Vinyl Cutter

We have a Silhouette Cameo 4 vinyl cutter, which is used for cutting vinyl that can be stuck to walls and windows (e.g. for signs, gallery wall text), or to press onto t-shirts using the heat press. It can also cut some other materials.

The vinyl cutter works by dragging a small knife across a piece of material, which is moved through the machine on rollers. It cuts out one colour at a time: to make designs using several colours requires some pre-planning and careful alignment (see below for more instructions).

There is no cost to using the vinyl cutter. Blades and a selection of vinyl colours are provided, with matt black and matt white being kept in stock most of the time. If you would like to use a lot of vinyl or a specific colour, please talk to Agnes, Rosie or Pete, and they can help you order your own.


	No induction required to use this equipment. However if you would like to be taught how to use it, please contact Rosie or Agnes.

Making a Design

The machine can be used by creating a drawing and uploading it to the machine through a free piece of software called Silhouette Studio. These can be either vector files (in DXF format) or raster files like PNGs and JPGs, which will need to be processed by the software.

When considering your files, it's good to think about the machine's limitations. There's a limit to how much detail the vinyl cutter can cut out. The best designs are simple! While the machine can cut more finely and accurately than cutting by hand with scissors, it will still struggle with details smaller than about 3mm.

Vector files

Making a vector file will give you precise control over a drawing. Lots of software exists that can make vector files. Most CCI students use one of the following:

Adobe Illustrator (this costs a subscription fee, though it is cheaper for UAL students)
Inkscape (free)
Figma (free, with paid features)

Silhouette studio imports files in a DXF format, which can be exported directly from Illustrator. If you are using software like Inkscape or Figma to create your files, you will need to export to SVG (which is a more common vector format), and then convert to DXF, using an online tool like SVG to DXF converter. We also have a license for Silhouette CONNECT software available to enable direct cutting from Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW if necessary.

AI Generated files: In the past, students have had lots of issues with files generated using AI ~~tools like Canva. These tools do not always do a good job of creating vector files, and can create~~cause some weird issues. It's almost always quicker to try and make these files yourself. If you do want to use these tools, make a raster file and then trace it using the instructions below.

Tracing Raster Files

To use a pixel-based file like a PNG or JPG, you will need to trace this to tell the machine which lines it should cut to make the shape that you want. To use the tracing tool, first use the file menu to open the image you want to cut out. Simple black-and-white images will work best for this. Select the 'trace' option in the menu bar on the right hand side. This has several settings that you can change. Click 'Select Trace Area', draw a box around the part of the drawing you want to trace, and then click 'Trace'.

To isolate the lines you've drawn, click once on the design to select the vectors, and then drag them. Cuttable lines should appear in the software as red outlines. You can delete the original image, and you'll just be left with what you want to cut!

~~If you want more control over the files you make, you can also trace raster images in Illustrator and Inkscape, which have more advanced editing tools. See~~ ~~this tutorial~~ ~~for more details on how to do this in Inkscape.~~

Using Silhouette Studio

The first time you open Silhouette Studio, you will notice the units are in inches. To change these to mm, click the cog wheel icon in the bottom right hand corner to open the preferences menu. In 'Page Setup', the machine selected should automatically be Cameo 4.

To open ~~your~~a design in ~~the~~Silhoette ~~software,~~Studio, click to the 'design' tab, and select 'open' from the file menu. This should open a line drawing in the canvas. Select and drag the file you are cutting to the top of the 'page', making sure the lines of your design stay inside the red box. It should be as close to the top as possible to minimise waste.

When you are happy with the placement of your design, you can save it (this will save as a V3 file, with the ending .studio3, that will save things like the placement of your design).

Tracing Raster Files

To use a pixel-based file like a PNG or JPG, you will need to process it in the Silhoette software using the Trace tool. First, use the file menu to open the image you want to cut out: simple black-and-white images will work best. Select the 'trace' option in the menu bar on the right hand side. Click 'Select Trace Area', draw a box around the part of the drawing you want to trace, and then click 'Trace'.

If you're unhappy with the tracing results, you can try changing the threshold. If you want more control over the files you make, or to trace more complex designs, you can also trace raster images in Illustrator and Inkscape, which have more advanced editing tools. See this tutorial for more details on how to do this in Inkscape.

Cutting Your Design

Choose your vinyl carefully! We stock both heat transfer vinyl (HTV, for t-shirts) and wall/window vinyl (for making stickers and wall texts). These can look very similar. To tell them apart, if you peel off a corner from the acetate, wall vinyl will be sticky, and HTV will not be. If you're unsure, ask a technician.

Once you've selected your vinyl, it's time to load it into the cutter. Vinyl that is wider than the 330mm width that can fit onto the machine will need to be cut into a smaller section. Vinyl narrower than 310mm at any point need to be mounted on an adhesive mat, or it will get stuck in the rollers and won't cut properly. The HTV sheets and rolls of wall vinyl are already the correct size!

The machine has its own power supply, that should be next to it. Plug this on, and turn the machine on using the power button on the right hand side. A keypad should light up.

Line up the vinyl so it's at a right angle to the cutter. If the edge of the vinyl is slanted or uneven, you might want to cut it (with scissors, or the guillotine) to even it up. The edge of the vinyl should touch both rollers, and the side should be at a right angle to the machine. When you are happy with this, press the 'up' pointing arrow on the keypad.

Sending from Silhouette Studio

To run the design on the cutter, click the tab entitled 'Send'. This will get you first to connect to the machine, and then take you through a menu of options.

If you are cutting vinyl to go on a t-shirt, you need to select 'mirror design', or your design will be back to front. If you are cutting vinyl to stick to the wall, make sure it is not selected!

Weeding

Once the vinyl is cut, it needs to be 'weeded' -- where the section of vinyl that you don't want is pulled away, leaving the parts that you want to keep and stick to something else. The best way to do this is by pulling up a corner of the area you want to remove -- if your designs are delicate or intricate, you might want to use a needle or a picking tool to help!

At the end of the weeding process, you should be left with the part of the design you want to transfer stuck to the acetate, like Pete in the picture below. If you're making a t-shirt, see these instructions for how to proceed.

Wall Vinyl and Transfer Tape

There is a 2-stage process to take wall vinyl designs and mount them on what you want to stick them to. The first stage is to transfer the designs onto a piece of sticky plastic, called 'transfer tape'. This will lift your design off of the acetate and expose the sticky side, so it can be stuck onto the wall without losing its shape.

2-colour designs

To make multicoloured vinyl designs, colours must be cut separately and then aligned afterwards. This can be done either by eye, or by cutting 'registration marks' in the corners of a design that are then removed afterward.

For small designs, a 'shadow' effect can be created by laying the same designs on top of ones created in a different colour. These are quick to make and allow for more experimentation.

Cutting Things That Aren't Vinyl

The Cameo can be used with a range of different materials, including fabric, card and paper. We haven't tried a lot of these, but are happy for you to test out materials provided they are less than 1mm thick. Note that for flexible materials like fabric, you will need to use the adhesive cutting mat.

Material Choices there are instructions online for cutting thick materials like leather on the Cameo 4, but they are for a different blade! The blade we use is for thin materials like vinyl, paper and light card.

Gallery

Here's a few items that have been made on the CCI's vinyl cutter: