Making a Multicolored Vinyl Sticker 2nd Period Engineering AHS

In this tutorial you will be making a multicolored vinyl sticker.

Step 1: Making a Multicolored Vinyl Sticker

Step 1:

Find a picture online that you would like to duplicate as a sticker, and import it into Autocad.

Picture 1: To import the picture, find a logo you like online. right click it and select“Save image as”. Save the logo in your student drive.

Picture 2: In your drive, if you haven’t made an Engineering folder yet, create a new folder titled Engineering. You can do this by right clicking the white background, selecting New, then Folder.

Once you have saved your picture in your folder you are ready to begin using Autocad.

Step 2: Attaching Picture Into Autocad

Step 2:

Open up Autocad.

Draw a 12 by 12 inch box.

Picture 1: Go to the Insert Tab and select Attach. Go to the folder you saved your logo in, right click the image then hit open. On the next pop up window select OK.

Picture 2: a box will pop up in your screen, it's your picture. Move your picture inside of your 12 by 12 inch box that you drew earlier. Click the left hand corner of the 12 by 12 inch box. Now your picture is anchored, Try to make your picture as big as you can inside the box.

Once your picture is placed, draw two squares in the top right hand corners on the 12 by 12 box

Step 3: Tracing Your Picture, Hatching, Defining Each Layer.

Now that your picture is in Autocad, use the line, curve, and arc tools to trace the picture.

Once you have traced your picture completely, select the picture from the internet and delete it.

Click the Hatch button now. It is the button in the draw tab with the square with the lines through it and the bottom left hand corner is filled.

In the Hatch field select the Solid pattern and choose a color. Select the object you wish to be colored.

Do this with all of the colors.

Now it is time to make the layers.

In the layer tab, in the top left hand corner, select the layer properties tab.

Right click the white background and select new layer

Make sure you define each layer that will be a different color on the sticker. Draw two squares at the corners of your drawing. You’ll do this to ensure that the different layers will align perfectly on top of each other.

Step 4: Saving Each Layer As Its Own File

In our example, we have three layers. A blue layer, a red layer and a white layer.

In the layer tab you can turn layers on and off by selecting the light bulb. As you can see, we have one of the four layers active.

Select one of your layers and save the image as its own cad file. For example we have the Patriot Blue layer highlighted. No other layer is active.

Now we are going to save the Patriot Blue layer as its own file.

We are going to go file,

save as,

Save in our Engineering IV file,

Save our file as The New Patriot Blue,

Select the Files of type, (*.dxf)

Select Save

Now there is a patriot Blue dxf autocad file saved in Enginnering IV.

You want to repeat the process above with the other colors you want to do.

So in terms of this example, at the end of the process we should have three autocad files saved.

Step 5: Transfering Autocad Saves to Graphtech Studio

Transfer each autocad drawing to a flash drive. Then take your flashdrive and plug it into the laptop out by the vinyl cutter.

Open up the Graphtech Studio program and select one of your drawings.

This next part is very important

You need to make sure that you scale your drawing correctly

Make sure that your picture fits inside the box you drew up earlier. There are tools to dimension and scale your drawing. When it fits inside the box, you may begin to prepared the cutter.

To scale drawing go to Object

Click scale

Click scale options then on the right hand side of the screen there should be a Height and Width section where you can input custom dimensions.

Choose dimensions that will fit inside the piece of vinyl you chose.

Step 6: Setting Up the Vinyl Cutter

Make sure the vinyl cutter and laptop are connected by an HDMI cable. There should be one in the vicinity of the laptop.

Once the laptop and cutter are connected, turn on the cutter.

There is a lever behind the cutter. When you push it down, the roller wheels will lift so you can slide the top corners of your piece of vinyl into the machine. Make sure that the edges of your vinyl are over the rough grooves on that chrome roller. You can adjust the position of the roller wheels by gently pushing them

Lower the lever down and follow the on screen instructions. After you load your vinyl, select sheet. You will start cut from the laptop.

Step 7: Print Vinyl Design

Select Cutter

Click Queue cut job: This should make the printer sync to the laptop

Once the sync is complete select Cutter again

This time hit send cut job: This should cut your vinyl.

Step 8: Layering and Sticking Your Sticker Together

Once all the pieces are cut out, take a pair of scissors and cut the sticker out of the large sheet of vinyl leaving about half an inch of room around your drawing.

With the appropriate tools, carefully peel the negative away from your sticker. The negative is the vinyl that is not part of your sticker.

Do this for all of your pieces of vinyl.( Remember to leave the squares in place)

Determine the top layer of your sticker and take the roll of large tape and cut of a piece that extends on either side of your sticker. Place this on top of the vinyl careful not to capture any air bubbles. Then carefully remove the paper backing on the vinyl. Then the vinyl should stick to the tape.

Carefully lining up the squares on each sheet of vinyl, press the clear tape on top of the lower layer.

Congratulations, your sticker is complete.