Which Die Cut Materials Work Best For Manufacturing?

What would you do if someone handed you a penny and a pair of scissors, then told you to “get to work”? Ten minutes and one scratched-up penny later, you’d have given up altogether.

Although you may have a fantastic product design, it won’t mean anything if you can’t find a converter who can cut your chosen material into the shape you need.

What Makes a Die Cut Material Easy to Process?

Truthfully, converters like Strouse can die cut the majority of flexible materials; however, when it comes to more challenging materials, you may struggle with cut accuracy. Different factors determine how well a material cuts, so the question is: how accurate do you need the shape and tolerances (the permissible limit of variation) to be?

Generally speaking, the following materials are the easiest (and least expensive) for converters to process.

1. MATERIALS THAT EASILY CUT WITH SCISSORS

One simple test to gauge the feasibility of converting a particular material is to cut it with a pair of scissors. Any signs of struggle cutting may indicate a more difficult converting process with longer setup times, more adhesive waste, and higher-cost die cuts.

How does your material behave after you cut it? Does it ooze like a hydrogel or a hydrocolloid? Some materials act like peanut butter when you cut them—and trust me, that is not a burden you want to bear. Discussing your material with a converter before finalizing a design can help you avoid creating needlessly complex processes.

2. DOUBLE-COATED PSA TAPES

A tape off the shelf at a home improvement store is an excellent example of the materials that converters process. Double-coated pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes have adhesive on either side of a carrier. The carrier gives it added structure for processing purposes.

However, unlike the tape you’d find at the store, our process often begins with massive, log-sized quantities of tape that we can slit to custom widths as needed.

3. MATERIALS FROM A ROLL

If your flexible material comes on a roll, it’s a good indicator that we can run it on a press. Examples of flexible materials on a roll include fabric, film, rubber, and various adhesives.

If your flexible material comes on a roll, it’s a good indicator that we’ll be able to run it on a press.

Unfortunately, not all rolled materials are easy to run. Take butyl tapes, for instance, which are used for gasketing but are challenging to slice because they’re thick and sticky like road tar. 

While it’s possible to cut these materials, you should note some important drawbacks: 

What Are the Most Challenging Materials For Die Cutting?

Using challenging materials for converting is sometimes unavoidable, but you can still prepare for delays or higher processing costs. Once you’ve read through these qualifications, you’ll better understand why certain materials are more difficult to process and what it means for you.

UNSUPPORTED MATERIALS

Materials with liners attached are often stable enough for die cutting. Alternatively, if your chosen material is stretchy and lacks a liner, it will flop around on the rotary die cut press. If you want to use a less challenging material and pay less for setup costs, choose a material with a liner.

ELASTIC MATERIALS

The greatest strength of elastic materials is the same as their biggest weakness: they stretch.

Elastic materials are difficult to configure on a press because it takes a lot of trial and error to determine the correct tension a converter should apply. Additionally, once we apply adhesive to a stretchy material, it won’t snap back to its original shape.

Setting up a rotary die press requires the material to retain a certain level of tension on the machine press. If you have insufficient tension, your material will hang like limp noodles, whereas too much can lead to significant sizing issues.

Remember: whether you can change your material later will depend entirely on how much tooling you’re willing to pay for and the nature of your design. If you switch to thick foam for a tight-tolerance design, production setup time and waste will increase, and it will be costly to meet your previous tolerances.

When the material is stretched and cut, the parts will snap back and be different sizes afterward. Your converter must consider elasticity to prevent the wrong part tolerances.

ABRASIVE MATERIALS

Abrasive materials include adhesives with hard components, such as glass, titanium oxide, or soft metals. Materials like sandpaper or white ink wear on the blade quickly, and while it is possible to cut abrasive materials, they often lead to retooling costs further down the road.

The effect abrasive materials have on a die tool is similar to using scissors to cut sandpaper. The longer you cut it, the duller the blades become until eventually they’re clamping down on it with no effect. If you’ve got a project that uses abrasive materials, discuss retooling with a converter.

THICK MATERIALS

As the blade sinks deeper into a thick material, the edges bend, altering the cut's shape and creating an hourglass effect. Alternatively, if you use laser cutting, the laser begins to skew as it slices through the material, making it an unideal solution.

Based on the many thick materials we’ve processed in the past, we’re confident in saying that there is a higher potential for setup waste, and the machine may have to run slower, resulting in a more expensive final product.

What Else Do I Need to Know About Choosing Materials?

When there’s no way around challenging materials, one last way to make the process easier is by optimizing your design as much as possible.

Not every design is suited to simple materials; that said, it will save you time and money to consider material complexity before finalizing your design. Materials typically make up the majority of what you pay for die cut parts, so it’s best to conduct material testing long before you reach the die cutting process.

If you’re developing products, consider downloading our Material Selection Guide for a list of technical requirements your material should meet depending on the application.

And of course, we strongly encourage you to ask your converter whether the material you want to use is suitable for the part you want to build.

Originally published: January 16, 2023