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Direct to Board printing, what are your views?
We are being asked for more and more DTB printing for local tradesmen to have as site boards. Is there a small start-up option that would take an estate agents boards size panel?
I have the room for a printer but not a CNC cutter as well. MDP do these correx boards by the 100 at a great price so was thinking of just whacking these through when required. I also have a national contract for installing signs, supplied by my client, that is all DTB printed. My client has asked me previously if I could produce them as well as install them. I tried to find a supplier who could do this for me.
There are plenty out there but I was unable to match the current price they pay, by the time I added any mark-up for myself. Even without the mark up some suppliers were more than the original price! If I bought it in-house then I would like to think I can then match or better the price they currently pay. Most of the signs are A5 foamex or ACM with some larger ones but never much more than 600 sq.The client doesn’t like vinyl overlay with a laminate. I have suggested that.
Hope that all makes sense.
TIA
Iain
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1 Reply
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Iain, do you mean you are looking to buy a flatbed printer for direct to board printing, but only want the bed size to be around 1-metre square?
thing is, do you want to outlay tens of thousands of pounds for a tiny margin return?
we do budget signs pretty much because they are budget stuff, large volume onto correx etc
we get a good return and plenty of work from them. we don’t, however, have a flatbed!
Just for the record, we had an EFI 1800 wide flatbed (raster printer with white ink) about 10-12 years ago. it was a great learning curve for us because we had no end of bother with the machine and it made me seriously look at how we justified spending about £80.,000 back then. in the end, it went back, a full refund was given. and instead of buying another, I opted for an additional wider and faster roll-to-roll machine and 5.5m rolls-roller. spent less than half the price of the flatbed, and continued to fulfil customer orders with zero breakdowns etc.
I know those with these machines may argue I am wrong, but I am not! I was wrong to buy the flatbed. you have to look seriously at what you plan using these machines for, the type of customers you intend feeding with your products and more.
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