A cutting machine!?

The Klic-N-Kut has a better tolerance for cutting thick materials. For cutting pre-printed materials on these types of machines, you have to be very careful or you'll have some cut tolerance problems.

http://www.scrapbookdiecutter.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Cod...

Lee

You print out stuff. You put it down on the cutter at what you think the alignment should be and then the cut proceeds. Usually there are alignment pins or something (depends on the machine type and model), but if those aren't perfectly aligned, or if they are and your cutting program instructions are off a little, then all that could add up with the cut being slightly off.

On the flip side, let's say the cutting machine has perfect registration, if the traction feed on your inkjet or laser printer are off slightly then that can be the source of the cutting-to-printing registration error. When you have a double-sided sheet to print, now you have front-to-back registration and print-to-cutter registration to contend with. It can work, but without high end printers and cutters registration will be an art.

Usually with some experience with a given machine you can probably figure out if it's off slightly and compensate for it for most future cuts. But these things aren't multi-million dollar machines with digital registration.

High end cutters have you print a special barcode or pattern on the corner of each press sheet, and then align their cuts based on the position of the barcode, to adjust for slippage during the printing process.

What this means is that your safe margin is likely a little further away from the edge of the card/component than it would be on a professionally offset and die cut component.

Anyone have any experience with the iMARK?
Link to iMARK