Making Rhinestone Design Templates

[Ruben Salcedo]

Larry,

where you buy Photo Tex? at Lexjet?, in comparison with oil board is expensive, it comes at 1.08 SQ Ft, oil board is about .13 cents SQ FT.

I have another idea, how about using cardboard material that is used for the back of picture frames? I believe is thick enough to keep it straight and flat and inexpensive, I would do it like this... cut the template on the oil board then spray it with adhesive lightly then adhere it to a piece of cardboard (or something similar, inexpensive) that is the same or a little larger than the oil board template?, I used to use mat board but I was doing it by rastering... it takes some time doing it this way, and time is money, with oil board is faster by vector cutting it I believe and inexpensive, I will order some samples and try it my self and see if it works.

Ruben

[Larry Bratton]

Rubin:
Oh yes, but have you compared it to Sticky Flock? It's $7.13 a sq/ft. Now THAT's expensive. I reckon if your looking for the cheapest, there are other things you can do as you suggest. I understand oilboard comes from Uline and they have a high minimum. In fact, the oilboard I have I bought from a person that had to purchase a biq quantity from U-line. I was just trying to come up with something that is somewhat comparable to Sticky Flock ,which sells the idea of the removable adhesive.

[Ruben Salcedo]

Larry,

holy molly, that is expensive! man this sticky flock probably is more expensive than the rhinestones itself, I have heard about it but I had no idea of the price, yes, at that price makes Photo Tex looks like a bargain.

About oil board... yes you have to buy a whole carton, the price is $97.00 is available in various sizes and quantity's, if I buy it I would buy the one that comes with 104 sheets of 24"x36" this makes the price per sheet at .93 cents, I'm hoping to make it work since I would be able to also use it to make jigs for various items that I engrave.

[Larry Bratton]

Rubin:
Yessir..it will make fine jigs and the like..it cuts great. I cut it at 40p/90s/500f with 40watts. It may cut with even lower power, I didn't experiment, I just took a shot at it and it worked. I cut the Phototex at 50p, it's pretty tough stuff and is a fabric.
The Sticky Flock is sold in 12" x 18" sheets - $10.95 a sheet. 1.5 sq/ft = $7.30 sq/ft. That's just one place but is from a good distributor, so the price should be competitive. That product is reputed to have PVC in it, however, I tested some of it with the hot copper wire test and it didn't show any evidence of it in the flame.
(Oh, and by the way, that's the 10 sheet price, if you just buy one it's $12.95)

[Ruben Salcedo]

Larry,

I just hope my competition uses Sticky Flock, they would go broke soon

Ruben

[Larry Bratton]

Have you purchased any stones yet? I bought some, but I think I messed up. The one's I got are Chinese and not the best of quality. I understand the Korean stones are much better. I did not realize the difference at the time. I mean, these work and look OK but I can tell they don't have a consistent size and some are stuck together.

[Ruben Salcedo]

Yes, Chinese are a no, no, Koreans are the most acceptable and an OK quality for everyday garments, but for high end garments Sarovsky are the best but also the most expensive, there are other quality's in between which are the stones with cuts, one of them are the Preciosa brand from Czech, the Korean stones are only cut in top and bottom the sides are just cast in molds hence the quality for reflecting light are lower, the more cuts a stone have the better they reflect light.

I have been getting my stones from DAS but I want to try the ones from Nova in LA, actually I saw that they sale kits for lasers, who knows maybe they are good.

Ruben

[Larry Bratton]

I looked at the Nova site. Looks like a good place to buy. They are a bit distant from me but rhinestones can ship by mail. I get pretty quick service from California to here via the Post Office, usually about 3 days. I am going to use these Chinese stones I got for learning, then I'll upgrade when I buy some more. Just looking at the cost of the ready made transfers, you can almost buy them as cheap as you could make them if you consider the time involved.

[Ruben Salcedo]

I hope you don't have many Chinese stones, just keep in mind that provably you would have to re-size your designs if you're making your own stock, yes the ready made are very inexpensive but usually those are designs you see everywhere, the beauty of been able to make your own is that you can make a one of the kind and personalized, you could use the ready made designs in combination with names etc. so it looks personalized too, this way you will be able to charge accordingly.

[Larry Bratton]

No, I didn't invest very much in them until I saw more about how this would work. I did, in fact, change my sizing by .01 when I cut the template I did and it worked very well. I am also reading that a good many stoners are using a machine cut stone by Bella. You might want to check them out too at http://www.myshirtconnection.com/. This is fun stuff. Did you purchase the Macromonster Corel macro? It works really well I think for a $50 investment.

[Mike Null]

I don't make the rhinestone stuff but I do use oil board once in a while and I suspect it is all the same but I get mine from this company and it's very good.

http://www.customcutstencilco.com/machine.htm

BTW, how about some pictures?

[Ruben Salcedo]

Yes, I have heard about Bella before, there are a few M/C (Machine Cut) brands out there, to me bellow Sawrovsky are Preciosa and Bella, Nova used to carry Pellosa from ShineArt but it looks like they are importing their own M/C stones, Nova's M/C stone brand is Clarus, here is a video from Nova where they try to show some of the differences of the stones (the video is not of good quality but you can have and idea).

No, I have not purchase the MM macro, (I don't like their policy) ...yes I know is very inexpensive and have some neat features for the price, I own SmartCut Pro from DAS and looking to upgrade to the newest program StoneCut Pro which it does all that SmartCut Pro do plus a lot more, not cheap at all, just the upgrade is going to cost me maybe 20 times more than MM macro, but also comes with a very unique features that will help saving a lot of time in the designing, also SotneCut Pro is more than just a rhinestone design program, you can cut direct from the program to a vinyl cutter, send jobs to a laser direct from it and y believe also rotary engravers, also you can vectorized raster images a lot better than in Corel, and many more features, to me is well worth the money.

[Larry Bratton]

Hehehe..your rhinestone work is a little more serious than mine. I am still in the experimental stages of this venture. One has to crawl before one walks and no way can I justify a big investment in this right now. I'll just continue down this path and see where it leads, then I'll go from there.

[Ruben Salcedo]

I understand, and I believe you're doing a good job in the learning curve, and it looks like MM is going to get better as it is, hang in there... before you know it you will be a Pro Rhinestoner. Have fun...

[Ruben Salcedo]

Hi Mike,

yes I think it's the same stuff, even the quantity's are the same as Uline, I'm not sure about the price, in Uline every pack of 50 lb are $97.00 how much do you pay there?


Ruben