I'm sorry in advanced.

[thetruehero@gmail.co]

Hi, I'm new, and probably won't stay here much, but I do need your help.
Now, what I'm sorry for is that it's not exactly "sign making" that I need help with. I started a T-shirt printing (makes custom shirts with your picture on it etc) buisness about two months ago, and for the past two months my products have been...."less than perfect"

My problem is that I'm issing some type of cutting machine (of some sort) to cut out the designs off. I guess this could be a little hard to word for me, so let me try to littirally draw it out.

So...I hope you understand my problem now...what do you reccomend? I know it's not about "signs" but it is possibly about using a "cutter" that might be used for signs, so I thought you guys were best to ask.

 

[Barry]

So your printing on t-shirt transfers?

If this is the case its going to be quite difficult to get a vinyl cutter to cut the 8.5x11 transfer sheets your probably using.

You should probably either be using dye sublimation or get a print&cut system like the Roland Versacamm. You could probably come up with a dye sub setup for pretty cheap, the Roland Versacamm is about $15,000. Both will give better results than the Iron ons that you buy at Best buy...

Oh dont forget you need a heat press if you dont already have one.

 

[thetruehero@gmail.co]

Yeah, I have a heat press. The Roland Versacamm is a bit above my budget, though.
Can you explain to me why it'll be difficult to cut on the transfer sheets? If it's purely the size, I think I can find different sizes of paper. I've already used 11x16 paper so, I think I could find larger sizes or possibly rolls. Anyways, thanks for the help so far

 

[Bigdawg]

We've played with cutting transfers on our cutter - a 24" Masters. It really won't work too well for a couple reasons. The paper is so thin the blade pulled it up or it cut the paper. We may have been able to tweak it enough to actually cut, but then there was the matter of line-up. It is virtually impossible to exactly line-up the picture to the cutter with a low end system.
The better idea if you are doing 1 or 2 color work is to use thermo-flex. We have printed shirts with 3 different colors of thermo and it has worked quite well. On a side note, we have also tried the spectra material for shirts and would not recommend it. For someone new to cutting and weeding it was VERY difficult to work with compared to the thermo-flex.
If you go to specialtymaterials.com you can read more about it. My supplier is Cindy at www.personalizedsupplies.com Click on the link for specialty vinyl.

 

[thetruehero@gmail.co]

Hmmm, so you don't recommend a cutter? <

I don't quite understand what this thermoflex is. If you don't mind, I'd really appreciate it if you went into detail. Thanks

 

[Bigdawg]

I don't recommend a cutter to try to cut transfers you printed from your printer...

Thermoflex is a material similiar to vinyl in that you have to cut it and weed out the part you don't want. You can't do full color pictures with it, but you can do logos, line art drawings and type. You press it on the shirt with your heat press and it lasts almost as long as screenprinting does if you follow the directions and press it long enough. THERE IS A LEARNING CURVE WITH ANY CUTTER. So expect to waste material until you figure out how to set the blade, downforce and speed if you have never worked with one before.

 

[rmk_guy]

From what i understand you are using heat transfers that you run threw you injet? If that's the case use a razerblade/scissors cut the image out place it where you like and apply.

 

[Bill's]

Try giving Alan at Sky inc. a call. I think he sells a hobby type print / cut setup that might do you some good 450-449-0142

 

[thetruehero@gmail.co]

From what i understand you are using heat transfers that you run threw you injet? If that's the case use a razerblade/scissors cut the image out place it where you like and apply.

Yes, I could just use scissors but that takes a lot of time, especially for special orders that people want a lot of the same design. Also, I guess thermoflex is out of the question, because I need it for full colour pictures.
See, when printing on white shirts, the paper I use becomes basically transparent and you don't notice the 8x11 border around it, but when printing on dark coloured shirts it's extremely noticable (even though I use a different type of paper) that there is the border. Say I wanted to print on a black shirt, and only have letters on it spelling something; I can't do that without it looking pretty dumb, sine the paper is white.
That's why I need either something to cut the paper completly, and perfectly, with or a different type of paper/ink that would print only what I want, and leave the rest transparent.

 

[iSign]

put all your full color images in a simple cuttable shape... thenuse thermoflex for you white letters example. Charge less for white shirts, & more to cover the time to break out the sizzors for cutting your paper

 

[Bigdawg]

put all your full color images in a simple cuttable shape... thenuse thermoflex for you white letters example. Charge less for white shirts, & more to cover the time to break out the sizzors for cutting your paper

That's what we do... just make sure to put your thermo-flex lettering in first and then apply the transfer (they can't be done together - difference in times/temps). If you don't it will burn the transfers.