Using Our Shop
Access and Safety
As with most of our machines, we have a safety and basic use course which can be accessed here or on our trainings page. Completion of this online training should be done prior to using the equipment. The training will walk you through the basics of operation of both our Silhouette and Roland cutters.
Purchasing Materials
You are welcome to bring in your own materials or purchase them from our store. We carry Oracal 631 (temporary) and 651 (permanent) vinyl as well as Siser Easy Weed Heat transfer vinyl in several colors. If you are wanting to purchase colors we don't have, the easiest place would be Michael's Craft Store or Amazon.
No. We will provide you with material to get you started on the machines during your initial test project. We usually have some scrap materials in most rooms left behind by others. If you have a particular project in mind though, it is best to supply your own materials or purchase them from our store (if available).
Our CNC cutters take your vector image file and follow the paths, node to node, with a sharp razor blade that cuts your image out of the material. The vinyl, paper or similar material is first placed on a "sticky" cutting mat and then loaded into the machine. You then adjust the blade cutting depth in order to cut the material but not cut through the paper/plastic backing or the cutting mat holding the material in place.
The type of file used will depend on the machine. For our lasers, a .DXF file works best. For our CNC graphics cutters, .SVG, .DXF are the best file types. For our UV printer, any .JPG, .BMP, .PNG, .TIF, .SVG, or any other image type that can be imported into Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator is fine if exported as .EPS once you are ready to use the UV printer. For our mat cutter, all designing is done in a proprietary software that creates its own file type. For the embroidery machine .TIF files are used. Four our CNC Routers, .SBP files are what are needed to run the machine but you can import .DXF, .PDF and .AI for any 2D designs or .STL, .OBJ or STEP for 3D desigs.