I’m thinking of dipping my toe into bike custom spray jobs and would be thinking I’d need a vinyl cutter of some sort. I was looking at the cri cut ones which seem good but the reviews seem very hit and miss.
Any one had any experience with one of these or any idea on an alternative?
I’ve been a spray painter for about 20 years in the motor trade and I like to think I’m not too shabby. Have painted a lot of my own bike frames and a few mates ones. Just thinking about branching out into a side project and seeing how things turn out.
Any one have any advice on design programs for stencils or vinyl cutters then I’m all ears.

Ps I’m thinking the name should be Big nose customs, cause my two year old said I had a big nose

No idea on the vinyl cutters, but I’d say go for it! There always seems to be a lot of people asking about custom paint and there’s a lot of cowboys out there.

My mate just got his frame painted by someone who was recommended. He rejected the first go as one side needed another coat.

He got it back and nothing had been masked off! Had to clean all the bearing faces, dropouts, head tube and bb shell!

It does look pretty good though now he’s got it sorted though. It’s something I would love to have done one day (if I ever keep a bike long enough!).

I have a Cricut maker.

It really is a major pain in the arse if you don’t know what you are doing.

I don’t know what I’m doing. Everything is a real struggle but I’m getting there. The Cricut Uk F.B page seems to know all the answers.

Don’t go anywhere near the U.S cricut videos on youtube, they will make you want to kill.

I needed a GIANT sticker for my bike but couldn’t find the font I needed. Amazingly I managed to download the logo and use that.

What would you use it for?

I used to paint cars and always found that my bikes chipped quite easily when I painted them. Do you add any elasticiser to your paint?

Wife has a Cricut Explore, bought it about 5 years ago. It’s OK for basics, I’ve made quite a few vinyl stickers for various bits. Have to use their software though which can be maddening at times.

Seems to be plenty of choice with budget vinyl cutters these days, heard good things about the Silhouette machines and if you’re just doing vinyl lots of them can take a roll which saves a lot of faff cutting out and sticking to the mat that you do with the Cricut.

These guys do some special stuff, might be good for inspiration;
Ooey

Hi Big Yim I do all my own frame painting and use a graphtec lite 50 (£550) did look at buying a 6000 series (£1300)but the ce50 is half the cash outlay and puts you into semi pro machine territory rather than pure hobby proprietary software territory, maybe a bit overkill for you but it was definitely worth the money and apart from the full vinyl rools the bigger machines can use this only has half rolls. I cant thing of anything it doesnt do well.

I scoured facebook and ebay for a while before just buying new but there are plenty of folks who are selling all the gear from their home tshirt/sticker business and all the vinyl everything included, might be worth a look there too.

Never had any problem with paint chipping and not sure I’d use an elasticiser to be honest as the paint shouldn’t need it if the part you’re painting isn’t due to flex too much.

I had looked at the silhouette machine too and that’s in the kind oh head to head with the cricut to be honest. I have heard that the cricut is either the best thing that the person ever bought or a useless piece of crap. I suppose learning the software is half the battle.

What vinyl do you use steeboy? For the stencils

Where are you? I need my bike doing.

Years ago when I was setting up my sign making business I bought a Roland Stika cutter. It’s their entry-level/craft cutter but uses the same blades & software as their Pro machines which makes the transition to a bigger & faster machine very easy. Quality bit of kit, (made in Japan like all their machines).

For design software the best but most complicated & expensive is Adobe Illustrator. A lot of professionals still use Corel Draw though which is also pretty good, and a lot simpler & cheaper. There are specific packages which a vinyl cutter dealer might try to sell you like SignLab or Flexisign, but I wouldn’t bother with those personally.

Zippykona I’m in the midlands if that’s close to you at all.
Some of these cutters are getting a bit out of my price range I think !!

Might be worth looking 2nd hand then. I wouldn’t even consider a machine that can’t take roll media – fine for card making, too limiting otherwise. As soon as people find out you have a cutter you’ll be asked to make all kinds of decals, signs, etc. Can recover the cost quite easily even at mates rates if you’re canny 😀

I have a Roland GR640, takes media up to 1600mm wide – I run though rolls up to 16m long for a single item (so far!) – though I use it to score paper, not cut it. Roland are a great outfit.

What should I be searching for on eBay ? Just vinyl cutter ?

Will you be able to charge enough to make a living? Good paint jobs on bikes take a lot of prep time and cyclists are notoriously tight fisted.

