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The Old Classic Vinyl Cutters – Gerber 4B
the classic Graphix 4B, the rep told us you could drop it down the stairs and it would still work OK.
I wonder were all the old 4B’s are now 😀
thanks for your input
cheers
Neil
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50 Replies
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Was that one of these old plotters that you sat weights on the top on the blade?
We had one of those in the signshop I worked in after leaving school, it had 7? slots for fonts and you could cut direct from the plotter with any of the fonts fitted and put arcs on the text and things, genius bit of kit for it’s day. The boss of that place could make signs straight of the machine from visualizing what he was putting in, quite impressive (though the signs were never great :lol1: ) By the time I worked there it was all rigged up to the pc but we still used the machine for basic lettering! (I am actually quite young I’d like to think, that place just never got round to updating kit!)
G
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yes that’s the one… weights on the blade etc as Neil says, solid bit of kit that just keeps running. that kit/setup "way back then" cost us about £25,000. a single font would cost about £250, the outline module an extra £1000. fonts could be hired in at £15-£20 per day. and as you said, everything had to be visualised in your head, before producing. that was when getting a sign business up and running was a real task. not only expensive, people didn’t even know what vinyl was… you had to introduce the product as well as try and sell it. cast vinyl was the only option also so you paid through the nose on your stock also. no Internet, no help and everything paid out at top dollar! and people think its hard to make a go of sign making these days? 😕
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I remember my old 4b with passion. A real solid workhorse. I used to keep mine in the loft and leave it running when I went to bed. I can still remember going to sleep and hearing the chunky grinding noise when it was doing a curve. And like Rob quite rightly said, new signamkers think they have it hard today. They don’t know they’re born. 😀
I still think it beats alot of todays machines hands down for reliability. -
quote Neil Churchman:I wonder were all the old 4B’s are now 😀Was there a 4 or 4A before the B? We’ve got a 4 (didn’t see an A or B on it) that’s still in working order.
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Chris,
Yes there was a 4A or 4 before the 4b. The 4b was the upgrade with outlines and I think the superscript feature. The weight was on a slider bar
that had a screw fixing on top. The 4b had weights that you would place on top that looked like they would fall off, but never did. I would still buy one today just for memories sake! 😉Karl.
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Hi Karl,
Just had a look at the one we have here, it’s a 4, so must date back a bit. It came with a Company I took over last November (and they have been going 60 years this year (all started traditionally before they bought the 4).
Chris.
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Chris, I may be wrong but I think the first one came out around 1984/86. (?)
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I think the very first one was a "3" as i read that recently… followed by the 4 or 4a. the 4a didnt have auto-kerning on it or multiline functions, so when the 4b came out with both it became the UK’s best and probably only vinyl cutting system at the time.
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25’000 sold according to a report in one of the sign mags recently Rob. 😮
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I remember taping extra stuff to the weights to try and cut reflective! The machine was a workhorse, rarely stopped and in the 10years that company used it I don’t think they had an engineer at it! That’s a lot more than can be said for the supposedly state of the art pc’s/network/feiry (sp) system we were using at the time, was a constant headache!
G
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Then came the sprint. A MONITOR AT LAST! :lol1:
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quote Gavin MacMillan:I remember taping extra stuff to the weights to try and cut reflective! The machine was a workhorse, rarely stopped and in the 10years that company used it I don’t think they had an engineer at it! That’s a lot more than can be said for the supposedly state of the art pc’s/network/feiry (sp) system we were using at the time, was a constant headache!
G
but we did pay for its quality… our setup cost us over £20k way back then… we did have apple computer and digitising setup etc but still… £20k is allot today never mind 20 years ago!
i service call out charge was about £200 and £50 an hour after that…
our machine conked out one day and nobody dared touch it due to cost…
guy pops in next morning to find the fuse on the plug had gone! that was a £200 13amp fuse! 😳 :lol1: :lol1: -
wasn’t the 3" wide vinyl version called the Graphix 2
I picked one up at an auction about five years ago, paid £20 for it and gave it to my kids to learn the trade (think I really bought it for the nostalgia factor) 😀
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Rob, The Apple computer, The GDSII! Technology eh? 😉
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quote Robert Lambie:quote Gavin MacMillan:I remember taping extra stuff to the weights to try and cut reflective! The machine was a workhorse, rarely stopped and in the 10years that company used it I don’t think they had an engineer at it! That’s a lot more than can be said for the supposedly state of the art pc’s/network/feiry (sp) system we were using at the time, was a constant headache!G
but we did pay for its quality… our setup cost us over £20k way back then… we did have apple computer and digitising setup etc but still… £20k is allot today never mind 20 years ago!
i service call out charge was about £200 and £50 an hour after that…
our machine conked out one day and nobody dared touch it due to cost…
guy pops in next morning to find the fuse on the plug had gone! that was a £200 13amp fuse! 😳 :lol1: :lol1: -
quote KARL WILLIAMS:Rob, The Apple computer, The GDSII! Technology eh? 😉
not sure the name of the apple comp but was steam driven in comparison to today’s comps…
had big 5 inch floppy disks that held about 10kb :lol1:
it was hooked up to a digitising tablet with a cable attached to a sort of puck/mouse with cross hair. (that was fun i can tell you) :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: -
Yep! Defo the Spandex GDsII. Black screen with green wire frame and text at the bottom. It beeped every time you digitised a point.
