I know this subject has been discussed on this board before, but I am not sure a lot of people understand the importance of it.

If your using a plotter to cut your film, you really need some copper to ground out the film, esp if your using a dyed film. I have noticed that quite a few people I know who use plotters, don't have any copper on thier machine to ground out the film. You need the copper to remove static electricity from your film.

The statis elec cause quite a few problems while you are cutting. One of them bieng your start and stop point not meeting up, another bieng the film bunching up slightly and not give you a proper cut, and another problem is that wehn you roll the film back up onto the roll, it rolls back messed up. Static will also cause your film to not track properly and come off the pinch rollers more easily.

What I do is I have a copper pipe that I simply duct taped to he back of my plotter, so that the film slides accross it while it is cutting, and eliminates the static as it is bieng created! You can buy a piece of copper tinsel from Beakert, but it is about 5 times the cost, and less effective then a piece of low grade copper pipe!

You can also put some transfer tape on your plotter to help reduce the static build up, while your film is sliding back and forth while cutting.