Just vinyl cutter?

pro machines are often called plotters too. I’d look at the Japanese brands Roland/Mimaki/Graphtec, Summa are well regarded too. Just be aware that a lot of older machines will have a parallel port not USB so you’ll need the appropriate port on your machine (or use an adapter which can be fiddly).

Tjagain I really enjoy doing stuff like this so I can just use it as a bit of a hobby, especially while I’m on week on week off due to the corona.
Would they all come with their own software specific to the machine or is there one software to rule them all

They’ll all come with their own specific software but the bigger brands will have plugins allowing you to cut from industry-standard design software e.g. CorelDraw which is very popular with hobbyists/1-man-bands

Cricut design space is reliable on my iPad though fiddly.

Design space on my MacBook always has a fit in the evenings.

You have to experiment with the vinyls as well. The proper cricut paper we got from hobby craft is rubbish. Cutting small wording is impossible as it slides off the sheet mid cut.

No doubt there is a setting to get round this problem.

It’s one of those things that you really have to have an interest in. A bit like a guitar , you have to find out how it works.

I can’t be arsed, I just want to type in on my computer and for it to be cut.

I bought a Silhouette Cameo years ago and used to sell vinyl graphics on ebay. I can’t compare it to anything else as it’s the only one I’ve used but I got up and running straight away it’s very easy to use. It’s never broken down and I’ve never even replaced a blade yet.

I was actually thinking of doing the same thing as you now that I have the space to do it. I’m going to paint my jump bike then experiment on my GF’s Stumpjumper.

I buy all my vinyl from here- http://www.mdpsupplies.co.uk/

Shark attack what’s the software like with the silhouette one ? I’m just having a quick play with the cricut one on my phone now to see how easy it is for a numpty like me

I’ve got a silhouette portrait (baby cameo) for making masks for painting bikes. It works really well and will take rolls of vinyl (well sort of, the roll sits loose in front of the machine). The limiting thing on the portrait is the width as it is only about 8 inches cutting width. This is fine for what I do but would be useless for doing graphics for cars etc.

The silhouette software works well but was a monumental ballache to learn how to use it efficiently and if I don’t use it for a few months I forget how to do most things with it and have to resort to youtube videos to relearn.

Shark attack what’s the software like with the silhouette one ?

I haven’t used it for ages so I’m not that fresh on it. I remember there was big update which made everything look nice.

It’s one of those with way more features that you’ll ever use. If you literally want to only cut vinyl you can be up and running in 5 minutes. It’s very easy to load in an image, trace it, place the cut lines and send to the slicer. There are lots of presets for speed and depth etc. which match the material you’re using and they’re mostly bang on.

The only mistake I’ve made is when I forget to change the cut settings and end up slicing right through some thin vinyl or not fully penetrating something but that’s my fault.

When my garage/workshop is complete it’s going to come back into use and I’m sure I’ll show the results on here for better or worse!

What do these little plotters cost?
Once you have added some software like Corel or Illustrator you will probably be looking at a fair investment. You are also going to need to convert logos into vectors and believe me people will bring in or send you the lowest res copy for you to reproduce. This could take hours! Fonts, we have over 9k fonts on file try finding the one that matches! There are online font detectives but have mixed success. Most logos won’t use a standard font anyway. Then add in the potential that Fox or anyone else will put a cease and desist on you. Can you outsource this part of the business? For transparency. I’m a sign maker.

TheDT, the silhouette ones start at a couple of hundred pounds and the software provided with them is good enough.

Agree about copying others logos etc and getting letters telling you to stop.

I use mine for making paint masks for the frames I build and for masking shapes, outlines etc so I have no issues with copying others logos, fonts etc but you’re right it would be a problem if that is what is intended.

You don’t need to mess around with any graphics software or turn anything into vectors. Not for the Silhouette software anywhere.

All you need is a high contrast image and it will trace it very accurately with a few different settings for fine tuning and then you’ve got your cutting path to send to the machine.

You could use any software you like to create the image or you could do it on paper with a black marker and scan it in.

Try and find yourself an nice old Roland Camm 1, ideally something small like a CX24, ideal for small graphics and T-Shirt material if you want to go down that route

Get your head round using vector files, look out for Vector .pdf files, very useful

You can get plug-ins for Corel Draw, for little money, like Finecut, this will allow you to cut directly from Corel draw, look for an old Windows machine to run everything on and a “one off purchase” of Corel X4

All the above will keep costs down and give you great results

Did some research and almost pressed buy on a Silhouette cameo 4. It isn’t limited to 12″ material like the other hobby machines and reviews very well.
I ended up ordering low tack masking film off amazon and walking it into my local sign shop who ram my artwork and material through their plotter at no cost…so I slipped some cash into their ‘tip jar’
I’d probably sub out the graphics work if you don’t have any illustrator (digital design) experience. Local frame painters here charge extra for that work anyway.
ETOE on youtube for inspiration

Roland machines are good, bombproof too, as used in lots of schools.

