I adapted my drag bit holder to use a vinyl cutter blade and tried making a custom t-shirt. It worked! A vinyl cutter machine runs around $400, quite a bit cheaper than CNC, but if you already own a CNC why not see what you can make it do.
Here's a one-minute video of the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCUv5P4djTA
And here are some pictures and details:
http://perryprojects.blogspot.com/2018/ ... hirts.html
Custom T-shirts on the CNC Shark
Moderators: al wolford, sbk, Bob, Kayvon
Re: Custom T-shirts on the CNC Shark
Cool idea. How did you keep the cutter from going all the way through the backing of the vinyl?
Re: Custom T-shirts on the CNC Shark
Vinyl cutters are spring loaded. The depth is positioned so that the blade only applies 80g-100g of force, which is enough to cut the vinyl but not enough to cut through the backing.
At the beginning of the blog post, I have a link to a different blog post where I created the attachment. I used it for a diamond drag bit initially. For the vinyl cutter, I did the same thing with a weaker spring, then adjusted my Z axis for that amount of pressure.
At the beginning of the blog post, I have a link to a different blog post where I created the attachment. I used it for a diamond drag bit initially. For the vinyl cutter, I did the same thing with a weaker spring, then adjusted my Z axis for that amount of pressure.