by Don Johnson
After doing some research I decided the Roland Stika Design the only way to go for this so I now own the Stika. In this article
cutter fit my needs nicely at a reasonable price. For years I’ve I’m going to give you a basic over view of my experience with
held off on purchasing a vinyl cutter as I’m old school when it the Roland Stika and show you just how easy it is to use. At
comes to my painting and believe you can cross a line and take this point my experience with the Stika is very limited as I just
the art out of your artwork with some tools available to artist purchased it two months ago and have had limited time to play
today. Airbrushing to me is relaxing, a great escape hanging with beyond getting the lettering cut I need for helmet designs.
on to some of my old school ways provides me with more time By the time issue #24 comes out I hope to be able to provide
to relax, enjoy my work. The flip side is I’m doing more and
you with more advanced info on the Stika and its use.
more helmets for customers who race and want sponsor’s
name, logo’s included in their helmet designs a vinyl cutter is
With the Stika’s you will need to precut your masking material to a width
to fit your cutter. There are three different Roland Stika’s to choose from
8 inch, 12 inch and 15 inch depending on which one you purchase would
determine the size material you could use.
The Stika comes ready to go to work it’s just a matter of installing the
software, plugging the cutter into a UBS port on your computer and you
are ready to start cutting designs. The software Roland CutStudio comes
with a plug-in for Photoshop and will cut vector images if you desired to do
so. I found CutSudio to be very easy to use with a lay out much like Adobe
products Photoshop, Illustrator.
Basically I use the Stika to provide me with lettering outlines thru which I spray
paint. For this I use paint mask and purchased two different types with my cutter.
The first being the white roll pictured is Spray Stencil Mask - The adhesive on this
has been formulated to withstand temperatures as required in a baking, so if you
are heating setting your paint this is the mask for you, 3.2 mil thick. The second roll
is Oracal 813 Stencil Film Blue translucent is 3 mil thick and has a low tack, water
based adhesive.
The Stika comes with very good set up instructions that have you install
the driver and CutStudio before plugging the cutter into the USB port of
your computer. Once you have the Stika set up load your material into the
cutter and open CutStudio.
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