can anyone tell me how much the Grenadier is please?

[Brian Hays]

You can try Noel @ Silverskies in Sutherland, if you haven’t already.

http://www.solventprinter.co.uk – Tel: 01343 545418

[Robert Lambie]

Hi rich
Grenadier will cost about £20k

I don’t see the point in investing this much if not getting it with its own RIP
That’s about £1000

You will need a server to process those huge wrap/poster images that’s going to set you back £700-£1000.

Laminators can be bought in various places, b&p’s are not the best priced, but they are selling you the ones with all the bells and whistles.
You will be looking at about £4000-£7000 for one at 60inch
(Check member’s area for members offering services to other members. You will see some good priced ones there)

As you can see the bill starts to climb and climb. It doesn’t stop there if you are going to do it right. For kit alone you will need to put £27k aside I think.
Then you are looking at workspace, worktops, stock, ventilation etc
Remember this is a 54 inch print & cut, big machine, the 30” wide verscamm is about 6 foot wide itself..
Prints will be big and trimming, drying etc is going to take up space too.

Don’t get me wrong I know it is possible to knock a few grand off all this. But my thoughts on it are to do it right first time from the start we don’t want to invest this kind of money and constantly have small problems here and there because we didn’t bother to do this or that first. It just slows production down and can be costly in the long run (I think anyway)

The above is only the middle part, “production”
We have to consider all 3 steps “sales” – “production” – “installation”

[popcornpro]

Don’t get me wrong, I have budgeted around the £25K mark (machine – inc training and installation, server, rip, and a laminator) and allowing extra for the finishing and facilities (new tables, cutting mats, stud walls for print room, vent.,etc). But I heard someone managed to secure a deal (a very good one) but this was negotiate by a contract including ink purchase over one year, possibly media too.

Before you say it… I know, cruch the numbers before jumping into a contract like that.

I am just looking for negotiating tactics.

Cheers,

Rich

[Robert Lambie]

i think i know the one your talking about.
i spoke with them about it once, infact about 4 times as they kept calling back. the idea behind it sounded OK but just OK.
from memory you had to buy so many ink catridges a month from them and in return you get the free lease of the machine. (so they say) before they would tell me if the advert was true they gave me a hundred questions on the volume of ink i would buy, what i would plan to use it on etc etc. everything seemed to revolve around the amount of ink you buy. of course.. this is how you repay for the machine lease. we get nohing for nothing!
so you get the machine on the grounds you buy X-amount of ink.
again from memory i quized them on a couple of scenarios evolving from this and they did not convince me.. cutting it short i said. i basicaly want to buy the machine, can you quote me. again they went on about how the lease/ink deal was the way to go. in some ways the idea is good. but certainly not if you are just getting into this game. being tied tio a five year deal can become a bit of a headache if things dont go to plan.
the name of the company slips me.. its first sonthing or other. ill have a look at a mag and see if i can spot the ads.

[popcornpro]

Hi,

I have just had an interesting conversation with Noel from Silver Skys. He informs me that the Grenadier does not print to VWS or Graphiwrap. Now this is something to consider as many agencies specify VWS when issuing tenders. Making it difficult to bid for these jobs if you can;t do it. He has now got me thinking about the JV3…

My goodness this is a complex business… will I won’t I…

What have you guys heard?

Rich@Popcorn.

[Robert Lambie]

i havent heard that rich, doesnt seem right that it can print on anything else but not two types of wrap vinyl?
grafiwrap is a cast sold as a wrap. which means its not easily removed like vws. if thats the case then you can just use mactac vehicle wrap that is in my eyes the best wrap on the go anyway.. not easiest by any means to apply but does what it says on the tin.
ide be interested to hear why they say it cant print on those two films though, seems strange. 🙄

the jv3 is a great machine according to reports i have heard. but is not a ‘print & cut’

[Rodney Gold]

If one solvent based printer can print to a media , a like solvent based printer should be able to do s so as well. AFAIK , both the grenadier(roland) and the JV3 uses the epson DX3 heads so they should be able to use similar inks (apart from pump and tubing issues) Perhaps the STD Roland cant do so , but we print regularily to conformable vinyl (starrex) for guys that do wrapping with no problems.
I really dont think the grenadier etc is the best choice if one is doing mainly vehicle wraps , it’s really a waste of a resource as the ability of the roland to print exceptional almost continuous tone quality as well as the print/cut function is not of any major use in this application , the ability to print durable colour fast 300 dpi roll to roll on conformable media is most likely more important. I think if you are trying for tender type jobs on vst quantities , you will be in for a hard time , other machines run cheaper per sq ft and other printers are desperately trying to keep machines on the go and charge rediculous prices (rediculously low). At the end of it all , it’s not worth buying a machine if you are selling a comoodity at x per sq ft , the learning curve etc will consume your time and it’s often better to sub out to an “expert” instead of trying to become one.

[Brian Hays]

I have just spoken to Noel, he said the same thing to me as he said to Rich. He has tried it on VWS & Graphiwrap. Apparently the JV3 uses more agressive inks?

[Robert Lambie]

ive just spoke to b&p and they say the grenadeir will print onto almost any uncoated media, vehicle wrap also. but, the profiles have not yet been set/made for vws at the moment. they do have their ‘own’ Vehicle wrap vinyl that has been profiled for the grenadeir. (this probably more the reason why not the others at the moment) this vehicle wrap comes under the name of ‘uniform cast’ my guess is this is just rebranded vws or mactac wrap like many companies are doing these days. same vinyl, different backer/carrying paper.
what they did assure me was that they are working on profiles and will have profiles for all popular vinyls used.

[Mike Antrum]

I was rather intrigued to hear that the Grenadier doesn’t print onto Graphiwrap, since we can print on it using our Eco-Solvent machines which have much less aggressive inks. So I grabbed a roll of Graphiwrap out of the back and put it on our demonstration Grenadier.

It prints fine, although for a vehicle wrap film you need to drop your ink limit a little to get the best results. I haven’t tried VWS yet, but if someone wants to send me some I’ll test that too.

We have supplied both JV3’s and Grenadiers, and have yet to find a material that only works on one of them.

Let me know if anyone wants test prints on Graphiwrap.

Happy shopping,

Mike Antrum

[popcornpro]

Well, this has been quite an interesting thread, especially since there seems to be quite a bit of conflicting opinions on these machines. Ideally, I would like to buy one but I think I will hold off in the short term until profiles have been ironed out.

In the meantime, is there anyone out there that can do a good price on vehicle wrap? I am looking for about 30 m.sq (min 1250 width). Feel free to PM me with your prices. We are currently touting for a few jobs and I look to have quite a few more by next month.

Cheers,

Rich

[Robert Lambie]

Hi rich
Further to this post..
I have been in contact by B&P in more ways than one.
I’m glad to say that the grenadier will be on show at the UK sign show and it “will” be printing onto VWS! Amongst other substrates, they will also, as I have said, be offering their own brand of V-Wrap vinyl

You heard it here first! 😉

[Brian Hays]

😳 😳

Think i’ll get back on the phone to Noel!