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New Start for 2009 With The Ultimate Sign Shop
I started in the sign game back in 89 and for the first ten years played it safe and enjoyed working from the comfort of my home I was privileged to be there when my kids arrived home. Precious moments I may have missed if I was in employment were embraced but as the family grew and the kids attended school the business expand and outgrew its humble beginnings. We located a premises and have been in my current location since late 1999 we moved in in a hurry and on a budget and its been OK but I knew I would have to sort it out eventually I started a major refit back in March 2006 and if we are lucky we will have it finished by Xmas. issues with phones, gas, planning, Builder going bust and then those pesky customers expecting me to drop everything and take some money of them. the cheek !!! Well it will all be worth it in the end I’m sure. They say a change is as good as a rest.
I’m looking forward to organizing things better this time around and maximizing space to achieve a more efficient working environment. Its my ambition to create the ultimate Sign Shop I have got some great ideas from the kind folk on this site for media storage and benches but have lots of questions to ask on ways others deal with day to day problems in a typical sign shop / business and would be grateful to anyone who is willing to swap tips on how they manage them.
1. RUBBISH What do you do with your Rubbish does anyone recycle weeded vinyl and is it even possible to recycle it What containers are best for collecting rubbish in a work room ? has anyone considered a compactor ?
2. FLOORING Whats the best floor covering in a work room. We used to have a vinyl floor in our old porta cabin but weed crumbs soon created a collage of multicolored alphabet debris. is there an ideal flooring that can be kept clean that discarded vinyl doesn’t stick to.
3. LIGHTING I’m looking to install new lighting as previously we had low voltage spots. Great for a show room but useless over a weeding bench what if any is the best type of lighting and how bright should it be I have a lighting
designer paying me a visit so i will report back on his suggestions but he doesn’t know the game as well as us so don’t know how helpful he will be.4. SCRAPS I have seen some nifty storage racks on some trade supply sites but they only accommodate full or part rolls what do you do with scrap vinyl pieces that are to good to throw away whats the best way to store an organize them so you can find them when that little job comes in.
5. SHEET MATERIAL Our sheet material was always a problem storage area new sheets would arrive and be stacked neatly against a wall half a dozen delivery’s later and a whole lot of offcuts mixed in the stack was nearly as wide as it was high as it slid down the wall. how do you store your sheets and off cuts.
6. TRANSPORTATION Cut vinyl jobs to site how many of you have got to a job to realize that the tel no from the back was not in the kit and on your return to your shop find it just inside the workshop on the floor. we got round this by bagging complete jobs in clear plastic bags. the bag doubled as a waste bag after the job was installed. Also on frosted partition and bigger vinyl jobs we invested in some 1m x 200mm diameter cardboard tubes and end caps these have been a great help for transporting jobs to site. What do you do?
7. BENCHES If space was no object what would the ideal bench size and height be for weeding.
8 HEAT GUNS whats the best ? we have used many different types over the years but nowadays tend to avoid the most expensive and buy woollies cheepies as they seem to last as long as any.
It would be great to get some feed back and use the knowledge of the boards to influence the final environment I create. I will be sure to show how we implement any adopted ideas we get. and welcome any other workroom / sign shop ideas anyone wants to share.
Regards Neil….
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9 Replies
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Will you expect to ever start printing?
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Well done Neil,
Flooring – Tiles or sealed Concrete
Lighting – Daylight tubes
Sheet material – I had some steel frames made that hold my sheets upright, and its on wheels, so is easily moved for cleaning or re arranging
Benches – My bench is presently 3600mm x 1200mm but I’m building new ones that measure 3000mm x 1500mm. The original and the new will/do have glass tops
I keep all my inner cores and boxes for sending my work out. I rarely throw anything like that out.
Heat guns – I’ve had the cheapies, but now only buy quality. There is a new gun out with a laser temp gauge built in, so that will be by next purchase. Other than that, the bosch is my best heat gun I’ve used that can take a dropping a few times on site.
Hope that helps 🙂
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quote :I started in the sign game back in 89 and for the first ten years played it safe and enjoyed working from the comfort of my home I was privileged to be there when my kids arrived home. Precious moments I may have missed if I was in employment were embraced but as the family grew and the kids attended school the business expand and outgrew its humble beginnings. We located a premises and have been in my current location since late 1999 we moved in in a hurry and on a budget and its been OK but I knew I would have to sort it out eventually I started a major refit back in March 2006 and if we are lucky we will have it finished by Xmas. issues with phones, gas, planning, Builder going bust and then those pesky customers expecting me to drop everything and take some money of them. the cheek !!! Well it will all be worth it in the end I’m sure. They say a change is as good as a rest.I’m looking forward to organizing things better this time around and maximizing space to achieve a more efficient working environment. Its my ambition to create the ultimate Sign Shop I have got some great ideas from the kind folk on this site for media storage and benches but have lots of questions to ask on ways others deal with day to day problems in a typical sign shop / business and would be grateful to anyone who is willing to swap tips on how they manage them.
