Chris Wilson
Forum Replies Created
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If it rips easy then application tape it. Once it’s on soak the application tape. Go over it quick with squeegee and move to the next one. Then come back and take the tape off. It will of lost all its grab and help with cold temps.
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What about printed mats? I see Xpres’s are doing a sublimation one that’s A3 size or there abouts. Of course you’ll need the sublimation set-up go with it but sure could put source
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Sure adobe have a version of some sort. We have signed documents before via some adobe e-sign or something like that.
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quote David Stevenson:Hi, Have a job in for some vehicle graphics some of which will be printed onto Oracal Printable reflective vinyl. We’ve used very like reflective material over the years and our supplier tells us it doesn’t need laminated. I find this hard to believe as surely the print would be open to damage such as scratches, UV, etc. What’s people’s thoughts on this? Thanks
Can see it doing any harm personally. If there’s doubt then go for it or run a test and then go for it. I would have thought it would be more likely to scratch/scuff going through a car was then normal vinyl would be…
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quote Jean Oakley:Ive furloughed staff and im in at unit 2-3 days a week on my own (just like the old days). Some of my customers are key workers so need to be in to help them out. I wish I could furlough myself but its just not possible. Someone has to keep the business ticking over till this blows over. Im more concerned about work id already cut to fit before the shut down and if the companies will still want the work doing. I also don’t know about my staff returning on their pre lockdown hours as I doubt we will have much work straight off.
I think you don’t have take them all back at once when restrictions are lifted. Am pretty sure the scheme runs till the end of June. So if it’s lifted in May am going to bring my fitter back and if we get busy enough for everyone before the end of June then so be it. That is of course if they start to lift restrictions. They may extend or a month or two of course. Who knows. Am just going on the basis that some companies are work with small crews and the rest on furlough so am guessing you’ll be able to pick the moment for each.
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Also received our grant today.
Picking up a fair few health and safety signs with firms returning on skeleton crews. Boys are all furloughed. Think I will keep them off as long as possible and on that scheme. A lot of our work is events or based around events. Am planning for it being the worst.
Quite relaxed though. Even trying to decided if I should bite the bullet and get a mounters mate table with some other bits if we return and things are better than worst case. I noticed a chart of BBC showing the expected growth, which is going to be 35% down the quarter but if we can resume some sort of normality be 30% up in the next quarter.. which would be nice. Only thing doing my nut is some customers.
"Hi Chris. I am working from home as I am not allowed to open my business. I walked past though and my signs are not up. Can you advise please"
General crack from myself pointing out we are in the same boat.
"Hi Chris. Not very happy with that. Before lockdown we agreed the 2nd of April. I can’t imagine your very busy this now. Please get them up.. "
*rolls eyes and bangs head off table several times.
Not to mention the timber yards are shut. And everyone was made aware on the 23rd of March that it’s not safe or right to have the boys or myself out doing signage. Bit different me being at the unit working away alone and not seeing a single person.
But least the sun is out. Even cleaned my slabs.
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More difficult in times like these.
I’ve been sticking to my guns with pricing.. actually putting a wee bit more on and it’s working fine so far. Not that am rushing about with work. Just finished a van that is probably slightly more than normal.Yesterday I quoted for some acrylic at £370, to be told the other company had quoted at 24k. Shocked i said I must of missed something or read it wrong. Few phone calls, other supplier sticking to there guns that it was 5 tonnes worth of acrylic. Turns out they read it at 1,860 meters instead of 1860mm in various amounts. But man did I wish I upped the price more. Acrylics on it’s way [emoji23][emoji23]
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quote Martin Oxenham:I know it’s not very accurate, but just looked at a job in the Versa Rip and it says it uses more ink on Standard quality than on high quality, surely it should be the other way around ?….
No as the machines print more precise instead of more ink. That’s what I was told. Apparently in high speed and standard it’s chucking the ink at the media where as in high quality it’s placing it. So a Roland tech told me.
I use standard for 90%. Only use high quality for small detail to be honest.
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quote Simon Worrall:$7000 was paid straight into my account from the NZ government on the third day of lockdown. Amazing!
