Pillow Cut

[bbass]

I have a customer asking for pillow cut on some 3/16" foam board signs. What is it and how do you do it?
Thanks

 

[letterman7]

Sounds like kiss cutting, using a die to punch out shapes. It'll leave a rounded edge on foamboard rather than the square cut you'll get with a knife. Any particular reason he wants this?

 

[Bill Modzel]

It's been years but we've screenprinted a foam board called Artcore I think. It had a very thin plastic surface and we did a prototype run for Mott's apple juice which was shaped as an apple tree of course.
This was die cut after printing and had a beautiful soft pollowed edge after die cutting. I'm not sure that regular foamcore would cut as well without cracking or tearing the surface. I imagine it would depend on your shape.

If you're producing a rectangle, just run a hand roller over the egdes after cutting. I do that allot just because it gives it a nicer look than hard square cut edges.

 

[bbass]

Why are we doing this type of finish? Because the customer wants it of course.
Yes we could run a roller over it but that get a little tougher when youve got 500 pieces to do. I was hoping for some cost effective automated help.