The best inexpensive vinyl cutter? (im making designs for glass etching)

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

I am going to be doing some glass etching on glass mugs. What would the the best little vinyl cutter I would need for this? I dont need anything massive...just enough to cut on standard 8.5" x 11" size.

Secondly..does anyone have one to sell? If so, hit me up!

[royster13]

If you really do not need anything bigger, a Silhouette Cameo should work.....I have seen them in Michaels.....

[larryk]

Cricket............ Cricket.........

[cyw]

Don’t laugh at those little machines.....we have 4 cutters, one being an Ioline flatbed, and that little Silhouette sometimes does a much better job, especially with Fine detail than all the others.......by far! The biggest downside is it’s cutting width but since you only need it for mug templates, it will be just fine.

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

well i went and bought a Silhouette Cameo 3 from Michaels...and circut vinyl and silhouette transfer paper.

i had a coreldraw file i converted to a pdf thinking a pdf will can be loaded into the software..its cant..i had to make the cdr a jpeg.

I loaded the image and didnt not realize i had to hove a boarder on it so i figured out the trace feature and it traced my jpeg...i assumed it could cut a solid image and just cut around the outside of the image but it needs to be traced in the software...(unless im wrong, please correct me).

I sent it to cameo to cut, which it did...too 2 minutes 42 seconds to do two 4" x 6" side my side images.

my blade was set to 2....the first time it was set to 1 and it did not cut deep enough.

I don't if I need to tweak my design or do something other in the software but the small text in the design came out HORRIBLE!!..not straight or crisp at all...it looks like it was hand written. It was arial and the text was not straight and crisp at all!...I was very disappointed but move forward because this is my very first time doing this.

I weeded my design..i removed all the areas i want to etch.....i put transfer paper on top of the design...I then went to adhere the design to a glass mug.

I positioned it...scotch taped the ends to hold it in place....removed the vinyl backing from a corner tip....began to remove the vinyl slowly and 95% of the design did NOT stick to the transfer paper...almost entire design stuck to the vinyl...isnt it all the vinyl supposed to stick to the transfer paper??

In any case it was a total failure first time out....I spoke to a friend of mine that does this alot and said i should use contact paper or shelving paper...she also said i need a scraping tool and to "keep pressing it" whatever that means.

silhouette support said they sell a program, Designer, for $49 that lets me print PDF's.....would that give me a better crisp cut if i cut from a pdf in the software they are suggesting?

so there u have it..my first attempt....any insight is helpful.

[cyw]

I don’t know anything about glass etching but I save my Corel designs to svg format to import into my Silhouette. Works fine, retains the vector. Cuts beautifully.

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

I don’t know anything about glass etching but I save my Corel designs to svg format to import into my Silhouette. Works fine, retains the vector. Cuts beautifully.

i just tried it..i never saved as a SVG before.....it said it as an internet file...is that correct? And when i opened it up some of the design was not there....for example, i have lighting bolts within the image ( like The Flash logo but horizontal) and the pointy ends of the bolt on left and right is cut off flat.

Also, i made all colors (black only) RGB but the save window shows i have 2 issues and they are the colors are not RGB...the page background is blank (no background)...I changed it to RGB white and i still get the same "colors are not rgb" issue.

so what am i doing wrong?

[DrivingZiggy]

If you have to spend $50, look into Affinity Designer.  You might like it better.