If only the world would follow NZ examples. Plenty of friends that have gone over there, never heard anything bad said.
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Advertising and use of free media.
To me it’s important that we use Facebook and actually more so instagram now. Instagram has made it more friendly with our customers. Lots view our story every day. Just literally signed off a £470 van from it. Also stops people badgering me after ordering the day before. Good platform to showcase your many different you do and each part of the job.
Now trying to give some serious thought to our outdated website.Trello has made a massive difference to our lives since the end of last summer for organisation and crucially improved productivity.
Dead stock. What can you do with it. Few months back I had about 7 rolls of banner with 5m or less left on it. Punted put a deal on Social media for 2 banners at 6ft x 2ft at x price. Made about £400 from it.. but we picked up and estate agents which is now placing regular orders for double sided correx boards. Now trying to think what I want to get rid of next.. but apart from a roll of clear and tiny bits of one way vision am struggling.
Might chuck some dead colour rolls on eBay. I see people doing job lots from time to time. Clears some space. Also got 2 tins of frog juice (hint hint nudge nudge anyone).
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quote Martyn Heath:i totally get the purpose of these if you are a larger firm with volume of work. But for a small sign company i cant get my head round it. Many thousands spent on something which you can do by hand, and uses 0 vinyl laying skills.
It something which again eats into your profits. Dont get me wrong if you are busy 8hrs a day and can fit more work in 100% best move. But if you spend few hours a day with your fingers up your ( oh i swore ) then does the extra 10 mins to do the job by hand really matter.
Imagine not having to do a 10ft x 5ft board though by hand. Oft.
All adds up and can reduce cost of staff. 10 minutes a day is still 5 working days through out the year or something.
Going by the prices I have been given now, 266 hours of saved time and it’s paid for by our hourly rate. -
quote Phill Fenton:I’ve still been going to the unit in order to put ink through the printer but also to paint the floor during all this downtime.
What did you end up using Phil? I was looking at resins online but a lot of people say it comes up after driving a few vehicles in?
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quote David Hammond:I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole, and have told them in a far less polite manner before today.
If you like football, and taking penalties crack on cos they move the goal posts what feels like every dawn and dusk.
I’ve never known a company make it so difficult to work with.
Plus I hear rumours they’re on the verge of financial collapse.
Haha. I had the rep "pop by" the other week. Told me that the company always wins customers when we have a problem. And when that day comes for me I will call and they will smash the problem right out the park and deliver a service far beyond any other.
Am guessing not so much then.
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Another sign elite customer. But again no claim.
Same as yourself. We were insured with axa and thought during phone calls with them we were covered for everything, sign elite told us otherwise.Ideally I’d never like to make a claim but it’s nice to know that they consider us to have all bases covered… apart from a virus pandemic.. bet golf sized hail stones are not in there either
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FedEx/tnt go above and beyond up our neck of the woods. Same delivery driver every day to (old boy called Mac). We’ve had parcels delayed by a day or whatever, call the depot, they’ll go look it out for us and we can grab it or they will ask Mac to come to us first instead of half way round his route. Which is pretty cool. They just have to deliver. They don’t have to keep us that happy.
We use parcel monkey for posting the odd bits. Normally ends up going with parcel force though. Nothing lost so far.
The worst was M&H carriers for sheets from Europoint. One day I was the only one in, just sending an email. Right at the end. I said to the boy two seconds and I’ll be right with you. Just as I got to the door he had climbed into the truck. As I got 2 steps out the door he pushed the sheets off the truck down onto the tarmac. Of course all the corners where knackered. Response "they should package them better, that’s mental" safe to say I had a few choice words. Thankfully they have switched or become Northwoods which so far is 100 times better and actually some care. We had sheets come that looked that they had been ran over by a forklift and everything.
I’ve got to say though delivery is quite impressive. I mean we are up in Inverness. I can order from victory in Chester (think there chester if top of my head) at 4pm and have it with me the next day by fedex at 11am. Sometimes 10:30. We also send trade t-shirt transfers to a company in Devon which about 11 hours drive from us. With stopping more likely to be 14. Again if I send with Royal Mail first class at 4:45pm they have it in the letter box at 9am the next morning. That’s pretty dam impressive personally.
