How to make custom precision decals with a Silhouette Cameo 3

We will cover

Materials Needed

Color Laser or Color Inkjet Printer

Decal paper for color laser or color Inkjet printer

Testors 9201 Clear Decal paper (clear waterslide decal film)

Testors 9201T White decal paper (white waterslide decal film)

Stevens International #4050 Clear decal paper (Laser Only)

Stevens International #4060 White decal paper (Laser Only)

Decal Bonder Spray

Testors 9200 Decal Bonder

Software Needed

Silhouette Studio

Coreldraw or equivalent (PM me with questions about software)

Setting up Silhouette Studio

In this tutorial we will be using plain 4 x 6 index card size paper (Oxford by Tops products SKU 40156-SP)
to practice on for printing and test the die cuts before using a sheet of decal film, you could practice on
a plain piece of paper also.

Decal film can be expensive the stevens sheets are large at 8 ½ x 11” ($2.50 each sheet) while the
Testors is 5 ½ x 8 ½” ($1.35 each sheet).

Let’s open up Silhouette Studio and Set up our page

1. Chose “CUSTOM” use this to set

the size of your decal sheet in
this case 4” x 6”
2. Make sure you turn on print
bleed if not on White Decal
paper you will end up with a
white “halo effect”
This what your screen should look like

Next, we will turn on the registration function, this will put some marks on the print area that the
Cameo 3 can use to find and align its cutter paths.

1. Select the registration marks

icon
2. Enable it
3. This sets the gutter or no print
area. It looks like the
Silhouette studio software
only lets you set it to a
minimum of .349” on all sides

As you can see there are now registrations marks on your work area, The Cameo 3 will use these to
automatically align the cut paths to the sheet.
I will walk through you how to set up your cut path

Step 1 Load your image file and place it on the cut area

Step 2, Select the trace unction and use outline tab

Step 3, Adjust the threshold so you get a relatively clean line around the outside of the graphic, don’t
worry about the center we are going to use the trace outer edge function.

Step 4, Once you trace the outer edge you should see something that looks like this on your screen,
after this is done its critical that you do not move your image or cutline. You will notice that there is a
thin red line surrounding the image that is the cut path.
Step 5, Print the image and registration marks through the cameo interface (if you are using decal paper
coat it after the print is done and make sure its dry)

Step 6, Load the Cameo

Step 5, Print the image and registration marks Step 6, Mount the decal on a low tack matt
through the cameo interface

Step 6, Load The Cameo Step 6, Send it (finished cut, I posted a video of
the cut routine)

Step 7, Peel off the waste and volia Finished, notice the white around the edge that’s
because I did not clean up the file and it had a
grey band so no matter how much bleed I did it
will not clean up (I have attached a few images of
a PURE decal that I did in Coreldraw
Feel free to contact me at etackett2@gmail.com with any questions