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heres a very similar model to cutter…. "no monitor"
lets see the newbies of today produce their sign and letter it completely before they even get a visual of how it looks? 😕 :lol1:
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im bumping this because ive deleted 3 posts now on the old thread that i sorta sent off topic so ive split it to keep things right. ill bin this post bump shortly 😀
apologies for the binned posts… 😕
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well I’m lost now.
nothing new, I knowI love nostalgia….
and
rose tinted specs though…….
Peter
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quote Robert Lambie:heres a very similar model to cutter…. “no monitor”
lets see the newbies of today produce their sign and letter it completely before they even get a visual of how it looks? 😕 :lol1:anyway that was a great machine, weeding done as it came out!!
we wish
Peter
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I use a 1989 4E every day. Paid $400 for it used, design in GA and plot with the old gal.
I also have a backup 1987 4B with an LMK module.
Both work quite well.
Someday I’d like to upgrade to an Envision.
Love….Jill -
quote KARL WILLIAMS:25’000 sold according to a report in one of the sign mags recently Rob. 😮
Our 4’s serial number is 9295. I’ll try and see if anyone can put their hand on the invoice. I was told it was one of the first that Spandex sold when it was launched (and it still works!!).
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ours wasnt the first but was one of, if not the first in scotland.
i only know that because we were often asked to demo the machine to sign companies in scotland… 😀 -
Another advantage was it stopped people using too many fonts in signs as you couldn’t afford them!
I’m being nostalgic about the amount of work it done as well, but I suppose at the speed it was running it had to go all day to cut a couple of hours worth of stuff 😀
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I remember using the 4, 4A, 4B and the apple comp and digitising tablet, I also used the 3" version as well. The guy I used to work for believed in getting all the latest equipment and updating it as soon as a new version came out. The 3" version was meant for cutting very small text and was really good at it. Aaaah…………the memories :lol1:
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how long ago are we talking here ?
I’ve been using vinyl cutters for the last 20 years & I’ve never seen this kind of machine before
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early 80’s
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A sign shop in Carlton, Nottingham is the proud owner of the 15th machine sold. And yes he’s still using it today!
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there is still a 4b working daily in Plymouth, he has a last relented and just bought his first computer.
chris
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I’ve known ours for 19 years.
All thats been replaced is a theta wheel and sensor 😀 (:) -
so how do they work…..do you just type out the necessary text & tell it what point size you want ??
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quote glenn:so how do they work…..do you just type out the necessary text & tell it what point size you want ??
you type in the text, you type in the height and the length you wish each line to come out. you choose the font also… all this is done blind, no visual on how it will look once produced. if you condensed a font you must condense the longest line first… memorise the percentage you condensed it by and apply same to all other lines of text on the sign so it all looked in proportion… the cutter is only 12" wide, back then only cast existed. so messing up a sign was costly. 😕
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Never used the Led screen personally,only since the PC interface.
But still have the old planning sheets for screen printing lays of circles/squares etc.
Must have taken ages to do a complicated multi-lined sign!! -
I used to draw the sign out on paper first using the pen and check that it looked ok before I cut it, so it wasnt always done "blind"
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Must have gone through a fair whack of paper Jayne 😮
To scale of course 😳
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lol I didnt draw it out full size………………. :lol1:
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but how did you scale all the lines of text down to get a visual?
must have taken a fair time?i just got in the habit of never condensing below 80% as i knew the font would look silly… we had about 15-18 fonts only…
the outline text module cost £1000 on its own. 😕
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This topic could run and run.
In 1984 I bought the first 4B in Spain from Fasson, now Avery. It cost 12.000 quid with 5 fonts. Any other letter style or logo I cut by hand. Extra fonts cost 150 each or could be hired by the day. 3M and Fasson were the 2 main vinyl suppliers and you could get every type of vinyl, cast, calendered, reflective, translucent, etc. (So much for those very annoying Brits who started up in Spain in recent years and insist they can´t buy vinyl here.)
3M tried to bring out a similar machine to the 4B. I saw it working at their HQ in Madrid, but it was never a serious contender because of reliability problems.