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quote Jonathan Dray:quote Chris Wilson:My accountant disagrees with yours.
We were told to put it through as a wage for both directors and not to exceed 17k this year (I don’t know why that’s an unusual number) and we would be fine. They’ve made the odd mistake before but it’s a big firm we use.I’ll be doing pay roll next Tuesday so we’ll find out. But am going to put I through and if I get told off I get told off. I think they will have bigger problems really than me wanting a couple of quid.
Anyone else have an opinion on this?
We’re still being told to put it through and we get the 80% back at the end of April. Still not clear as to how you get it back. But that’s what we have been told to do.
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Bored.
Working from home. Odd bit of design work. Going to update the website photos and content I think. Trying to have a long hard think about what pages I want etc…Kicking myself a little as we moved into a unit last summer as one was actually available but it’s our busiest time of the year. So I should of bought paint, filler, floor paint, wall paper.. even wrap. our big van in on the list to be wrapped, design ready. But like you I don’t want to go spending if it’s not needed.
I think this is going to go for a while. If they think the peak will be in 2-3 weeks we still need to come back down from the peak to safer levels or no virus at all. That says June to me.
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quote Wayne Fothergill:quote Chris Wilson:Just put your pay through as a wage for the next month or two.. maybe 3 who knows. And once it settles down reduce your wage drastically and just take a dividend (higher than normal) to balance… I’ve not done the maths but for a month or two surely that’s the best way to go about it
I think they’re calculating it on last years PAYE earnings to stop people banging their wages up now for exactly this reason.
But regarding the 80% salary scheme, you have to designate employees as furloughed, which according to my accountant we cannot do for myself and the other directors, even though we’re looking at having zero work as it’s all dried up. I think those of us who are directors are basically left with zero help.
Has anyone had a look at this loan interruption scheme yet? It doesn’t seem fit for purpose at all. No online application facility, 5 hour holds on calls to banks, 11%+ interest rates, existing customers only, some offering overdrafts instead and requiring capital guarantees. The scheme was supposed to encourage unsecured lending up to £250k yet no lender seems to be doing this at all.
It looks all well and good on a press release and on the 10′ o’clock news boasting a £330bn stimulus package of “assistance” but it looks like it’s basically just lining the pockets of the banks with little to no risk to them as the government are guaranteeing the lender not the borrower, it’s a joke.
Who is going to want to take on a big loan on those terms, with the uncertainty that you might not have any work to generate any income to pay it back even if you survive?
I’ve got some funds in the business that’ll see us through a few weeks, but if we don’t get invoices paid next week from some of our bigger customers I’m not liking our future prospects.
My accountant disagrees with yours.
We were told to put it through as a wage for both directors and not to exceed 17k this year (I don’t know why that’s an unusual number) and we would be fine. They’ve made the odd mistake before but it’s a big firm we use.I’ll be doing pay roll next Tuesday so we’ll find out. But am going to put I through and if I get told off I get told off. I think they will have bigger problems really than me wanting a couple of quid.
Just going to the Unit to find our rates number and then trying this online application. There making it sound lovely. Will take 10 days for the funds to go into our bank and the wording has changed to 10k grant. But we will see. Am still very… we’ll it’s hard to believe there will be actual help. There is always a twist somewhere. Like your saying with the low interest loans.
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That’s the conclusion I have come to. That extra £10 is saving me that in my wage I would say at least and also less stress. Did the back of the door of a van just before Christmas in 970. All down bar round the hinge. Number plate recess the lot. Was looking beautiful. Went to lift it back for some heat round the hinge and crack. And that was that. Whole door off and start again.
Totally down to our workshop not being warm enough. But the vehicles tend to be 20 degrees ish constantly throughout the panel and air temp about 16. And it wouldn’t of happened with the supreme.
I should also really go on a wrap course instead of watching YouTube videos from arlon and the likes. Am sure there’s plenty of little things I could be doing to make life a little less stressful.
