Printing/contour cutting accuracy?

[Jeff]

I am admittedly one of the most anal/picky S.O.B.'s on the planet. That said, I do not currently have my own printing equipment. I have used a few different venders thru the years, all of which seem to more often then not produce the same inaccurate cut when contour cutting.

I just had some stuff printed and cut and once again I'm left with uneven outlines due to the cutting. The race shop I was at recently had some sponsor supplied decal sheets from two different venders and they are the same miss-alining cuts.

Is this the norm?

Am I expecting to much?

If I get my own equipment is this what I can expect?

Does anyone out there produce decals that are cut VERY accurately?

I seriously would like to know, is there a process/system that is more accurate than others?

I would greatly appreciate some input on this. I have been searching here about what to look for when considering a printing system and have found a lot of good info but nothing that address the "VERY" accurate contour cutting.

Thanks in advance, Jeff

 

[rjssigns]

Print /Cut rigs are fine for shorter runs.(under four feet) For accuracy get a stand alone cutter like Summa.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

I am admittedly one of the most anal/picky S.O.B.'s on the planet. That said, I do not currently have my own printing equipment. I have used a few different venders thru the years, all of which seem to more often then not produce the same inaccurate cut when contour cutting.

I just had some stuff printed and cut and once again I'm left with uneven outlines due to the cutting. The race shop I was at recently had some sponsor supplied decal sheets from two different venders and they are the same miss-alining cuts.

Is this the norm?

Am I expecting to much?

If I get my own equipment is this what I can expect?

Does anyone out there produce decals that are cut VERY accurately?

I seriously would like to know, is there a process/system that is more accurate than others?

I would greatly appreciate some input on this. I have been searching here about what to look for when considering a printing system and have found a lot of good info but nothing that address the "VERY" accurate contour cutting.

Thanks in advance, Jeff

Normally, all it takes is a little attention to detail. I'm not claiming I get perfectly aligned cuts, but I do alright.
First thing to do is make sure the print is true. Our Mutoh has an alignment feature that lets you make sure distances are correct and even the old p.o.s. DGI I ran at my last employer had a way to tweak the alignment on it. Ditto the plotter.
There's always going to be a little bit of variance, but it can be minimized.

 

[Graphic Destruction]

I am admittedly one of the most anal/picky S.O.B.'s on the planet. That said, I do not currently have my own printing equipment. I have used a few different venders thru the years, all of which seem to more often then not produce the same inaccurate cut when contour cutting.

I just had some stuff printed and cut and once again I'm left with uneven outlines due to the cutting. The race shop I was at recently had some sponsor supplied decal sheets from two different venders and they are the same miss-alining cuts.

Is this the norm?

Am I expecting to much?

If I get my own equipment is this what I can expect?

Does anyone out there produce decals that are cut VERY accurately?

I seriously would like to know, is there a process/system that is more accurate than others?

I would greatly appreciate some input on this. I have been searching here about what to look for when considering a printing system and have found a lot of good info but nothing that address the "VERY" accurate contour cutting.

Thanks in advance, Jeff

If I need it to be super accurate, I simply bleed my final color out beyond my contour cut. That way if it is off, you really can't see it. I'm on latex though, so I have the luxury of printing to the cut. I know on our setup, if I try to do really long runs of contour cuts, it gets off. Try to keep the runs smaller whenever possible.

 

[gabagoo]

On small decals with very thin outlines your going to have uneven cuts no matter what. I am talking about 1 or 2" shapes with a 1/8" outline. leaves virtually no room for error with or without bleeds. I always warn customers that there are limits, and then they can make up there own minds. having said that I find that my Summa is pretty accurate on short runs...better than the Gerber edge.

 

[Supergirl]

I had to adjust the offset in my illustrator plugin for graphtec and i wanna say it's pretty damn accurate.

without the 0.02 adjustment, i wasn't happy, especially with small decals that had some kind of border. you could see that one side was off. it just wasn't an option for me.
took me a lot of researching and test print cuts to figure it out, but i'm really happy with the result.
i always overbleed too, but the distance is perfect top bottom left and right.

 

[TXFB.INS]

Print /Cut rigs are fine for shorter runs.(under four feet) For accuracy get a stand alone cutter like Summa.

+1

all print/cut machines will have issues with this. stand alone machines are FAR BETTER, but still if you do long runs you run the risk of misalignment