Coaster Project

Ideal practice depends on what materials you use and the final design, however there are optimal setups for using the vinyl cutter or laser cutter as explained below.

Setting up Illustrator File for the Laser Cutter

Your goal is to have three layers with the front etching pattern, back etching pattern, and cut outlines. Its important to keep the layers exactly lined up so that you can use the negative space of the material as a guide. This means flip A coaster in the A coaster cut out space and have the file set up as described below.

1) Create a new file in Illustrator
      a. Set width to 24” and height to 18”
      b. If your material is less than 24” x 18” create its shape in the upper left-hand corner and do not place any coasters outside this region.

2) Add four layers: Pathfinder, Etching Front, Etching Back, and Vector Cut

3) On the Pathfinder Layer make the outline of the coasters. These shapes should be set to 0.1 pt stroke with no infill. It is best to leave a .25” gap between the edge of the coasters and the edge of the material.
      a. For circles stagger to maximize material use. Select all ⌘A, copy ⌘C and paste in place ⌘B. Drag the colored square from the pathfinder layer to the vector cut layer.
      b. For squares set up a grid on the pathfinder layer. To quickly fill make a single row right click > transform > move and set horizontal to width of coaster. Press ⌘D to duplicate and fill across the screen. Select all items and repeat the transform with a vertical shift to create multiple rows.
            i. It is imperative that lines are not stacked on top of each other. To easily set up the vector cut layer make a single rectangle around all of the coasters and horizontal and vertical lines to cut out individual coasters.
      c. For other shapes, consider any overlapping lines. These rounded corner shapes require selective deleting of the overlapping lines. To do this use the + pen tool to add an anchor point in the middle of the line then the direct select tool to select and delete the point. This will delete portions of an object and not the whole thing.

4) Lock the pathfinder layer and hide the vector cut layer.

5) Place the letters of the alphabet in the appropriate font choices on each coaster. Select all ⌘A and the go to Type > Outline Type to convert the text objects to vector outlines. These should all have no stroke and black infill

6) Unlock the pathfinder layer. Selecting each coaster outline and letter form set one at a time use the Intersect Pathfinder tool to crop the letters. Hide the etching front layer.

7) On the etching back layer add all appropriate typographic information.

8) Using the extra space on the page create small test cut and etch images. Specifically, you will want to use the smallest font you have to make sure it is legible after etching.

Setting up Illustrator File for the Vinyl Cutter

Vinyl is not for small fonts! It is advised to only use vinyl for fonts larger than one inch tall.

1) Measure your vinyl. Create a new file in Illustrator 3 inches less in length and 1” less in width than your vinyl piece in the horizontal orientation (the largest measurement should be the width). The vinyl cutter software rotates your file 90 degrees.

2) Place the letters of the alphabet in the appropriate font choices and correct size. Select all ⌘A and the go to Type > Outline Type to convert the text objects to vector outlines. These should all have no stroke and black infill.

3) Arrange the letters to maximize the use of your vinyl

4) Select one small circle and complete a test cut. Adjust settings as required so vinyl is cut completely through and backing paper is left intact.

5) Weed negative space and then use transfer paper to align letters onto coaster form.

6) Trim excess vinyl from the back side

Setting up Illustrator File for the Cricut

Vinyl is not for small fonts! It is advised to only use vinyl for fonts larger than one inch tall.

1) Place the letters of the alphabet in the appropriate font choices and correct size. Select all ⌘A and the go to Type > Outline Type to convert the text objects to vector outlines. These should all have no stroke and black infill.

2) Save as a .svg file and follow the instructions on Cricut XY Cutter Instructions

3) Complete a test cut. Adjust settings as required so vinyl is cut completely through and backing paper is left intact.

4) Once cutting is complete, weed negative space and then use transfer paper to align letters onto coaster form.

5) Trim excess vinyl from the back side