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Presuming it’s Avery supreme.
There is a big difference if it is. The Avery is so easy to work with. In my opinion. Not brittle either.
Only used the 970 and it is good. And for likes of a gloss black strip or curve or someone on a van I would consider using it. But if I had the whole of the back doors to do I would stick to supreme as it is quicker to work with.To be honest we struggle to get our workshop above 16 degrees. Tends to be where it stays and can’t get it any higher than that at this time of year. Also got infra red heaters on the vans we are doing and I tend to put the wrap vinyl in the print room for a day or two before using, as it’s nice and toastie in there. Still find though that the 3m 1080 and the kpmf vinyls can crack if your trying to pull it back. I have none of that fear with the Avery.
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quote Wayne Maxwell:Fellow sign men. Follow this advice. Go in tomorrow and shut everything down. Family and health over work and money. Be safe all.
100% agree.
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Also just heard from our accountant.
We are to pay ourselves through a wage not a dividend.
There will be a new tab on Payroll softwares by the end of the week for the 80% re-funded. So it will need to be paid first. -
I don’t know about you guys but this is giving me a headache.
Half of us are soldering on. Some have come to a stop (which is right thing in my eyes)
Spoke to customers that we have installs for in the next week and bit this morning on the phone. Apart from one the rest of them are still classing us as an "essential service". In fact certain phones calls got quite hot under the collar this morning.And now quite rightly the snp have said that all non essential businesses in Scotland must close or be forced to close.
Has anyone had any useful letters or break throughs with all that has been promised?
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quote Phill Fenton:quote Chris Wilson:quote David Hammond:Central government will be distributing funds to local authorities, probably April. If you’re eligible for SMBRR you should get it. Increased from 3k to 10k.
Ah. Am in Scotland so I’ll need to wait for SNP to copy the policy…. *sigh*
Looks like the Scottish government are also implementing this :- https://findbusinesssupport.gov.scot/coronavirus-advice
Yea I think it was announced on Friday Phil. Saw it on the website anyway. Just got to wait for the local council now. Which doesn’t fill me with much confidence haha.
Last time I had dealings with the rates department was when we have a cross over of one month for moving. Which was June. I got a bill for April, May and June. Finally got the point across that we did need to pay for May. That was fine. Kept getting interrupted every time I spoke. Eventually had to point out how the months go starting from January. Alas we got there and April was no more haha. 10 minutes of my life I will never get back though.
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quote Hugh Potter:quote Phill Fenton:I think you’re right Hugh. It’s the norm for company directors of small ltd companies to pay themselves the minium and top it up with dividends due to the tax system. This means that many directors will be earning less than their employees with no dividends to top up their earnings. I agree the system is flawed, but under the circumstances it’s the best we can hope for to preserve jobs and to rescue the economy, otherwise once all this is over there will be no economy left.
One thing’s for certain – none of us will starve. And in comparison to the sort of hardships others have endured in the past this is nothing. We should all be gratefull.
Agreed, it could be far far worse when you look at what goes on around the world.
Chris, I had considered upping my ‘salary’ but I don’t know how they check / means test it and don’t want to be seen to be manipulating the system / get in trouble of changing my salary to reflect my real income of at least £350 a week.
The tax around dividends is not really very beneficial these days, I think we’ll get £2k allowance on this year each, so £4k tax free on divvies for us two shareholders – hardly Dragons Den territory! The real reason I keep it low is because our income fluctuates, like most small sign companies, if I have a pants week / month / few months it means I don’t take more than the business may have, my caution may turn out to cost me!
My understanding is you can chop and change as much as you like. A dividend must be equal between partners and come out of profit and is only 7% after the 2k per person.
At the end of each year your accountant can switch between the two to lower your amount required in tax if they feel it would give a good saving or if your actually no longer operating in profit, which is where you are likely to get into trouble. -
Just put your pay through as a wage for the next month or two.. maybe 3 who knows. And once it settles down reduce your wage drastically and just take a dividend (higher than normal) to balance… I’ve not done the maths but for a month or two surely that’s the best way to go about it
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Think am wrong. Hands up. Sorry for any alarm/extra stress. Almost seems to go to be true but will be applying now
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I could be completely wrong.
