someone?

 

[cuttingGuy33]

I wanna say they start around $6-$7k for the the 64" model... but can't remember.

As for your speed.... I'm too tired to wrap my head around those numbers. These are just rectangle decals? Are the corners rounded? Is the speed cranked up on your plotter? Can you weed huge sheets in one pull?

Having a tough time visualizing what you're doing...it's been a long day. :Sleeping:

They are straight squares, no rounding at all. Plotter is cranked up (slow and does the squares very out of order and wastes tons of time) and maybe the blade isn't deep enough but I have to really be careful on weeding sometimes or I'll pull the squares off.

 

[rjssigns]

They are straight squares, no rounding at all. Plotter is cranked up (slow and does the squares very out of order and wastes tons of time) and maybe the blade isn't deep enough but I have to really be careful on weeding sometimes or I'll pull the squares off.

If you want to do them in house I'd suggest getting a Summa cutter. They are super fast and extremeley accurate. We run a 24" and haven't killed it yet. In the old days(before inkjet) we'd routinely load 50 yard rolls of material and go to dinner. It would just hammer away. Bad part was having to weed and tape the 50 yards afterwards.


As far as production cutting you may want to check with Belmark. Otherwise an internet search will turn up what you need.

 

[Cadmn]

I would look at a company like Stouse the time you save might be yours

 

[kheebl]

Do you have a picture of your finished product? I am having trouble visualizing what you are creating.

i also have a cheapie cutter pcut 24" and what I found helps make wedding lightning fast is I turned on overcut feature in flexi. I have never used the program you use so I can't say for sure if it has that option but turn it on if you can and it will make your life way easier.