You can learn a lot in 10 years. Imagine how much you could learn in 40! Siser® has been developing, manufacturing, and creating with heat transfer vinyl for over 40 years. With almost half a century worth of hands-on experience, we’ve tucked a few tricks up our sleeves when it comes to cutting, weeding, and applying Siser HTV! Today we’re sharing our top 10 favorite tips and tricks so you can use Siser heat transfer vinyl like the experts do – without investing 40 years of your life ;)
Tip 1: Weed Inside the Box
Let’s start at the beginning and simplify the weeding process! Section off designs with weeding boxes or cut lines. A weeding box is just a rectangular cut line around the perimeter of the art. You could also use straight cut lines to separate a sheet full of designs.
TIP: You can also add a weed box in Leonardo® Design Studio on the "Send Design" screen. Just check the "Auto Weedbox" option and the software will do it for you!
The extra cut lines help to separate the design from the material you want to save for future projects and makes it easier to find and weed your designs on the cutting mat.
Tip 2: Cut with the Carrier Side Down and the Adhesive Side Up
When working with heat transfer vinyl, the shiny side of the material always goes face down for cutting. This shiny side is called the “carrier.” It covers the face (the colored side that will show on the garment) of the HTV and holds the cut pieces in alignment during cutting and applying. So, the dull side or “adhesive side” is face up towards the blade. The dull side holds the adhesive that will only become sticky when you add heat to it. Sometimes this side is white. Oftentimes, a light colored HTV will have a white adhesive side to ensure the color stays true no matter what color fabric you apply it on. Not to worry though, the adhesive behaves the same as always— no matter the color!
 |
 |
The distinction between the two sides is important to note before cutting since your cut files will need to be mirrored or flipped horizontally (so they appear backwards in the software) in order for them to appear right-facing during heat application.
As you weed, you may notice the back of the carrier is sticky or “pressure sensitive.” Some carriers (like the one on Brick® 600) are not sticky and are called “static carriers.”
The tackiness allows finer detail to be cut and makes returning accidentally weeded pieces to its proper place easy. However, the sticky part of the carrier does not hold any adhesive. All the heat activated adhesive is on the dull side of the HTV. This means that even though an HTV scrap isn’t on a carrier, it can still be heat applied!
Tip 3: Hot Weeding Trick
If you don’t like to weed on your cutting mat, and you want to weed quicker- use a warm surface! The bottom platen of your heat press is perfect, but a warmed heat transfer pillow or EasyPress™ mat will work too. Weeding on top of the heated area allows the vinyl to peel away from the carrier even easier than before. However, this trick only works for products with a sticky carrier. So, all products in the EasyWeed® Family, Holographic, and even Glitter HTV can benefit from weeding on a warm surface.
Please note: If you’re weeding very fine detail, you’ll want to stick to your usual routine and avoid the extra heat that could encourage small parts of the design to lift too easily.
Tip 4: Quicker Clean Up
I don’t know about you, but as soon as I finish weeding, I cannot wait to press it on! Sometimes in my rush to the heat press, a bit of weeded vinyl hitchhikes on my sleeve without my knowledge. Usually, I notice the scrap before it can accidentally work its way onto my project, and other times I’m not so lucky. Even though there’s no carrier sheet, the HTV still has adhesive on the back, and can be heat pressed on. Taking a moment to pick up any loose weeded pieces can prevent such accidents… and save you some HTV remover!
Here’s two ways to keep a cleaner work area – no fancy tools required! If you prefer to keep up with the mess as you weed, fold a piece of packing tape. The tape sticks to your table as a vinyl cavity catcher during the weeding process. If you’d rather grab everything when you’re done weeding, use a lint roller to quickly corral all the tiny bits of HTV.
 |
 |
They say creative minds have messy work areas, and in my case, messy sleeves as well…but keeping a clean space (especially when your space is limited!) helps the workday run smoother and saves you from surprise HTV appearances on your projects.
Tip 5: Perform Test Cuts to Prevent Wasted Material
We know you want to work as quickly and efficiently as possible because your time is valuable, and you have tons of orders to fulfill because you are seriously rocking this vinyl thing…riiight? However, in some cases slowing things down is going to save you in the long run. That's why we always recommend performing test cuts before moving into full production!
Test cuts are small shapes typically made near the edges of the material that will give you a good idea of how your blade and cut settings are working. If the test cut is bad (like seen below- the blade didn't fully cut through), you'll have a tough time weeding the shape out. But the good part is that you can easily adjust your settings and perform a new test cut next to it, using as little material as possible.
Once you've dialed in the proper cut settings thanks to test cuts, you can then move onto cutting your full design with confidence!
Read Part 2 for Tips 6–10!
We have too many tips for just one post! If you made it this far, give yourself a gold star and take a break for a bit! When you're ready to continue reading, the final five tips are waiting for you in the Part 2 blog post here. Enjoy!