If you want to make use of ALL your paper, then get some carrier sheets for your paper (like Paco mentioned) so you can use the full space without your cutter dropping it.ģ. Otherwise, your paper will fall right out of your cutter when it reads the back corner. I usually leave about 3 inches up on the top to allow my cutter to hold the paper. Make sure that the box doesn't get too close to the edges where your cutter's rollers hold on to your paper. So, you will need this box to print so you can see it on your inkjet vinyl, and you will need an exactly matching box in your contour layer (same color as the rest of your contour lines). The idea here is that you will use three corners of this box as your registration. Make sure the box is in both your graphic AND your contour layer, exactly matching. A 'stroke' is just a line, but it's called that in these programs. Put a vector stroke box around your entire graphic. A4 is the European standard and is a little bigger than Letter.Ģ. Most American paper is Letter, but some is A4. You don't want an A4 workspace with Letter paper or vice versa, so it pays to make sure. Note, A4 paper is not the same as Letter (8.5 x 11) so double check.
Be sure your workspace matches your paper size. With contour lines on their own layer, you can hide them anytime while you design. I usually set my contour cut layers to 100% Magenta. Name the layer 'Contour', because later, you can re-use this file as your master file for all future contour-cut work. I usually just scale up my graphic a little bigger than the original, and make sure it's an outline in the Contour layer. The contour lines can be any color vector line, and make them however you see fit. Put all of your art on however many layers you need, but the key here is to add a layer at the top with *only* your contour lines, so we can isolate them, turn them off and save them out by themselves later. Design (or import) your graphics in Corel, Illustrator or some vector-based graphics program. It doesn't matter how many layers you use, but it's good to keep your contour layer on top so you can hide and isolate it for sending over to SignCut.ġ. Note that the contour layer exists on its own layer. Illustrator users, download this sample here. Download and use them to learn the contour-cutting process, or you can make your own in the next section in the tutorial. It's a good idea to write those values down somewhere in case you need them again. You will only need to do this once, and the values are stored in SignCut. You now have set the offset the knife holder has in relation to the laser point. Use the arrow keys on your PC numeric keyboard, screen or a USB handheld numeric keypad and move the laserpointer to the center of the crosshair. A crosshair will be printed on the paper. Under Settings/Settings click 'Calibrate Laserpoint Offset'. Put the cutter online if it isn't already. Load the plotter pen into your cutter, and in SignCut, set your offset to 0mm, with 3-point calibration enabled. If the cutter says 'waiting' then you will need to cycle the power so you can set your new origin. Put a regular sheet of paper in your cutter, and set home origin in the middle of it. Start with a properly working cutter! For basic setup check the Noobie guide written by Paco. See, he did all the hard work, I am but a scribe who re-wrote the tutorial in a way I understood it better and with a few more tips.
These are the original manuals here if you want to see them (written by Paco). After learning from him, I did like 50 zillion contour cuts, made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot.
I have to give him all the credit for teaching me how to do it. I am just adding it to this site in my own words to clarify a few things which confused me and to add a few tricks of my own. text, images, gradients etc.To start, this is Paco's (user CRD) tutorial from a method he discovered.
> Ai, Dxf, Eps, Pdf and Svg import/export (inc. > Contour cutting wizard plus print and cut from two or more devices Exporting your artwork to an Ai, Dxf, Eps, Pdf or Svg file SignMaster CUT includes the following tools and features: Cutting your artwork from a vinyl cutterĥ. Easily laying out your artwork and designsĤ. Providing you with a suite of basic sign design tools and featuresģ.
Designing artwork from text, curves and shapesĢ. SignMaster CUT is dedicated software for:ġ.
SignMaster CUT comes with a basic set of text, curve and object tools and supports laser-pointer vinyl cutters for manual contour cutting.
SignMaster BASIC (CUT) is for simple vinyl cutting and allows you to produce vinyl lettering, logos and pinstriping. Product packaging may vary from images shown. Please Note: Pictures are for illustrative purposes only.