I am looking for a new vinyl cutter and would like to use it to cut sandblasting mask and paint mask. Currently I have a roland CM-24 desktop and it will only cut mask if I put a bunch of washers on the blade and cut a bouble line. I cut out of corel draw 12 and I can't change the speed except by a dip switch. Let me know what you folks like to use. I am leaning toward something that will work with corel draw because I enjoy working with it so much. Thanks Shane Bennett Posted by Bruce Bowers (Member # 892) on :
Look into the Allen Datagraph 536 . It is an excellent cutter developed to cut rubber stencil as well as excellent cutting ability for vinyl.
It uses a tangential emulation mode for rubber cutting. It is both a sprocket and and a friction fee cutter.
I have two Allen cutters in my shop and have had excellent results from them both.
If I was going to put a new cutter in my shop tomorrow, the 536 would be the one that I would buy.
Posted by Bobbie Rochow (Member # 3341) on :
I use an "ancient" Anagraph Express, & I cut 3 sandblast masks today with it, no problem. The only thing is, I take my plotter off the stand & lay it on the floor to cut with it, because the mask is so heavy. Today I had my speed on 10, & I used 270 lbs. of pressure.
Posted by Rick Sacks (Member # 379) on :
I use a Graphtec and it works great. I also find having a pounce feature is a must for us too.
Something I find interesting is that cutting thick rubber in lengths over six feet was causing some distortion in one of the directions. Having an easy adjustment to correct for thick materials is also an essential. If you think about a roller with material on it there is a radius that is different than that of 2 mil vinyl.
Posted by Joe Crumley (Member # 2307) on :
Shane,
Excellent question.
For years the workhorse was the Gerber tractor feel plotters. However the manufacturer was outed, mainly over price in the plotter area. I'm sure there are many good units out there but still, we could cut twenty feet of SB mask and have return to do a second cut with precision.
Our last Gerber plotter purchase was the HS 15plus, and when it had problems, after 10 years, Gerber had stopped any repair on it. We got it repair by The Plotter Doctor, but now only use it on rubber mask.
I'd be tempted to recommend buying an old used one of to for SB mask only if you do very much of this kind of work? A 4B can be bought very reasonably.
Are there other new tractor feed, tangentila plotters which do pounce patters?
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