We've played with it a lot... Mainly out of curiosity / fun. Anyone who wants roll labels we outsource them, it was just one customer who wanted long lasting labels that were the exact same Color as the other decals we do for them, so we didn't want to outsource it.
If you wind it really tight and put a few layers of masking tape / premask on the cut mark it'll cut pretty smooth using a Fine tooth saw blade.
Over here grimco and a few other suppliers will slit down a roll for us for $5 per cut..... So long as it's vinyl we've bought from them they don't mind. Of course with no guarantees that they won't mess it up. They've always cut it good though, so it hasn't been an issue.
We've had good results making our own roll slitter too. You get a huge Olfa knife... Not the regular snap ones but the heavy duty snap ones that are twice as thick so there's no wobble. You put the roll you want slit on your laminator and rig up a system that will hold the knife in the same position but can be lowered.. Kind of like a guillotine cutter. This was the slowest method but it's the same principle as professional roll slitter and gave just as good of a result. I'll see if I can find pictures of the system we used.... We got lazy and just send it out for $5 a cut now, or let it be a little rough and chopsaw it if we're in a rush. Not many people want roll labels anymore, it was all from one customer who switched to singles, so now we just use our sheer to cut thousands at a time.
Had we bought a 50k system to do roll stock it'd be sitting in the corner useless now.
For the most part using a good chop saw and a non worn down blade works good. We just cut down some 48" rolls of 3M HI reflective for 1300 ft of 12.5" rolls for extruded signs for a rush job that we couldn't wait on a 3M shipment for.. All the edges were crisp and straight. Think we ended up cutting 3 rolls into 4 different sections, so 12 cuts and all came out perfect. It's thicker and easier to cut than cast vinyl, but both seem to cut pretty good... The key seems to be keeping the roll really tight and using a few layers of tape on your cut mark, then the tape gets chewed up and not the material your cutting down.
If you wind it really tight and put a few layers of masking tape / premask on the cut mark it'll cut pretty smooth using a Fine tooth saw blade.
Over here grimco and a few other suppliers will slit down a roll for us for $5 per cut..... So long as it's vinyl we've bought from them they don't mind. Of course with no guarantees that they won't mess it up. They've always cut it good though, so it hasn't been an issue.
We've had good results making our own roll slitter too. You get a huge Olfa knife... Not the regular snap ones but the heavy duty snap ones that are twice as thick so there's no wobble. You put the roll you want slit on your laminator and rig up a system that will hold the knife in the same position but can be lowered.. Kind of like a guillotine cutter. This was the slowest method but it's the same principle as professional roll slitter and gave just as good of a result. I'll see if I can find pictures of the system we used.... We got lazy and just send it out for $5 a cut now, or let it be a little rough and chopsaw it if we're in a rush. Not many people want roll labels anymore, it was all from one customer who switched to singles, so now we just use our sheer to cut thousands at a time.
Had we bought a 50k system to do roll stock it'd be sitting in the corner useless now.
For the most part using a good chop saw and a non worn down blade works good. We just cut down some 48" rolls of 3M HI reflective for 1300 ft of 12.5" rolls for extruded signs for a rush job that we couldn't wait on a 3M shipment for.. All the edges were crisp and straight. Think we ended up cutting 3 rolls into 4 different sections, so 12 cuts and all came out perfect. It's thicker and easier to cut than cast vinyl, but both seem to cut pretty good... The key seems to be keeping the roll really tight and using a few layers of tape on your cut mark, then the tape gets chewed up and not the material your cutting down.
