print & cut magnets

[Signed Out]

Print and cut magnets seem to be more trouble than tey are worth. after printing i bring to my plotter to cut. reads registration marks fine, but the cut is always offset about .25 inches. i assume this is becasue the material is thicker than vinyl, but shouldn't that same difference have shown up in the print and be the same deal for the cut. Also unless the magnet is less than 6 in wide it wont lay flat in the plotter and the plotter blad drags right over the printed magnet while it is looking for the registration marks. Any good tips or tricks for this?

 

[SightLine]

Couple of tips.... cutting/scoring magnetic with your cutter is going to wear its motors out in a hurry. Get a cheap Chinese cutter off eBay just for this purpose. Then - set it up in a way that it will have tables both in front and behind the cutter at the level of the platen. This way the magnetic material can lay nice and flat. Also will want to break it up into smallish jobs so the cutter does not have to move quite as heavy a sheet around so much and if the magnetic is still pretty curled from being on the roll - probably will need to get it flattened out by letting it sit out/rolling it backwards for a bit, etc...

 

[Signed Out]

sorta hate the idea of buying a cheap plotter when we have a perfectly good one now, but it does make sense what you're saying. any suggestions on a decent cheap plotter for cutting magnet?

 

[Signed Out]

the plotter would need to have a crop mark sensor. Do you think a cheap plotter would have this, and would work with material printed on my roland?

 

[royster13]

Are you doing small magnets?....Indoor or Outdoor?....Why not use someone like TradeNet who have 4,000 steel rule dies in stock already?.....

 

[HulkSmash]

how about hand cutting them..........................................?

 

[Custom_Grafx]

The only magnets I do are either square cut (by me, not the machine), or cut, then rounded using a corner rounder.

But this is mainly because the magnets I do are for cars, and the material is thick.

If you do print and cut magnets and are running it through your good machinery, I suggest using a recommended material - which is usually made for your printer - and is actually very thin (and weak in magnetic strength as a result too).

Otherwise, I agree with Royster to use a company who die cuts them. - the quality is better, and you can focus on jobs that make you more money and cause you less trouble.

 

[Signed Out]

Think i might buy a cheap cutter... but for now and if i had a different plotter how do i adjust the feed of the plotter for magnet. because it's thicker than vinyl the cut is offset. doesn't really make sense to me casue it reads the crop marks fine but then cuts everthing .25 inch off from where it should.

 

[J Hill Designs]

some form of output size compensation depending on your cutting software

 

[Signed Out]

using versaworks for print+cut, cut studio for cut