Am just going off business gateway and a 5k grant we tried to get off them 10 + years ago for a different business. We had to pay it back but over 5 years or something and it was very low amount. We didn’t get it anyway. -
quote Iain George:quote Chris Wilson:Trouble is that there not just going to give cash out willy nilly.
We are a limited company and I think we can no apply for a grant of up to 10k but we have to pay it back, so right now I would rather not.
.Where does it say we need to pay it back? I cannot find that on the Gov site that I took the photo above from.
I’m just going on the word grant. And what customers have said to me. We get offered grants for training and stuff up here, even Market re-search, but you have to pay them back. Even at a low interest rate. I’ve not re-searches it so maybe am wrong. A 10k bonus would be fantastic. But seems to good to be true to me.
I think grants are also a bit safer than loans. If you couldn’t pay it they wouldn’t come and take you car sort of thing.. but again am not an expert in this so I could be wrong. But I think the low interest rate and that is the difference to a loan.
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Trouble is that there not just going to give cash out willy nilly.
We are a limited company and I think we can no apply for a grant of up to 10k but we have to pay it back, so right now I would rather not.
With PAYE you can put your payment on hold for 3 months, which to them is great. But for the £600 it saves me, it’s not going to get me out of a hole if I need it. Barely even covers half the rent for one month.Just typical governments unfortunately. Always come out with amazing headlines with the we’re going to put 300 million into small business blah blah blah. But what it actually means is a small discount on something your going to have to pay eventually.
That’s my feelings on it anyway.
My current plan of action is to badger all accounts to pay as soon as possible.
Pay the boys.
Pay my landlord.
Avoid the vat bill if I feel I need to.
Clamp down on all unnecessary purchases
Call my landlord if things get bad and explain I will get him his money one day. Please bear with me.
We do a lot of garments, so our extra hand in that department is in trouble. Most of it is sports clubs, dance schools and events. If it gets to a tipping point I will offer him 2 days a week until I can get things going again and not take any holidays off him. Hopefully that will reduce cost a little that I don’t have to tell him it’s game over completely and he will under stand.Once things settle down I think I will offer local restaurants/bars/clubs a 30 day term to pay bills on promotion spreaders, such as banners, flyers, window graphics etc.. small cost lower risk items with a ok mark up to get things going.
And am not sure what else I can do than that. If we are ordered to shut down completely we are insured.. supposedly anyway. I don’t know if I would want to claim it. If we get backed into a corner then I will have to.
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200,001 now. Am home. Woke up with a headache this morning. Thought it was my neck from sleeping funny. Now have a temp coming and going and a wee bit short of breath. Hopefully just the flu.
Had to set the boys up with everything I could and bail. Just have to try and manage things from home.
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quote David Hammond:Central government will be distributing funds to local authorities, probably April. If you’re eligible for SMBRR you should get it. Increased from 3k to 10k.quote :Support for businesses who pay little or no business rates
The government will provide an additional £2.2 billion funding for local authorities to support small businesses that already pay little or no business rates because of Small Business Rate Relief (SBBR). This will provide a one-off grant of £3,000 to business currently eligible for SBRR or Rural Rate Relief, to help meet their ongoing business costs.If your business is eligible for SBRR or Rural Business Rate Relief, you will be contacted by your local authority – you do not need to apply.
Funding for the scheme will be provided to local authorities by government in early April. We will update gov.uk with details as these are decided
Ah. Am in Scotland so I’ll need to wait for SNP to copy the policy…. *sigh*
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quote David Hammond:Reassuring to hear we should receive a £10,000 grant, which will help.
Oh aye mr Hammond, where did you hear that? Could be handy.
I don’t think it’s down to climate as I think Spain and Italy are still fairly warm at this time of year. Not much colder than our spring I think, but am not very well traveled so could be talking rubbish.
We do work for MP’s and for the first time about to send some emails to put my view across. Surely there is some way of doing test kits of some sort. Even 5 days to get negative results is better than 14 days.
