Vinyl Cutting

Vinyl cutters evolved from (pen) plotters, which were built as early as 1959 by CalComp (a USA-based company, founded the same year). The first variants had paper on a drum (like a roll) that a pen could move across in the Y axis. By rotating the drum with the paper on it, the tool could make drawings with a simple ballpoint pen. The next variant of plotters moved to a system we now see in CNC mills, where the pen would move in the Y axis, which would be mounted on a bar that moved along the X axis. The material that you wanted to draw on would be lying flat underneath this system, thus limiting the size you could work on and limiting the speed. Hewlett-Packard created the first machines in the 1980s that look like the vinyl cutters you’ll see today. Wheels grip a sheet (or roll) of material and move it back and forth while a pen (or cutter) moves laterally over it. This heralded the possibility to create designs (and cut parts) using rolls of material you loaded in the machine, which can be as long as you want.