Have a look on eBay, as DT depts often sell on unused machined. They’re a bit ‘old’ tech now lots of schools are getting 3d printers, etc.

Illustrator is the benchmark software, but one to look at is 2D design.
Educational software, but works really well for vinyl cutting, easy to learn and set up, and it’s very easy to do bitmap to vector conversions. Which is really useful for doing stickers of old logos in weird fonts.
I’ve done decent Pace stickers just from a photo.

That ETOE bloke is a strange character. Just watched his booger green orbeau frame and I could do that with out much drama. Good to get some ideas

Personally I’d go Roland or Graphtec. I’ve a cheep Chinese thing for larger cuts which works ok but cut quality is nowhere near as good as the branded machines.

I create the designs/artwork in Illustrator then cut from the cutting software (Signcut pro maybe?) I think with certain machines you can cut directly from Illustrator which would save some faffing.

Out of interest where in the midlands are you? I’ do quite a bit of custom bikes graphics/vehicle wraps but no experience in painting – something I’d quite like to get into if you need a hand with the vinyl side of things and are remotely local.

I’ve got a silhouette cameo in the office that we use for a variety of things in vinyl. Seems decent enough, but it’s the only one I’ve had. It does seem to struggle a little with very fine detail – but that might be a material or cutter fix. Software also seems OK but I always do the art in illustrator and dump it in. I’m sure it’s not a patch on a ‘proper’ one, but from the things we’ve done with it, I reckon it would serve well for cutting masks for painting frames

Jamesfts I’m over Dudley way not too far from Russel hall hospital.

Cx monkey how small will it cut ? I wouldn’t want anything tiny but will need it to do smallish stuff

@big yim – specific time I thought that it wasn’t coping was doing a very small script typeface logo decal with individual letters about 3 or 4mm tall. didn’t notice anything bad on anything larger than that.

For design software the best but most complicated & expensive is Adobe Illustrator. A lot of professionals still use Corel Draw though which is also pretty good, and a lot simpler & cheaper.

Definitely CorelDraw – I started in computer graphics on a 486/66 PC using Corel, before moving to a Mac with Corel then Illustrator. The Mac version just didn’t work very well, but that was twenty years ago, and illustrator was very complicated and difficult to learn, very counter-intuitive for doing text on curves and suchlike. Corel is very easy by comparison and I drew up dozens, if not hundreds of logos and logotypes with it, scanning the item, putting it on a base layer then literally tracing over the top – it’s perfect when it’s a text logo with an unusual or modified font, saves hours of trying to match a font, a hi-res scan can be traced to make a vector image of a few Kb in a few minutes once you get the hang of using guides and pulling nodes to create a curve into the correct shape. One of my favourite jobs that was!

When I needed a GIANT logo I just downloaded an image off the web and uploaded it into Design Space. Then dragged it to the right size.

I assumed it would just cut a rectangle of the background the logo was on.

Amazingly it cut out the letters.

We won’t cut anything smaller than 8mm. We have Mimaki, Gerber and Summa plotters. (Big ones)
If you are stencilling it’s unlikely to work that small with paintmask vinyl as it will be too small for the paint to get in and when you peel off the stencil it will probably disturb the paint too.
If you are cutting smaller than 8mm then the area of adhesive is too small to give any reliable adhesion. Unless you are clear coating over of course.
Not saying you can’t cut smaller but it takes lots of patience and unless you value your time properly then an expensive thing to be doing if you haven’t priced this into the job.

Not all vinyl is the same. Different thickness, Cast, polymeric, monomeric, adhesive and adhesive tech. Some will cut small easier than others. Also depends on the font, seraph fonts at that size, PITA.

it’s perfect when it’s a text logo with an unusual or modified font, saves hours of trying to match a font, a hi-res scan can be traced to make a vector image

Software can convert bitmap to vector in seconds nowadays 😉
As satisfying as tracing an image is, it’s a bit of a waste of time!

What vinyl for words 4mm high?

Zippykona, CAST, high quality, branded (Avery, 3M or Oracal) New blade and lots of patience.

Software can convert bitmap to vector in seconds nowadays

only if you have a decent hi-res bitmap, otherwise it looks like dog shit 😂 although that does seem to be acceptable to a lot of people these days, who don’t know any better