Drag Knife anyone?

[graffian]

An eBay search for "Roland Blade Holder" turns up plenty of vinyl cutter holders, not sure if these have the bearings in them, or if the bearings are in the part of the machine that holds them, for the money (£7ish upwards) though, they'd be worth a look at least as a basis for thin material.

I have a Roland knife in front of me, I got an old HP plotter off freecycle, to cut the masking for the letters for my number plate[how lazy is that]
I was pleased when I opened the cover of the pen holder to find it had a blade thingie. The bloke told me it was a "Roland knife". The blade is
mounted in a bearing, but it doesn't look like the point of the blade is on the axis of the body! Dragging it around on my thumb[doesn't seem
very sharp] the blade seems to self centre really well, so it turns and is always pointing in the right direction.
I haven't yet tried the thing, only had it about a year;-)
I actually want it in the next few weeks to cut all the masks for some lettering, I can't afford vinyl sticker sets.

[Jonathan]

Had a small vinyl cutter at school...had some fun making 'test stickers' when they got it

The blade is
mounted in a bearing, but it doesn't look like the point of the blade is on the axis of the body! Dragging it around on my thumb [...] it turns and is always pointing in the right direction.

The blade will be offset slightly from the axis since that will create a turning force which will tend to rotate the blade into the correct orientation for current cutting direction.

[CollinW]

@Jonathan what kind of vinyl cutter did you use at school? Would you recommend it?

Sorry for being offtopic. I'm looking for a good vinyl cutter and I haven't decided right now which would be the best for me.

I've been researching the subject for a few weeks now and I'm not ahead in one bit. Like all the reviews i've read were misleading. Every website was hyping the product and that's it. I mean there are no negatives?

Anyways after countless hours of searching I've found a site that seems to be legit. From this best of the best roundup post which one would you choose for a hobby operation. Since all the machines have flaws I'm on the fence.

Like Industrial grade are super expensive plus you have to pay for the software and most of them are not compatible with a mac. With desktop cutters are other difficulties.

I will highly appreciate your input any tips ideas are welcome

[graffian]

I'm looking for a good vinyl cutter and I haven't decided right now which would be the best for me.
I will highly appreciate your input any tips ideas are welcome

Since I posted about the plotter and knife, the plotter turned out to be worth a few bob, so I flogged it and bought a P-Cut 630
vinyl cutter.
I saw loads of things about P-cuts and people not being able to get them working, So I bought one very cheap cos the bloke couldn't
get it to work!
A lot of the software available is really grotty. I ended up with a copy of flexisign pro. I cut all the masks to paint the transfers on a
few push bike frames, some of the lettering I cut was less than 2mm high, the cutter worked flawlessly. I didn't mess about, I did the
drawings in illustrator and cut them with flexisign. I read something and the bloke was drawing in inkscape and cutting directly
from inkscape.

[Clive S]

@Jonathan what kind of vinyl cutter did you use at school? Would you recommend it?

Jonathan is not likely to answer as the post is 7 years old