Hi
As mentioned there are a number of methods of making resist patterns, from hand and machine cutting to the more modern photo resist masking, which requires ultra-violet light to activate the chemicals in the special mask, which we will look at in a separate post.
You may find as I did that hand cutting will become a distant memory and your machine will be used for everything you do, it will become indispensable as your designs become more and more complex until even your machine can't cope and you have to look at photo-resist masking which will take the finest of designs from artwork to photographs or off course you may stay with the knife.
Knife cutting
This requires the least equipment
but in the hands of a master can be fantastic. This lady is Donna Burrows, have a look and enjoy her work.
This style of work is for large scale pieces and maybe not what a beginner will be thinking off, well, maybe a little later.
Donna uses a projector to throw the image of her pattern onto the resist pinned to the wall and then following the pattern draws it on, this technique uses a projector and the design is printed onto an acetate sheet,
The resist is then stuck to the glass and the pattern is cut and removed in stages for etching and shading.
Donna uses a projector to throw the image of her pattern onto the resist pinned to the wall and then following the pattern draws it on, this technique uses a projector and the design is printed onto an acetate sheet,
The resist is then stuck to the glass and the pattern is cut and removed in stages for etching and shading.
A more modest technique would be to either design your image on a computer and print it out or select from a book of designs and scan into your computer where you can then manipulate to the size you require. After printing, your design can then be transferred using carbon paper to trace your pattern onto the resist which can be either pre-stuck to the glass for stage etching or firstly weeded then applied to the glass.
Machine Cutting
I'm afraid I am a machine person I have now owned 3 machines in my time 2 used and the latest a new machine which I hope is my last, as these things are very expensive especially here in the UK.
The range of machines out there is huge and generally they are made with more advanced features than are necessary for simple stencil making where all that is generally needed is to cut a pattern and no more.
My new machine is the GCC Expert 24, 24" being the width of material (60cm) that the machine can take, which I think is the perfect size. For another £200 I could have had the LX version which has the optical eye, totally unnecessary for what I require so if you are looking for a new machine look at the basic model as you may save a few hundred.
My first machine was a Creation Pcut a Chinese copy of the GCC machine, GCC is a Taiwanese company, and they do make top cutting machines.
Quite frankly it wasn't a bad machine but I could rarely get it to work, nothing wrong with the machine as the lady who bought it from me already owned a couple for her business and told me she had it working in no time. Guess it was the software interface setup as getting it to link with the computer was beyond me and remember it was around 10 years ago.
My next machine was my first GCC and was the first of the Jaguar range the JR 61 and what a great machine.
No problems with this machine even though it was quite old when I bought it, shame it died on me.
Sizes of machine can run from the small 300mm 12" or smaller, right up to the very large 1.8m 72".
So what is right for you.
Well as with everything it comes down to what your etching ambitions are, if you plan on doing solely small pieces then there are some very good machines out there, prices are quite expensive and there are I am sure cheaper Chinese machines but you gets whats you pays for.
Small cutters
Cricut Explore 300mm at around £250
Graphtec Silhouette Cameo 300mm at around £268
These may be small but fully functional and after watching the videos I am very impressed.
A few inches bigger can make all the difference (did I really say that) but its true, I have had to change a few designs in the past as my machines at 600mm were just too small, it is also a bit of a misnomer calling the machines 300mm, 600mm or whatever the size as these dimensions refer to the width of the material they will take, not the usable size of the cutting width.
All of these machines have width sensors on the cutting heads which track where the rollers are positioned on the white markers, once the material is in place and you switch on, the heads size the material by running back and forth then stamping down with the cutting blade where the rollers are and sends the usable width to the cutting program. I have measured mine and I get approx 550mm from the 600mm roll, I would imagine all machines have different parameters and a 300mm Cameo may only have a usable area of approx 260mm or so, so be aware when you purchase.
There are lots of good machines out there with names like Roland, Summa, GCC, Mimaki, Mutoh and Graphtec. These machines are the top brands and as such command a rather high price, but there are also a lot of used machines on eBay that will last you for a lot more years to come. A lot on eBay come with materials thrown in and once you weigh up the cost of vinyl for resist you may well feel this is the better option than new. There are also the Chinese machines, I would not decry these as I have read a lot of good things on blogs
Medium Cutters
Sizes of machine can run from the small 300mm 12" or smaller, right up to the very large 1.8m 72".
So what is right for you.
Well as with everything it comes down to what your etching ambitions are, if you plan on doing solely small pieces then there are some very good machines out there, prices are quite expensive and there are I am sure cheaper Chinese machines but you gets whats you pays for.
Small cutters
Cricut Explore 300mm at around £250
Graphtec Silhouette Cameo 300mm at around £268
These may be small but fully functional and after watching the videos I am very impressed.
A few inches bigger can make all the difference (did I really say that) but its true, I have had to change a few designs in the past as my machines at 600mm were just too small, it is also a bit of a misnomer calling the machines 300mm, 600mm or whatever the size as these dimensions refer to the width of the material they will take, not the usable size of the cutting width.
All of these machines have width sensors on the cutting heads which track where the rollers are positioned on the white markers, once the material is in place and you switch on, the heads size the material by running back and forth then stamping down with the cutting blade where the rollers are and sends the usable width to the cutting program. I have measured mine and I get approx 550mm from the 600mm roll, I would imagine all machines have different parameters and a 300mm Cameo may only have a usable area of approx 260mm or so, so be aware when you purchase.