I totally agree pane, I don’t want to be the person that takes someone’s lives that I’ve passed by or bought some screws off or whatever as I put my business first. That would be a huge burden on me for the rest of my life.. but at the same time isolating for 14 days for what could be the common cold and watching everything I’ve spent 4 years building is a bit hard to swallow.Fingers crossed no colds in my house hold.
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quote Phill Fenton:So the latest figures are 71 coronavirus deaths in the UK amongst a total of 55,000 suspected cases
Is no one doing the maths? Thats a mortality rate of 0.13% i.e no worse than flu. So why the massive over-reaction? All that is happening is businesses are going bust because of a virus that’s not the killer virus it was made out to be?
Like I said – the world has gone mad. Hopefully sanity will be restored before the economy collapses and we all die of starvation…
Am starting to agree Phil. On one hand it’s like they know something we don’t.
On the other hand if I get a common cold and have to self isolate for 14 days whilst everyone else is running.. we’re absolutely up the river with clients. There not going to be happy. Unless one of you guys want to come step in whilst I watch everything there is on Netflix? -
quote Wayne Maxwell:Everyone what’s your thoughts on this. Do we have to close for a few weeks.. What if like me your self employed.. Where do we stand? Or is it all just madness?
It doesn’t seem to be madness over in Italy. If you go for the more European news channels there are people dying, of various ages. A lot of very sick people. One guy, who looked no older than 30, had his sister die in her bed at home, no one would come and collect her until his post went out on social media. So I think it is a bit more serious than we are maybe being told. On the other hand sometimes news is click bait and some people like the attention on things that quite often turn out not to be true.
But I think when we are told to close up everyone else will be in the same boat. I have some money in reserve, but not enough to pay all the bills and last 3 or 4 months with no income. So myself and the boys wages will come first. Landlord will just need to wait, HMRC can suck a ****. Thankfully for most of our suppliers our accounts are clear or fairly clear which is good news for them.
I suppose the good news is if we are all off work for 2 months, 3 months whatever, there shouldn’t be a gas man around to disconnect your gas, or your electric. Broadband shouldn’t be cut off either as there will be no one in the office if bills weren’t paid. That’s my view on it anyway. Of course as things return to normal I will pay anything unpaid but am sure many will be in the same boat and that’s just that. It will be slow business wise coming back. Am already thinking on offering people "30 days" on things like flyers, banners etc.. when coming back to help get the ball rolling. Of course with customers I know fairly well.
I think it will go one of two ways now in the uk with all major countries over the channel shutting down, flights to and from America cancelled. It’s either going to slowly come to a end here in the uk because of this.. or we are about to be hit just as hard.
There is a self employed subsidy of up to 2 weeks I believe, but I bet it’s a pain in the arse to apply for and won’t be in your bank straight away.
That’s my take on it all. Not panic bought but we have stocked up on a few things incase the worse happens. I have kids in house and they need to eat ill or not.. and we will just follow the crowd
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quote Dan Osterbery:We are now in lockdown in menorca, so I dont think we will be doing much in the next month or so. Just waiting for clarification as to what we can do, although most jobs, meetings have been cancelled. Just have to wait and see I guess.
Best place to be really if everyone is shut down. Least everyone is in the same boat.
Problem I see right now is it’s cold season anyway. There’s only 4 of us. Desperately over subscribed at the moment. If I lose 1 person for 7 days or even myself we are going to end up letting down some major clients of mine. It’s a big worry. Was hoping to make it to April where I have purposely put in a bit of gap/rest for us to put out for additional staff at that point. -
£50 says we’ll all be told to close by the end of the week (well next week I know it Saturday)
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quote Iain George:Let’s hope people don’t realise that all the IPA we have in 5 Ltr bottles can be used a hand sanitisers !!
Surely being a sign writer is the safest profession this now. Might as well drink the stuff considering how much I inhale a day.
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Starting to notice now. That’s 2 fleets on hold for April.. which frees up some space in April now which is nice I think but at the same time don’t disappointing.
To be fair fleet number two also pointed the finger at brexit.
