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Classified Ads => Wanted => Topic started by: mimosatexas on February 26, 2015, 12:03:17 PM
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I am starting to get a lot more orders that would benefit from a vinyl cutter. In the past I have either made transfers or outsourced the cutting, but I am ready to just grab one for doing it in house. I was wondering if anyone was selling a high quality used one, or had insights into what's being offered new.
I honestly don't want to spend a ton, so if there is a lower quality but capable new unit out there, say in the $500 range, I am open to it. I also know everyone always says to buy the widest you can, but I really don't see needing to do very large cuts in house so even a 15" model is likely completely fine for the time being. This will almost entirely be names/numbers/one offs on shirts.
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i have a 48 inch cutter for sale...it is a roland signmaker 2. $400.00 and you pay shipping
sam
email sam at palomarprinting dot com
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48" seems like overkill. I assume I can use a shorter roll on it though of course. How old is it? Does it have any issues with small detail or any software related quirks etc.? I know roland makes great machines, just curious.
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You will regret getting a 15" cutter......
For 1,000.00 i like this one....http://www.heatpressnation.com/gcc-expert-pro-vinyl-cutter-plotter-24.html (http://www.heatpressnation.com/gcc-expert-pro-vinyl-cutter-plotter-24.html) I do not own this model but my other GCC cutters have served me well....
But for sure look at what Sam has....
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My Roland is 21 years old, and still works great, it's a 24. When we bought it, it was for cutting positives out of Rubylith for all the election sign work we did back then. Now it's mostly names, and some custom numbers, and one customer that uses a reflective vinyl of a few thousand shirts and jackets a year. I will definitely recommend Roland any day, and it's true that if you get the 15", something will come in the door that will require larger... :o
Steve
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I have a graphtec 15" cutter for sale... Has the optical eye for print and cut. We just wanted to get a bigger one. We tried the Roland versacamm and my wife HATED it! We went back to graphtec!
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PM me the price if you don't mind Gill, and the year etc. I can pick this http://www.rivercitygraphicsupply.com/products/details/graphtec-ce6000-40-15-plotter (http://www.rivercitygraphicsupply.com/products/details/graphtec-ce6000-40-15-plotter) up locally new, so would be looking for a deal, but just let me know. Thanks!
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Get a Mimaki 75 cm wide cutter. That will allow you as well to dye cut stickers at high speed, if needed at one point. Summa would be nice too though. But yes the Mimaki cutters are top notch. As mentioned earlier I would not go for anything that can`t use a roll of vinyl. 15" width is a no no
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PM me the price if you don't mind Gill, and the year etc. I can pick this [url]http://www.rivercitygraphicsupply.com/products/details/graphtec-ce6000-40-15-plotter[/url] ([url]http://www.rivercitygraphicsupply.com/products/details/graphtec-ce6000-40-15-plotter[/url]) up locally new, so would be looking for a deal, but just let me know. Thanks!
For the extra $100 this is a no-brainer. http://www.signwarehouse.com/p-M-PLT-VE-QE6000.html (http://www.signwarehouse.com/p-M-PLT-VE-QE6000.html) It's made by Graphtec. You can find these used a lot as this model is a very common starting point and people upgrade. This doesn't have ARMS, but I really doubt you would be using that on a 15" cutter.
Do not go under 24". There are some heat press vinyl that we use (glitter, and subli-block) that is sold in 20 and 24".
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If the cutter has pressure feed rather than tractor feed, it won't matter what size vinyl you buy because you can cut pieces just large enough for the image you are cutting. If you are just getting the cutter to do T-shirts, there is no reason to buy anything larger than 15"
I'm going to buy a 24" cutter next, but I've used my 15" cutter to make some pretty large signs, including this one.
(edit) If you plan to do very large images on your T-shirts you might need the 24". My cutter can do an image 10 3/4" wide by as long as I want (for all intents and purposes...I'm sure there's a limit but it's several feet.) Most customers that want to order one or two shirts just want text and maybe some simple graphics on them. If the order is for more than five shirts I'd rather screen print it.
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I started looking into cutters at the end of 2012. Started looking at GCC.
