Vinyl cutter

The computer controls the movement of a sharp blade over the surface of the material as it would the nozzles of an ink-jet printer.

This blade is used to cut out shapes and letters from sheets of thin self-adhesive plastic (vinyl).

Some vinyl cutters are marketed to small in-home businesses and require download and use of a proprietary editing software.

The vinyl material comes in long rolls allowing projects with significant length like banners or billboards to be easily cut.

Also, since the shapes are cut out of solid colours, photographs and gradients cannot be reproduced with a stand-alone cutter.

Computer designed images are loaded onto the vinyl cutter via a wired connection or over a wireless protocol.

Then the vinyl is loaded into the machine where it is automatically fed through and cut to follow the set design.

[4] In addition to vinyl some cutters are capable of cutting other materials such as paper, card, plastic sheets and even thin wood.

The transfer tape and the weeded vinyl is pulled off the release liner, and applied to a substrate, such as a sheet of aluminium.

[citation needed]As the vinyl film is supplied by the manufacturer, it comes attached to a release liner.