Metal Cutting

[GoonerGary]

Does anyone cut their own 1mm sublimation metal? Would a metal guillotine do the job or would a CNC router be needed?

[pisquee]

Chromaluxe? (white or clear?)
One off job to do yourself, or big/regular job you want to sub out?

[socialgiraffe]

Not sure about 1mm but .7mm I cut with a scalpal. four or five scores and then bend and snap.

I have a metal sheet and a decent heavy metal ruler so that the edges do not bend.

If you want round corners then The Magic Touch sell a metal corner cutter.

[GoonerGary]

I've seen the corner cutters which I will look at after the cutting. Both coatings of Chromaluxe 1.1mm I suppose if it is any different? I'm looking at bench shears at various prices, but after speaking to Novachrome they suggested (along with Unisub) that Chromaluxe should be cut with cnc routers because the coating could be damaged if the edges splinter. I was severely bending some sheets last night and the coating snapped and flaked off, so I can see how fragile the coating is.

What tools are you using pisquee? I suppose I'd want to be able to do this myself so that I cut on demand.

[arthur.daley]

Hi Gary

Bench shears are definitely not the way to go - for one they are like using scissors in as much as they are the devils own job to cut a dead straight line. I think a cnc router may be a bit over the top. An old fashioned hand guillotine - one where the blade is fixed to a pivot at one end and has a handle at the other - pre 1980s darkroom type, ought to do the trick. Its rather dependent on how big the sheet is you want to cut. The sheet would probably cut ok on a large sheet metal guillotine so long as the blades are sharp and the blade clearances set up properly - but then you would be looking for a third party to cut for you and I am guessing you want to be able to do this in house?

The problem of having the coating crack or splinter might be remedied by putting a length of low tack masking tape (or maybe several layers of tape) on the sheet and cutting through that. Probably cuts the best with the coating side towards the moving blade rather than the fixed blade.

I must confess I have been looking at cutting ali sub sheet and the old fashioned guillotine was going to be my first port of call - pity I chcked them all away in favour of rotatrims (

All you can really do is to buy a sacrificial sheet and experiment. I'd be very interested to hear how you get on.


Arthur

[GoonerGary]

Funnily enough Novachrome didn't recommend their own metal guillotine, perhaps it's not quite good enough for 1.1mm. Conde have a demonstration of their own cutter which seems ok in that video perhaps stronger than the xpres/ novachrome cutter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L79Kg2v ... zXMhLlBivE

I found someone very local who can do some cnc cutting, I'll report back.