After a bit of time researching, ended up with a brand new Graphtec CE5000 (Now CE6000). 24" wide
Paid it off in 1.5 months.
After 9 months sold it for $300 less than what I paid for it and bought bigger one. Now I have Graphtec FC8600-130 (54" wide)
After dealing with them for a while, my order of quality cutters would be:
Summa
Graphtec
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Roland
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Mimaki and Mutoh
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Everything else.
Good luck
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Where have you made the most money with your cutter Dennis? Just curious...
Right off the bat I will be doing lots of names and numbers for school stuff, which I am more than happy to do. I also have some interest in rhinestones or faux stone material. I really want to avoid signs since they take up a lot of space that I just don't have right now, but if it is worth the money...
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Then you will be disappointed. Signs
I was pretty lucky that I knew a guy that has a trucking company. They asked me to do some signs and i used Homer few times before I bought the cutter.
In the meantime, my buddy bought 5 trucks and 11 trailers that he needed the signs for. That job paid off the cutter and all material.
If you have a 24" cutter and a regular sized table for weeding and masking, that is all you need.
Store all the 24" rolls under the table and off you go.
Now, I have 60" HP L 25500 printer, 54" Graphtec cutter and 55" laminator. built myself 5'x10' work table with a cutting mat on top.
So far this year, I sold more signs that garments.
It helps when you get one job to do 28 trucks :)
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Dennis and others, which do you think is the creme' de la creme' of small format (24-30") cutters?
We'd like to bring this in house someday but aside from figuring out where the hell to put the cutter and all those rolls of material, I would need a really high quality cutter as a lot of the materials like Premium Plus, etc. seem like they would be a bear to cut without a really good machine.
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If you are going to just cut vinyl, without the need of contour cutting, Graphtec will cut anything. CE model has 400g max pressure, FC has 600g which is max on the cutter and it is enough for reflective stuff (hard).
If you need a contour cut, Summa is better. I went with Graphtec because I did not have enough money at the time. If I buy again, will go for Summa.
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Contour cutting is referring to the printing and using an optical eye after the fact correct?
I would definitely need something that can cut crazy stuff as I want it to more or less be all purpose when it came to material choice. I definitely don't want to tell someone no due to the material if at all possible...
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Contour cutting is referring to the printing and using an optical eye after the fact correct?
Yes, printed designs with registration marks. Optical eye reads marks and knows where it needs to cut (Hopefully ;) )
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While that could be nice, I honestly don't care about that at the moment.
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I have had my cutters for 3 years and never needed to do contour cutting....There is lots you can do without it......
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That's super helpful Dennis, thanks, I put some notes down for the future.
It sounds like, if you have the scratch for it, the Summa would be ideal as you could run your contour cuts on it should you add a printer down the road. I always thought that using something like a versacam for both print and cut could be rough on the production time for large orders or if you have your machine time all scheduled up.
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That's super helpful Dennis, thanks, I put some notes down for the future.
It sounds like, if you have the scratch for it, the Summa would be ideal as you could run your contour cuts on it should you add a printer down the road. I always thought that using something like a versacam for both print and cut could be rough on the production time for large orders or if you have your machine time all scheduled up.
We are currently three days deep (should be finished today), on a 5k 3" circle project, doing all prints and cuts through the versacamm. The real time killer is that you can only print 250 at a time.
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That's super helpful Dennis, thanks, I put some notes down for the future.
It sounds like, if you have the scratch for it, the Summa would be ideal as you could run your contour cuts on it should you add a printer down the road. I always thought that using something like a versacam for both print and cut could be rough on the production time for large orders or if you have your machine time all scheduled up.
We are currently three days deep (should be finished today), on a 5k 3" circle project, doing all prints and cuts through the versacamm. The real time killer is that you can only print 250 at a time.
That sound like something that could have been outsourced.....A run that large could be offset printed and die cut with steel rule dies....
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true, but typically will take 2 weeks. We used to die cut stuff here, but going digital is way faster, and allows us to keep everything in house.
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PM me the price if you don't mind Gill, and the year etc. I can pick this [url]http://www.rivercitygraphicsupply.com/products/details/graphtec-ce6000-40-15-plotter[/url] ([url]http://www.rivercitygraphicsupply.com/products/details/graphtec-ce6000-40-15-plotter[/url]) up locally new, so would be looking for a deal, but just let me know. Thanks!
