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continued from previous page Short-run, low-cost die-cuts... without dies! This technique will work with any shaped piece, of any size and most all materials. It's wonderful for plastics and poster boards for counter cards, door signs, hanging mobiles and other display visuals. The plan is simple: __ Design the shape and art to fit the finished piece. (In Tom's case, he designed a very nice layout to be printed in two colors on an antique finish cover stock. Pop up the finished piece for reference.) __ Don't print the shape, but do leave some 'slop' around the edges in case something messes up somewhere along the way. (A bleed could be incorporated to help soften the lack of edge-parallel graphics.) * Print the job * Clamp the stack securely between two rigid sheets of material, and * Cut out the whole stack at one time. Still with me? Once all the printing is complete, you'll want two sheets of sturdy rigid material to form a stack-wide clamp. I suggested quarter-inch plywood, or similar. Tom settled for Masonite. Pack, stack'n'drill... Now, drill holes through the entire stack in strategic locations on the outside of the live image area. These are our clamp holes. Now use ordinary hardware store bolts and nuts, to clamp the stack. Some might prefer to use wing-nuts, however a counter-sink screw and T-nuts worked fine for Tom. The key is having no bolt or screw heads exposed on the bottom the surface of the stack. __ With this accomplished we're ready for the dieless die-cut... .

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