Cutting products to size.

[AP90]

Hey guys, pretty new to the finishing part of printing. I don't know if I'm missing something or not understanding it, but how do you get the distance of cut marks from the edge of the sheet? We've got a new cutter with digital readout, so am I going to have to do some conversions? Will fiery impose show me the cut distances and I just haven't found it?

Any help would be appreciated guys. I know it's a pretty simple task but I guess I want to see if anyone has reinvented the wheel to make it simpler before I just do conversions for it. Thanks.

 

[Keith]

New cutters don't come with a conversion chart attached to the front of the machine? Man, with all the features they come with now and the price you pay, you'd think they could include a two dollar chart. We still measure the crop marks with a ruler and look at the conversion chart if it's a number we don't have memorized.

 

[JustinB]

The distance of cut marks from the edge is dependent on 2 things:

1) Your paper being actually cut to the exact size
2) The machine laying the image in the exact center of the page.

Getting 1 of those 2 things to happen is great. Getting both of them.... that's a lot harder!

Your first 2 cuts need to be perpendicular to each other, so you get a reference point where your cut program can take over.

We use a ruler in mm and measure to the first cut, rotate the paper 90 degrees and then measure again to the 2nd cut. From there, I know EXACTLY where I'm at on the sheet and the rest of the cuts are easy. Our cutter has a light beam which also helps us make sure our measurements are more accurate.

It would be nice if cutting a 12x18 out of a 13x19 meant cutting exactly 1" from each side, but if your machine or paper are off a little bit, you may end up taking .95 from one side and 1.05 from the other in order to get not just 12x18, but the correct 12x18.

Does that help?

 

[maac]

No Title

is this what you are looking for.

 

[AP90]

Thanks for all the info guys. Keith, I was thinking the same thing you were, and since we bought it used I wasn't sure. I called the guy we bought it from and sure enough, the plate had fallen off and he sent it over. So I have all the conversions now. Thanks for the chart maac, i think its a little more detailed than the one we have.

JustinB, thanks for the info on how to cut the products. That was one of the main problems, I didn't know exactly how to go about cutting. We have pretty spot on registration with our 1000i and the full width array, so A lot of things we print should come pretty close to square and centered. We ended up getting a Multi 2020 (same as the challenge 20 i believe.) So far its been pretty solid. A lot better than the manual cutting!