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quote Robert Lambie:quote Chris Wilson:Hopefully it’s a seasonal thing. Like bird flu and swine flu has been in the past (which I had btw and it was pretty rough)
not that I am paranoid, but you did wash your hands before typing this, didn’t you? 😆 😉
No I’ve not washed my hands in a few weeks. Everyone likes eating there nose boggies to right?
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The good news is we are all in the same boat. If we need to shut as is being thrown around then surely customer would to.
In other good news the amount of Co2 China has been producing is massively down as a lot of factories are shut.
Other that what can you do. Just got to get on with it and hope it doesn’t turn into a mad killer strain and no one we know passes away. Hopefully it’s a seasonal thing. Like bird flu and swine flu has been in the past (which I had btw and it was pretty rough)
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Yea been there a few times. Including the leg. Was trimming some worktops I’d wrapped for a mate.. so was in the marriage proposal position. End of the scalpel caught the excess material and shot up in the air spinning away and straight in above the knee.
Was just surprised it opened itself up on my pocket. Always thought it was fairly safe place to be. Could of been worse, could of been the man hood or my wee girls face.
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quote Jason Davies:Thanks, it’s not worth laminating, it’s more a favour for a very good client. Numbers are too low for flex. I have a sample coming from Spandex, somebody also mentioned Roland, not sure if this is available in the UK though
Pretty sure Grafityp sell one. Slightly cheaper than monomeric. Most likely be able to get a 5m roll of them to.
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I find you need to work from the centre out and half push it down first time, left, right, and then slam the centre down. Gets rid of that. For me anyway. Also put the bottom part on first.. although I can’t see the making any difference.
We use ultima. Cheap and normally fast service. Worst accounts department though. Lost my mind on many occasions.
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quote Kevin Mahoney:quote Martyn Heath:Seems everyone can do our job. Maybe we arnt as clever as we think.
Not sure where I stand on this one. I worried about stepping on printers toes when we started offering business cards after outsourcing them for years. How many of us offer stationery or clothing as an add on? If a business decides to diversify into something else & it’s not done well, they soon back off from it.
Wrapping is definitely not for the faint hearted with the risk of damage to expensive vehicles, not to mention the cost of materials. I pick my battles now, if the amateur wrapper wants to undercut me, they can have it. I can put my feet up & earn nothing much easier than wrapping a van & earning nothing. Whenever I see a job we lost & it’s a mess, I just enjoy an evil grin.Ditto. And we have supplied vehicle graphics for fit by customer a few times and each time they call the next day to book it in and can you please re-cut the passenger side.
Also used MDP for flat cut letters. It feels cheap compared to skybond.
We had to get one sent again as locators had all fallen off in the post. We plaque that was squint to.
We use someone local for trays, but for a the word "toilet" in 5mm acrylic they are very handy instead of ordering a sheet. Also as david said very quick. -
Used Corel draw for years.
Never had a trial on signlab but I can’t imagine it can do anything more or less than Corel can.. and same with AI.Business partner uses AI. Corel exports in much smaller file sizes, but doesn’t seem to effect quality anyway. Maybe that’s a setting somewhere but I know I’d rather rip a 1,000kb file than a 250,000kb file anyway.
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Avery have a app you can download for free with all the colours/films pantones and cymk etc…
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quote :4 garments will be more expensive per unit than 100.
It’s always January and February. Either people are still riding the waves of there drunken ideas before the reality of money comes crashing down or maybe they think we are so quite we would be desperate to make a loss *rollseyes*
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quote Phill Fenton:quote Chris Wilson:I’d say maybe as high as 95% that we quote we win. Not through being cheap just am quick to reply, we bit of time explaining our pro’s I.e we’re going to use a cast on your van which has a 8 year life span etc etc
Are you sure you’ve lost out or have the enquiries simply deferred making a decision yet? I say this because January is traditionally a difficult month for cashflow and results in a cutback on non essential spending. Taxman and employees wages take priority at this time of year when funds tend to be low following the Christmas and new year break. I would hang tight, you’ll be surprised at how many jobs you quoted that you thought had gone elsewhere will come trickling through in the next few weeks
Absolutely. We’ve had it plenty of times. Along with the phone calls of 100 hoodies, the "I can get them for £6" rubbish and then they come in weeks later with the "am only going to order 4 this now" *sighs*
Along side my rant just wondered how others would respond. Don’t want to come across arrogant and I don’t need your work but at the same time don’t want to see a google review for not responding to emails. But paying for logos to be vectorised for such a cheap job is just madness. As david says, clearly others are quite.