For the extra $100 this is a no-brainer. [url]http://www.signwarehouse.com/p-M-PLT-VE-QE6000.html[/url] ([url]http://www.signwarehouse.com/p-M-PLT-VE-QE6000.html[/url]) It's made by Graphtec. You can find these used a lot as this model is a very common starting point and people upgrade. This doesn't have ARMS, but I really doubt you would be using that on a 15" cutter.
Do not go under 24". There are some heat press vinyl that we use (glitter, and subli-block) that is sold in 20 and 24".
Sorry Shane, but I'll disagree... I talked to them and I just couldn't do it. I wanted the real deal. I wanted true optic cutting like I had on my 15" graphtec. They don't use the same software either... That was the big turn off for us. We LOVE the illustrator plugin. Taking things right from illy to cutter and no other software is the only way we fly.
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Sorry Shane, but I'll disagree... I talked to them and I just couldn't do it. I wanted the real deal. I wanted true optic cutting like I had on my 15" graphtec. They don't use the same software either... That was the big turn off for us. We LOVE the illustrator plugin. Taking things right from illy to cutter and no other software is the only way we fly.
I thought cutting direct from Illustrator was the "cat's meow" until I upgraded to dedicated cutter software.......Way more tools so it more efficient than using the plug in.....I use Vinyl Master Pro with my GCC cutters and love it....
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Sorry Shane, but I'll disagree... I talked to them and I just couldn't do it. I wanted the real deal. I wanted true optic cutting like I had on my 15" graphtec. They don't use the same software either... That was the big turn off for us. We LOVE the illustrator plugin. Taking things right from illy to cutter and no other software is the only way we fly.
I thought cutting direct from Illustrator was the "cat's meow" until I upgraded to dedicated cutter software.......Way more tools so it more efficient than using the plug in.....I use Vinyl Master Pro with my GCC cutters and love it....
Did you switch to designing in the other software or just cutting in it?
There is no way I'm getting my wife to stop designing in Illustrator... not gonna happen, if you are married then you know what I'm saying. ;)
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I still use Illustrator for some designing.....But then cut and paste to the cutting software......Way more control over cutting features in a dedicated program....And I do find myself doing many designs from scratch right in the cutting software.....For me it has been a "giant leap" forward......
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I'm interested in what it could do more than what it does now.
Could you expand on what you found easier/better?
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Those things that are hard to explain.....I just know I like it.....
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Is it potentially things are easier for you to accomplish in there than illustrator, possibly because of a lack in illy or just one of those things that you get it better/easier in one vs the other?
In the end, it's a device that runs around a little blade and cuts vinyl. We don't ever ask it to do more than that. We print and cut with reggy marks, we always have cut lines built in and don't want or even like the automatic ways (like Roland forces on you). We use weed lines which graphtec does in the cutting master software, and we cut with various conditions. I know I maybe coming off like I know it all, but honestly it's not that. I just don't see what else it could do. But trust me, I know there are plenty of times when you THINK what you've been doing is adequate enough just to have someone or something come along and blow your mind wide open!
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I think your last comment hits the nail on the head....."But trust me, I know there are plenty of times when you THINK what you've been doing is adequate enough just to have someone or something come along and blow your mind wide open!" IMO is has been a big jump forward.....But to each his own.....
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I think your last comment hits the nail on the head....."But trust me, I know there are plenty of times when you THINK what you've been doing is adequate enough just to have someone or something come along and blow your mind wide open!" IMO is has been a big jump forward.....But to each his own.....
Yeah, it may. Just be different strokes for different folks.
With my wife's knowledge in illustrator it's hard for me to steer any other direction.
But I'm willing to check it out for sure.
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I just watched the promo video and I will say it looks impressive.
A lot of what I could see being neat is on things that we don't do, it's not what is asked of us.
That's not to say things wouldn't change, and some of the things seem that they might be easier/better in this program.
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No doubt Illustrator is a great design program but as far as I know when you use a plugin you do not get much cutting functionality.....
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That's where I'm NOT seeing a lot of gains.