Newbie to Cutting Business Cards - HELP!

[shaz]

Hi Guys

As graphic designers, we thought it would be practical to get a small digital printing machine to provide short run print to our clients.. it's printing great.. the problem I am having is the cutting!!

Today I printed some business cards on SRA3 sheets, I think it was 18 up per sheet...

Went to the cutter and spent over an hour trying all sorts of cutting angles only to end up with a batch of all oddly cut cards.. i.e the design had moved around alot as I had cut in differently into the bleeds with most of the cards.

Is there some system to cutting these? Is there a video available somewhere - been searching everywhere..

Also I put my hands up to buying a very inexpensive SRA3 electronic guillotine.. it doesnt come into the cutting area more than 50mm ... i.e. if I want to cut 20mm into a design it wont let me do it unless I position it well away from its wall (the back part) .. and when it does cut it leaves a horrible clamp mark all across in a long line -- is this normal? I only received it today...

Your help would be grreatly appreciated

Thanks

[RNRPRINTINGNMAILING]

I have to ask you are a designer correct?. And you do put crop marks for each card right?.
So after you print its very simple rules one of the sheets out You have make sure the job is square.
as far as the clamp marks put waste on top of the pile and then put your rule out on top( make sure the sheets are in the same direction. I always allow 1/4 all around. Also depending on how many cards your running, only cut about 1 1/2 inch of stock. Now you can check out Youtube and they do have videos on cutting.

Good Luck

[mattbeals]

Usually these cutters you can program your cuts into.

We always printed the cards centered on the sheet. Using an 8.5 x 11 page as a sample:

cut in half to 8.5w x 5.5 tall

The freshly cut edge became the "top" of the job that we would place against the back of the cutter so that we always had a square edge. We kept cutting things in half after that. I think we had a Polar that could hold 99 programs. Each program could contain a fairly large number of steps/"cuts". You should be able to do the same thing.

As long as your sheets are cut square, by you or the mill, and the back fence is square you should be able to do it all by typing in the coordinates and recording them. What I mean by square is that all the sides are 90 degrees. Otherwise your cuts will be at the wrong angle.

With your trim marks I would suggest that you align them numerically on center, not to the left or right of the line.

[shaz]

Hi

Thanks for the reply, that solves the clamping mark problem.. I wasnt sure if it was my cutter..

As for the cutting, yes all artworks have crop marks and are impositioned on the sheet correctly... but sorry for being dim... What do you mean by keeping the job square?

I have no preset facility in this cutter!

[RNRPRINTINGNMAILING]

Hey Matt your right about that.
But I trim down the outside first to square the sheet, and than the 3.5 in strips and than the 2 inch.
its easy and not complicated.
He is new and this would be a lot easier to figure out until he gets the hang of it.

[RNRPRINTINGNMAILING]

Most paper that comes from the mill is not square, I don't care what any one says.
You might not see it with the eye.
But when my guys are ready to run I have them trim the paper all around, I than know the sheet is square
I have them put tick marks on the sheet so I know there is no bounce when they are printing.

[shaz]

aaaahh... when I was pushing the pile of paper back on the cutter, the laser was giving me a non straight line!! I guess this explains the non-squareness of the paper?

I still dont get the best process of cutting 18 up (85,, x 55mm) business cards - if not to inconvenient would someone be kind enough to give me a graphics image as it is really hard for me to grasp the written directions

thanks!

(learnt 2 things!
1) removing the clamp mark
2) squaring off paper - thanks guys)!

[RNRPRINTINGNMAILING]

iF YOU GO TO YOU TUBE
THERE ARE A FEW VIDEOS ON CUTTING.
AND LIKE I SAID CUT THE OUTSIDE FIRST.
YOU CAN SAVE ONE CUT TRIM SIDES, WHEN YOU CUT EACH STRIP TO 3.5
EXAMPLE 3.5 WIDE AND 10.25 LONG JUST SET THE CUTTER TO 2 INCHES AND CUT IT IS THE EASIEST WAY TO CUT CARDS DOWN AND VERY EASY TO REMEMBER

[jotterpinky]

Unless you are gang running these cards there is absolutely no reason to print these cards 18-up. Most runs of cards are 500-1000 and the amount you save in print cost is more than used up by the extra time you spend cutting them. The smaller sheet will be easier to manage in the cutter and assuming you are printing these on a entry-level color printer you will have less paper curl and get squarer cuts.

The second thing is to print all cards with gutters, this will allow you to back-trim the cards so they will all be the same size. If you're using a programmable cutter this might be a moot point but if you have a manual backguage it's a must.

As for marking on the sheets we allow two or three sheets on top and bottom of the stack which we throw away as tare, more depending on the stock and how dense it is.

Finally make sure you have a good paper cutter. A good entry level cutter such as a Challenge or MBM will do well. However I've seen some of the older MBM equipment that is garbage so be careful. In high school I worked for a quick printer that had one as a backup cutter and it didn't have the balls to cut the full width of the blade (electric instead of hydraulic). It also cut at an angle downward so the top sheets were shorter than the bottom sheets. Also make sure that the backguage and side lays are square.

[JustPrint!]

Big thing is to make sure that your prints from your machine are not bouncy. Some office machines cannot handle thick stock, so the image will be all over the sheet.