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Xpres product hot flex is it not. In which case your heat press is fine.
Call Kim at victory design. Siser but unbranded. We switch about 2 years ago. No issues to my knowledge.
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Yea got it to Phil and had a look. Basically paying £40 for thin air.
If it was a couple hundred I would tell them to go whistle. Must be on a Scottish crack down.
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quote Richard Urquhart:Thanks guys I did send an over the top email before I posted on here and amazingly the full amount has been paid, the tricky bit they need lots more vans doing and I won’t now offer them credit !
That’s the big dent on the pride that one.. cos if you don’t they might go somewhere else.. if you do it can end up being same game all over again.
Might be worth giving them a call and explaining and getting deposit on first two or something and then the rest at the agreed date.. miss the date it’s really is game over. I think that’s what I would do anyway. Of course if I got a crappy response on the phone and bad attitude then I’d pull the plug.
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quote David Hammond:Sorry to interrupt…
Would you fit a bottom rail on this Hugh, and would you fit it into the frame of brickwork?
Personally I would go brick work and over the top with the fixing points for the sign frame. I wouldn’t be keen going into those frames.
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quote Hugh Potter:quote Daniel Evans:Hi Hugh
Not sure I follow, could you email an example?
Something basic like this, this took about 15mins, 5 mins was deciding what name to call the shop 😆 😆
Thank god you didn’t use comic sans [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
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We use stripe. It’s online. Get our money in 3 days. No up front costs.
Do somewhere around 6k a month in card payments and cost about £22 a month give or take. Can link in with a website and not had any brand of card rejected yet. And if we don’t use it we don’t pay a penny. -
At £7.50 please spill the beans. Is service reliable and quality good?
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Normal protractible scalpel for me I find and a good old 10a blade.
We cut in the reverse as if you slip you have a nice knife mark on the face.
We also have cut proof gloves that we got from screwfix. About £10 for a pair and they work. As a man who has had a full blade in just about the knee let alone countless fingers I can’t recommend them enough.
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Edge racer from Signgeer. Best £50 you’ll ever spend!
We score but normally only 2-3 times. Not 10. Takes very little to snap it clean.
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quote Pane Talev:Hi Chris,
Thanks for writing.
I’m 90grams lighter, hence the wrinkles.
Will go back today. Remove magnets, laminate and then see the results.
If you are taking your pull up stand down, please email photos of the top hanger and the bottom kicker part.Ah sorry this was from a few months back. Client have it now.
I was surprised when I looked into them that it was magnetic. I thought it would be some sort of clip system and you would pull it tight, but I suppose for one person that would be a nightmare to put up.
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Only done one and we used a 400GSM back lit pop up banner.
We didn’t laminate and had all the right stuff as it was new.
It does take a lot longer to put together than you would expect. Trim and mounting wise prob get through about 10 pop ups an hour once there printed. This ended up taking me most of the day and it was only 6 pieces. Still worth it, but not many clients up here that want them I think.
Can’t say I noticed any tape coming through/shadow.
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Personal I would consider MDX as cheap but fast to install. I believe it’s some sort of hybrid cast that’s not actually a cast but will cope with that.
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I’d send them a wee short questioner asking for details such as colours/fonts/ tray/3D letters and even budget. And if they don’t fill it out artwork will be charged at £30 per hour for however many hours it takes and if doesn’t go ahead there will still be a bill. Big bug bear in office is when you ask questions and they reply with "just something that looks cool" or "something modern" so ask again and get sent the same reply or completely ignored and start telling you when they need it installed.
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You’ll be fine with 800. