Cut Vinyl

Laminate

It is the process of bonding a clear plastic film onto printed matter. It is most common to bond the film to both sides of the printed piece so that the piece is totally enclosed in plastic. Printed pieces are laminated to protect them from stains, smudges, moisture, wrinkles, tears or anything else that might shorten their useful life. In addition to protection, print lamination also adds strength and rigidity.

Contour Cut (Cut To Shape)

Any cling or decal sign types can be “contour cut.” This means that the design of the sign will be cut exactly to the perimeter of the sign. The most important thing to remember here is that if your sign is all text that you actually want what is called “vinyl lettering” or “cut vinyl”. This is often seen on office windows and storefronts where individual adhesive letters are applied to display the company name or brand. When it is a simple non-text design, it is cut to the exact shape without any border.

Weed

Weeding is a term used to describe a step in cut vinyl production. Weeding is the plain and simple act of removing all the excess material from any decal, sticker, lettering or graphics that are cut-to-shape. Weeding is an integral part of custom cut decal production. Decals are either digitally printed and cut-to-shape or are cut out of colored vinyl material. Both ways of producing a custom cut or die cut vinyl decal will eventually require vinyl weeding to produce the end product that doesn't have a background.

Mask

Mask also known as transfer tape, application tape or pre-mask, is a staple of digital graphics. It transfers your vinyl graphics and decals after you’ve cut them on your vinyl cutter.  After the decal has been cut and weeded, it has to be transferred to a substrate. Some vinyls with no contour cut can be transferred by hand. But for most vinyl graphics jobs, transfer tape is essential.