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If you use vinyl in your apparel decorating business or are looking to get into the business – you may be aware that there can be some minor limitations to what you can do with vinyl. Some are obvious, and others need a little TLC to make it work. For example, it's common to have to cut each color individually in a sunset design. Meaning, we can’t take a red and have it slowly transition to orange and then to yellow. You’ll have to cut each color separately and layer them. That’s just a fact of vinyl. So, until someone invents a vinyl that changes color or blends colors, we will have to stay creative in other ways!
I’ve heard some people say small lettering is a pain… Maybe you’ve heard the same things? But working with vinyl for small lettering doesn’t have to be a nightmare. We do it all the time with our designs and have figured it out the sweet spot. With a little guidance and instruction, you can be cutting out tiny font easily too! Let’s discuss how the right equipment, supplies, and a few of our handy tips and tricks, will have you mastering small lettering like a BOSS in no time.
If you have already heard about vinyl cutters like the Graphtec CE6000 Plus, then you may know they are a fine piece of equipment with good precision. The convenience of memory settings makes it perfect for switching from thinner films and opaque vinyl to thicker glitter vinyl and other media.
With a professional cutter like the Graphtec, we use our recommended force, speed, and blade settings for 99% of our artwork and designs without a hitch. Just a few minor setting changes, depending on the media we selected, and we are good to go. We have found in the world of cutters; you generally get what you pay for. So be sure to invest in the best equipment you can and save yourself the unnecessary headaches of cheeping out on such an important component of your business.
Please say you have tried our Triton vinyl and are therefore loving it and saving a fortune already. If you just did, then pat yourself on the back because you already own the best vinyl for tiny easy-to-weed font job! If you haven’t put your hands on Triton Vinyl just yet – you shouldn’t wait any longer. It is incredibly affordable but it also ultra thin to feel fantastic when wearing it. The most important part about it for this mini font job is that weeding it is a snap. No more fussing on little inner lettering. Make sure you have a sharp fine tip weeding tool. It’s important to find a pick that works with your weeding style. Over the years we’ve noticed everyone weeds a little bit differently and have favorite picks to use. So, whether it is curved weeding hook or an angled weeding pick you use, just make sure you have a sharp tip for this micro job.
Check out Triton Heat Transfer Vinyl Here
Okay, let’s get into the settings. Tiny adjustments make for massive results! In the Graphtec CE6000 Plus Cutter, you have a lot of options on how you want the equipment to operate. We specifically made a few changes to the condition settings to help us with this project. - Speed – set to 15 (Reasonable speed for high detail). - Force - set to 21 (to be nice and firm) - Acceleration - set to 2 (since we are going so slow anyway) - Tangential Emulation - set to 2 (which is recommended for overcut at start and end.) - Overcut - before AND after at .04”. (Makes sure all the precise cuts are thorough) Finally, the blade length needs to be set to opaque depth.
Our first wave of initial testing without any of our tips and tricks and we could see that ¼ inch was pushing the limits of the standard opaque settings. Any smaller and we would lose letters in the initial weeding and would have trouble keeping dots on the letter “I” and any punctuation. Then, after all of our adjustments, we were able to cut font down to an 8th of an inch, and all letters remained as well as all our tiny punctuation! We are so impressed with the tremendous difference our adjustments made. It's official! Small font problems are officially a thing of the past!