1. RUBBISH
I hang bin bags on the end of the bench for weeded vinyl, and have a large cardboard box for release liner and paper waste. I get regular work from a haulage firm that run a no of roll on/off skips and usually as a return favor I get to ditch my bags and paper in there. Unless you have tons of waste monthly a compactor would probably not be financially viable.
2. FLOORING
I have a mixture of wood, rubber and concrete and have come to the conclusion that discarded vinyl will stick to whatever you don’t want it to.
3. LIGHTING
I have a preference for daylight balanced fluorescent tubes, and plenty of them, also when I wired them in I put them on two individual circuits so that if there’s a problem with one I’m not left in the dark. This is mainly because I have no windows in either of my workshops for security reasons, I also have emergency lights in each in case of a power cut.
4. SCRAPS
End of rolls I keep stood upright in a box under the bench, and scraps I keep in a plastic storage box like the type you slide under a bed with wheels on. These are quite shallow and can also be stacked, I have three and keep black & white in one and divide colours between the other two.
5. SHEET MATERIAL
So far I do the same as you but I intend to make a rack on castors with full/large sheets on the back and a sperate area for smaller off cuts on the front.
6. TRANSPORTATION
I too keep all my tubes and boxes for this purpose, I also have some cut down cardboard and plastic carpet roll inners that I have stood upright in another box, you could also use 150mm plastic underground drain pipe.
7. BENCHES
My ideal bench would be a couple of feet longer than the longest job that I’d ever done and a few inches wider, but width and height are very much a personal thing as you would want to be able to reach more than half way across without laying all over your work, and be able to work at a height that didnt leave you with a bad back at the end of the day. So my ideal bench would be one that could be raised and lowered preferably electrically like a hospital bed does (now theres an idea)
8 HEAT GUNS
I currently use a Dewalt gun with adjustable heat settings that I like, but this will not run off my invertor when I’m not near a power source, so I also have an old pro b&d that gets used in this situation. -
I built a 3ft x 2ft lightbox into my bench and find it very useful for overlaying perspex or vinyl lettering onto panels as it avoids light leaks…also, can vinyl release paper be recycled?
Martin -
Hi Neil.
I have nothing to offer over the above advice, but just wanted to say how nice it was to hear from someone who has done what I intend to do. I’m currently working from home & you’re right about the kids thing. It’s so nice to be able to pop in & see them, especially during the precious moments (first steps etc)
Our long term plan is the same as yours, to eventually get a unit & expand when the kids are a bit bigger & are at school. This will enable us to get our own digital printer etc & play with the big boys.
Glad to hear it’s all working out.
All the best,
Gwaredd.
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I smile when I read the expansion plans and growth of you guys.
Congratulations to you all.
I smile though because I went the opposite way. Our family sign business grew to employ 14 guys and gals, we had a double story factory, 5 vans on the road, 3 design stations, then my uncle got a brain tumour and died 13 weeks later, my dad collapsed at work due to the stress, and I woke up one day and decided there was more to life than leaving home in the dark, getting home in the dark.
I wasn’t seeing my kids grow up, so we sold the business and I moved home to operate out of our house. Mum and dad both retired and work for me part time, abd now I can pick my kids up from school everyday, I’m home in minutes (I walk from the back shed to the house) and life is so much better now.
I miss the income of the ‘bad old days’ but I’m probably making more profit now than I was when my business had a 7 figure turnover.
Funny how life goes full circle sometimes
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quote MARTIN MANLEY:…also, can vinyl release paper be recycled?
MartinGood question does anyone know the answer?
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It probably could but recyclers currently don’t. The coating on the paper makes it un-recyclable by paper recyclers. I am in discussions with our waste management company at trying to find a plastics recyclers that will take it on board.
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quote Shaun Harris:quote MARTIN MANLEY:…also, can vinyl release paper be recycled?
MartinGood question does anyone know the answer?
I’ve been down this path many times.
The silicon coating makes it unusable for just about all recyclers. No one is really interested once you say it has a silicon liner.
The 3M clear plastic backing is another story, but you need huge qty before they will come out and pick it up. Even then, they are not that keen, because it is such a small market with relatively small supplies.
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