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Custom T-shirts on the CNC Shark

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:25 pm
by Kayvon
I adapted my drag bit holder to use a vinyl cutter blade and tried making a custom t-shirt. It worked! A vinyl cutter machine runs around $400, quite a bit cheaper than CNC, but if you already own a CNC why not see what you can make it do.

Here's a one-minute video of the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCUv5P4djTA

And here are some pictures and details:
http://perryprojects.blogspot.com/2018/ ... hirts.html

Re: Custom T-shirts on the CNC Shark

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:31 am
by gordread
Cool idea. How did you keep the cutter from going all the way through the backing of the vinyl?

Re: Custom T-shirts on the CNC Shark

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:31 am
by Kayvon
Vinyl cutters are spring loaded. The depth is positioned so that the blade only applies 80g-100g of force, which is enough to cut the vinyl but not enough to cut through the backing.

At the beginning of the blog post, I have a link to a different blog post where I created the attachment. I used it for a diamond drag bit initially. For the vinyl cutter, I did the same thing with a weaker spring, then adjusted my Z axis for that amount of pressure.