The 4B was a revolution in sign-making at the time. I ended up with 3 sign-shops, all using the 4B and their successors. Never had one moment´s problem with any of them.
Scanners were in their infancy back in the 80´s and pretty much useless. I bought digitizing tablets when they first came out which were about 6.000 each.
The first 4(?) evolved from the textile industry in the USA. They used a computerised system to make patterns for garments. Gerber adapted it to cut vinyl.
Charlie ??? owner of the (then) small business Spandex, saw it in the USA
and had to risk a large amount of dosh to import a guaranteed minimum number into the UK to have the concession as sole distributor. His risk certainly paid off. He sold Spandex a few years ago for 45.000,000. Not bad for a guy who played in a failed rock group and sold internal signage by mail order.
The 4B was a great piece of kit. A friend of mine here still uses one. Reckons he´s still using the original blade.
I´m not at all nostalgic, but with the vast choice of machinery now available to the sign industry, particularly digital print, it´s a hell of lot more complicated.Chris
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Ok guys, not one for bragging here, but 9 years ago I WON a plotter on the strength of owning the oldest Gerber in working condition.
We had documented proof of purchase and had it under a service contract up untill that date. It is still hooked up to our computer and will whirl into action at the touch of a button. Don’t use it much at all now, but we still buy all our vinyl sprocketed just in case its needed.It had been upgraded over the years as the upgrades were made available, we even had the luxury of a green monitor which showed you your plot as you entered the co-ordinates. We eventually had to hand over all the fonts and modules that it originally came with when the computer age hit us properly and we invested in a proper PC and the Graphics Advantage software. (still cost 10k back then all in) It is still in good nick today.
I remember being very cross with Spandex when I tried to get a new roller as the y baseline co-ordinate wasn’t cutting the vinyl as it had worn a groove in the roller. I was told that this was a consumable and wasn’t covered by the service agreement. 👿
I was told it would cost about 200 smackers to replace (:) (hot)
Well the Mcgyver instinct kicked in and I solved the problem with a rubber washer that was lying about the workshop. Total cost 0p (chat.) 🙄
Still there today. 😀 -
Just out of curiosity Mike, what serial number is yours (just to try and date ours). Ours also has had several upgrades and can be connected to a PC. It’s just sat gathering dust under a work bench now, we plan on putting it on the wall when we sort our new reception area out.
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i remember going to see one working in dundee at dave ogilvies place…he said he was one of the first to get one….i was a bit gob smacked to see what it could do, compared to me pasting artwork up for the camera work everyday that took ages compared to what these could do…..but i remember saying what a waste of money….better with a pot of paint and a brush :lol1: :lol1:
nik
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A local company to me had one with the digitising and from what I remember digitising was a laborious task, you produced hundreds of straight lines and then the software had a ‘smoothing’ feature which just made the stright lines shorter with more nodes. I remember saying to the guy (I was a brushman only in those days) "if signmaking degenerates into making stickers I’ll give up and dig holes for a living" – guess what, in the late eighties I bought a PC setup (APA Supergraph and Leewood Logo Scan which was a rebadged Sigh Studio later to become Signlab) and gave up the brushes late nineties.
I think Cadlink brought out a setup so you could use a pc with the 4B not sure though.
Alan D -
Interesting stuff.
When you hired a font, did it come on punched card?
And how did the supplier ensure you coudnt copy one you hired?Just curious
Peter
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peter as much as i remember the hired fonts came as a plug in card type thing not much technology on the go at that time to copy
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Chris, ours is GXP-4/85521 i’ve known it since Sept.1988
Dont know when it was actually bought 😀 -
quote Peter Normington:When you hired a font, did it come on punched card? And how did the supplier ensure you coudnt copy one you hired?As far as I remember (I never owned a 4B) they came as an aluminium hardware module with a circuit board inside and the font was stored on a chip. You just plugged it in to a slot in the cutter and the font was available for use.
I don’t know whether anybody got around to copying them but, although certainly not impossible, it would have required a fair amount of effort. It was not just a matter of copying files, but it would have needed the hardware reproducing as well. The cost of producing the printed circuits as a one-off, or even in low volumes, would not have been insignificant.
Also, although the ability to copy was probably there, don’t forget that computers were in their infancy, and the know-how was not as widespread as it is today.
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in the early 90s my m8 was getting fell off wagon fonts for 4b and we used to sell em 4 a ton all the sign dudes round ours were made up no more hire costs i served my apprenticeship on 4b 😀
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we had one… ran on our edge machine back along.
in spandex in bristol, they have a gold version there with some plaque stating it is special or something.
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Just found our instruction manual dated 1986 along with some promotional material with all the features
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