There are lots of good machines out there with names like Roland, Summa, GCC, Mimaki, Mutoh and Graphtec. These machines are the top brands and as such command a rather high price, but there are also a lot of used machines on eBay that will last you for a lot more years to come. A lot on eBay come with materials thrown in and once you weigh up the cost of vinyl for resist you may well feel this is the better option than new. There are also the Chinese machines, I would not decry these as I have read a lot of good things on blogs
Medium Cutters
I think I would categorise a medium as being around 400mm to 600mm and quality machine's run up to over a £1000 and more.
Graphtec CE 6000-40 at around £714
Now this is a quality machine that should give years of use, I was seriously considering this machine but as I have a couple of rolls of 60m long vinyl, resist and plotting paper all at 600mm I decided to go for my GCC also supplied through Graphtec.
It has a smaller width of 400mm around 15" but more than ample for most jobs.
GCC Expert 24 at around £700
Well I had to include this didn't I, not as expensive as the other machines of the same size but experience told me I don't need all of the fancy gizmo's to cut a pattern so I chose basic.
Roland Camm 1 GX24 at around £1300
Graphtec CE 6000-40 at around £714
Now this is a quality machine that should give years of use, I was seriously considering this machine but as I have a couple of rolls of 60m long vinyl, resist and plotting paper all at 600mm I decided to go for my GCC also supplied through Graphtec.
It has a smaller width of 400mm around 15" but more than ample for most jobs.
GCC Expert 24 at around £700
Well I had to include this didn't I, not as expensive as the other machines of the same size but experience told me I don't need all of the fancy gizmo's to cut a pattern so I chose basic.
Roland Camm 1 GX24 at around £1300
Ok, now we are talking. If only, except do I need all of the extras.
These are just a few of the huge variety out there.
How to use.
Well like any tool you need to read, view and practice; read the blurb that comes with the machine, watch as many Youtube videos as you can and get a load of vinyl to practice on.
With all cutters come with software drivers these are necessary to communicate with the machine, though these drivers you can set the size of the material, the position you want the cut to start cutting, the speed of the cut and the force of the cut. Alternatively a lot of machines have these parameter controls built into the digital display of the machine so as you don't have to use the driver screen, mostly the choice is yours of how you set it up.
If you use the same material without ever changing it you will only have to set up once and the main parameter to set up will be the force,
Force of cut
The force is basically the depth of cut and each thickness of material you use will have to be setup, please don't do what I and I'm sure many other have done and go from thick resist to thin vinyl without altering the force, ha such fun! cost me a new cutting strip.
This is my driver screen and the force is g = grams of force /m. this is set for normal vinyl at 78g and it goes up to 250g so a lot of concentrated cutting force in one very small area.
All machines have a plastic strip that the cutting head runs along the idea is to not allow the blade to touch this strip as you can very easily cut into and damage it.
To prevent penetration of the material the cutting force is initially set low and a test cut made,
All machines have a built in test cut facility and the idea is to cut through the resist and just slightly penetrate the base board, so a couple of test cuts and you are done.
Speed of cut
The speed you will soon learn, if you have a basic machine as I do that it may be set to the one speed but if you can alter yours then a square cut pattern can have a very fast cut but as your patterns get more complex with lots of curves then a slower speed may be necessary.
Width of material
As I mentioned the head automatically detects the width of your material but just because you have a 600mm machine does not mean you can only use 600mm material. All machines have guide rollers to keep the roll of resist pressed flat against the friction rollers the friction rollers grip the material and roll it back and forth while the cutting head runs back and forth and this is how it cuts.
These guide rollers can be moved to many different positions depending upon the cutting head width detection eye guides, these guides are white strips positioned on the cutting head rail and as long as the guides are positioned on one of these white lines all is well in the world. So to cut it short you position your guides for your 300mm piece of resist on the closest white line to the edges of the material.
or use the full width.
This is why I like the 600mm machine in that I can vary the resist to what I have.
Cutting Blades.
The bladed are housed in a special blade holder,
where it is kept perfectly perpendicular to the work and can rotate in a set of bearings so as the edge can always follow the line of cut, my blade disappears inside the holder until it is cutting not sure how this is achieved.
The blades are readily available online and one make of blade may fit many different machines, I know my GCC blades will also fit Roland cutters and maybe more.
The blades are set at different angles for different depths of cut and different material thicknesses, I have the 45 and 60 deg.
Cutting Blade Offset
Ok getting a bit to in depth here but this is possibly more important for the glass etcher than the tee shirt designer as a poor cut on the corner can leave a lot of checking and trimming, work you don't need and if you miss the over cut nib then it will detract from your work.
So instead of me giving a crap explanation have a read from these links from people who know.
Roland
Cutter problems
Accurate blade setup
Drawing
An excellent addition to owning one of these machines is the ability to draw out your pattern full size, this ability is priceless when it comes to either checking for mistakes, seeing if the design fits in with what you are designing it for and for showing a client what it will look like full size.
Pens
and Paper
are available on eBay
I picked a complex Celtic design to show it's use, I had bought the felt tip pens as opposed to the ink type to give a more distinct picture and I have had these for many years and they are still working well.
You need to reduce the force a little when using as a plotter as you don't want to damage the felt tip.
Program software.
As discussed in the post about design software you will require a program to physically talk to the cutter and send your design to be cut, generally when you buy a machine the software will come with it and depending on the higher quality of the machine then you end up with the higher quality program.
I have had a search and found that there is a plug in extension for Inkscape called Inkcut, I have downloaded it but as yet have not had any success loading it and after a bit of a search I am not the only one so I will be happy with what I have.
If you buy a machine without design software then it may be an idea to look at the lite versions, most programs have this to get people started, after all if you design in Inkscape all you require the software for is the interface between your cutter and your design.
Paul
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