Flexible, reusable material for vinyl cutter?

Question

Alright, so someone I know has a vinyl cutter and is also an airbrush artist. He wants to know if there is any material other than transparency that he can use to cut a stencil out. He wants something that a thin plastic, reusable, able to stand up to aibrushing and not break down after 2 uses, and that's somewhat flexible. Does anyone have any idea what he could use?

Answer 1

In addition to transparency sheets, fabric stores sell various weights of plastic to use for cutting out one's own stencils... and old x-rays work well too.  Other possibilities like that might be "rubylith" that's used for screen printing, or old film or negatives, etc.  

On a more exotic note, very flexible blank "decals" (without an image) can be made from liquid polymer clay, then have a shape cut out of them**.

Or even sheets of dried permanent white glue or acrylic paint could be cut out after being poured onto glass/etc., then drying.  

A little more expensive would be making sheets of a 2-part silicone mold-making material.

**This is usually done on a sheet of glass or a ceramic tile/etc., then baked for a short time in a home oven at about 300 F to cure.   There's more info here on using liquid polymer clay to make thin, flexible films like this, if he's interested:

http://glassattic.com/polymer/LiquidScul...

(...click on the category called FILMS...)

HTH,

Diane B.