CRICUT Vinyl

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markg

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I picked up a CRICUT machine on a good sale price and am going to use it to get names on all my rockets. I'm wondering how the vinyl holds up over time and if putting a clear coat over is necessary? Anyone else out there with experience with CRICUT vinyl, please chime in with your experience.

cheers - mark

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I've used it quite a bit on several rockets. They don't have a huge number of flights on them, but it holds up great. I do clear-coat over them, fwiw. Don't forget you can use the Cricut to make negative stencils to paint your graphics too!
 
This will all depend on the vinyl. I use oracal and Avery every day in my line of work and it does not require clear coat and will stick very well. Cannot say much for the cheap stuff. The couple brands I tested did not hold up for what I do. Most of the cheap stuff lasted a year or so and started to discolor, crack or peel.
 
I've had my Cricut for about three years now and love it. It's been a real work horse and once you figure out the annoyances with the software it's really simple to use.

As for Vinyl, I wouldn't waste my money on their branded vinyl. I buy everything from 143vinyl.com They use to sell 651 but have switched over to Starcraft. I've not seen any differences in performance. Both work equally well in my experience.

As for clear coat. I recommend it. I've not had any issues. Just make sure you don't have a bunch of finger prints on the vinyl.
 
It may be old news, but I was in a Dollar Tree last week and they had a lot of vinyl. I'm sure it is not top quality, but for the price it would be worth a try.
 
I've had my Cricut for about three years now and love it. It's been a real work horse and once you figure out the annoyances with the software it's really simple to use.

As for Vinyl, I wouldn't waste my money on their branded vinyl. I buy everything from 143vinyl.com They use to sell 651 but have switched over to Starcraft. I've not seen any differences in performance. Both work equally well in my experience.

As for clear coat. I recommend it. I've not had any issues. Just make sure you don't have a bunch of finger prints on the vinyl.
What sort of software annoyances have you encountered? I've just recently started cutting decals with my wife's cricut (what, did she really think I got it just for her and her scrapbooks? 😆) and I'd like to avoid any pitfalls. I'm mostly doing my work on an iPad.
 
What sort of software annoyances have you encountered? I've just recently started cutting decals with my wife's cricut (what, did she really think I got it just for her and her scrapbooks? 😆) and I'd like to avoid any pitfalls. I'm mostly doing my work on an iPad.

Nothing serious. I just find that making certain shapes to be more work than it really needs to be. For example, before the latest update, If you wanted a square with rounded corners you had to put four circles on the screen then Attach them with square in the middle. There are also a very limited number of shapes included when leaves you to have to get creative with what they do give you.
 
Nothing serious. I just find that making certain shapes to be more work than it really needs to be. For example, before the latest update, If you wanted a square with rounded corners you had to put four circles on the screen then Attach them with square in the middle. There are also a very limited number of shapes included when leaves you to have to get creative with what they do give you.

My suggestion is to not do anything at all in the Cricut design space. Too much of it is locked behind a paywall. You are much better off spending a bit of time learning Inkscape (Free) and uploading the resulting work straight into Cricut for cutting. That's what I've been doing and it works great. Plenty of free SVG artwork and free fonts are available with a quick web search that you can use in Inkscape and import the result into Cricut.

The Cricut design space software is designed to try and separate you from your $$$. They got my money for the machine but they aren't getting anymore from me.

cheers - mark

Latest work - no clear coat yet, need to add more onions!

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Are there Cricut machines that are better for rocket purposes than others?

I don't need large format machines, mostly just thinking of finding a used (probably slightly older) machine for lettering and details, trim, etc.. I am interested in being able to convert/use files created on Inkscape, or similar, so i need one that can import files, as I do NOT want to have to subscribe or use only canned images/shapes.

There are a number of used machines on Craigslist near me, but it gets confusing when reading reviews about their capabilities.
 
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