I am attempting to cut Hartco S425-15 sandblast resist on my Signmaker IVb but the lettering is not cutting right. The font is Futura, roughly 1.2" tall. I am using a brand new 60* blade at 50% speed.
The trouble is that on most letters, the end of the cut does not match up to the start of the cut. For instance, on a dot of an "i", instead of a nice circle, it cuts something closer to a spiral-looking shape. That might give you an idea of what is happening with the letters: they get distorted. This particular product comes on a paper carrier and when I look closely at the holes that are used by the pin feed they seem to be getting elongated a bit, thereby throwing off the registration since the machine doesn't know where exactly the blade point is. I assume this happens as a result of the increased drag on the blade through the thick material.
I called Hartco about this with a suggestion that they might swich the carrier from paper to something more substantial to prevent this distortion of the holes but got little more than a sympathetic ear.
Has anyone else experienced this and if so how did you overcome it? I've already ruined about 3 yards of this high dollar material and would prefer to avoid having to cut a lot of small copy by hand.
Thanks.
Brian
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
Is your Hartco real old where it is getting even harder than when it's fresh? I've always preferred Anchor. It has a plastic carrier and cuts much easier in my opinion.
