Vinyl mask cutter
 

Has anybody had a play with one of these????are they any good????

http://www.graphicair.co.uk/products...-software.html

Thinking I could have some fun with one, but relutant to make the spend without hearing they are any good first...

I've got a Roland Sticka STX-7 which cost me a small fortune about 10 years ago, my mate picked one of these Craft Robo's up for about £150, a lot less than I paid for mine, it works just fine, you couldn't tell any difference in the mask I've cut to the mask he's cut.

You can get them a lot cheaper than this though so I'd look around but yes, worth having, probably the most useful thing I ever bought for my business !

http://www.graphtecgb.com/cutters/cr...-cc300-21.html

just found this, its pink, but a heck of alot cheaper...

really curious to hear peoples opinions on these... was looking at similar a few months back, but was told that i should be spending £800 or not bother.... for all i want to do with it, i was sure they'd be grand, but first hand experiences would be great!!

craft robo are a very good cutter. i have a few friends who use 1
ive got a roland stx which is also a great cutter , i dnt think u could go wrong with any, the softwere has to be as good as the cutter too

If you want to do logo's and work out designs like flames, slime, any repeatable graphic then a cutter is the way to go. It's an arse applying masking film into stuff but you can work around it.

Loads of my mates drive theirs through Coral Draw but Inkscape is completely free and if you're on a PC you can get a plug in to drive the cutters, no expensive software and for that cheap one you found you really can't go wrong ! £65 is an absolute bargain.

You will have to learn the software though, generally the stuff it comes with isn't up to much. Proper sign packages are too expensive for what we're doing but Corel Draw is good IF you do really want to buy something. Inkscape is perfectly capable, I just didn't get along with it's interface...

You really don't need to spend that much on a cutter these days, these cut A4 size sheets ( well 200mm wide or there abouts ) absolutely fine, as I said above I spent £450 on a Roland as that's what I was advised to get 10 years ago, these weren't about then. My mate got one of these about 2 years ago, it's turned things around for him and there is no difference in cut quality to mine and his cost about a quarter of the price. Being so cheap you really can't go wrong.

Well ordered one today, so in order to complete the thread, I will report how I get on with it, as soon as I have got it going....

If its all i expect of it, then it will be a very useful peice of kit :)

What software are you going to use to drive it ?

It will be useful for others to see how you get on with it !

I will have a play with inkscape tonight and see what i recon

im using inkscpe with my cutter i also use signblazer
ive tried to get a copy of coral draw but im to tight to buy it
there is a few how too;s on youtube .
how to trace bitmaps is good 1 for logo;s n stuff

+1 for signblazer! for doing vinyl cutter stuff

I bought a craft robo second hand off ebay the other week.

Althought i've improved in using liquid mask and a scalpel I wanted to accurately reproduce graphics and lettering.

Thoughts so far is it is brilliant. It came bundled with robo master software which has done the jo so far.

My first shell was a red bull GT shell for me and i'm pretty pleased with it for my first go.
http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/...ed_Bull_03.jpg

well if i can acheive those kind of results, then I will be very happy, thats a cracking job there...

Hi ASKay.

Thanks for posting about finding the cutter - ordered one myself, i've being looking for one off e-bay for a while, so couldn't resist when I saw this :)

Do post how you get on, i'll be using mine with a Mac - so here's hoping :)

Cheers
Andy

I've had a Craft-Robo 330-20 for a couple of years now and it is stunning for the money.
I also use it with a Mac (PPC G5 - not intel) although I've found the bundled software isn't mac friendly - but a plug-in is available to drive it via Adobe Illustrator. Working out cutter pressure and speed for the medium you're using is the trickiest bit for me and because I don't use it constantly, I never quite remember what I last did but after a practice cut I'm normally there or thereabouts.
For logos and lettering it is brilliant.
The only drawback is your own artistic talent :blush: and to that - hats of to Jon Miller and all the other painters on here whose work I often drool over and which inspires yet frustrates me in equal parts

what do you all use for masking paper when cut?

Not sure I fully understand what you mean, if you mean to mask around it I just use paper tape (3M 2328 masking tape) but any cheap paper tape will do as you only throw it away.

I only cut masking film, not coloured vinyl. The masking film is called 'paint mask' and is transparent grey. If you call up vinyl suppliers asking about it they'll send you samples. I normally get a 600mm roll cut into 3 so I end up with 3 lots. Some of my mates use the same cutter as me so we normally split the order between us. I'm alright for vinyl at the moment but when I need it I'll probably put a thing on here as 50M x3 is a lot to get through so maybe we could all split it on here ?

If that hasn't answered your question Mark put up some more info and I'll try and answer it.

For the mask itself, this is what i have ordered, so I will let you know how i get one, it would be interesting to hear what and where from other people have used also...

http://www.graphicair.co.uk/products...-of-10%29.html

Have you got a link for that ? I'm using an old PC, getting on for 10 years now, have to back save then put on a USB from my mac and finally onto the PC, would be handy to be able to do it straight out of the mac. Although I've got a Roland STX-7 and I've searched before and couldn't find anything.

Aside that it's plugged into a serial port on my old PC, will have to get an adapter for the cutter to go into USB...

Here you go

http://downloads.graphtecgb.com/support/

I'm using Illustrator CS2 on my Mac and the plug-in enables my .ai files to be exported to the cutter via the cutting master software.

Works pretty well - its just my illustrator knowledge that is rubbish :cry: