Hi DJG, what you've described is effectively the same thing that I was trying to describe myself; I just didn't explain myself properly! You can offset lines in Illustrator in much the same way, but I prefer to increase the weight of the line then outline it. You're left with two lines then, an outer line and an inner line, which I delete. The result's the same: a "fatter" letter or shape. Thinking about it, though, this could make things a bit worse, because the bole, or the hole in the letter your weeding, becomes smaller. It's the small size of the bole which is creating the problem. I think the weak tack combined with such a small surface area means that the smaller pieces of vinyl just can't hold on when the vinyl that surrounds them is pulled up. Larger letters don't give me a problem.

After I got my cutter up and running, I purchased a few champagne flutes to practice on, so in order to get rid of them I'm going to try etching monograms on them. This will enable me to use larger text. However, I think these will prove much harder to sell than what I originally had in mind. I think for the kind of work which I was planning to do I need to look at a different process. I'm still glad that I've got my cutter working, though. I'm sure there's lots of other stuff I can use it for. Some of the stuff I plan to do will rely heavily on presentation, so I think this cutter will come into its own once I really get going.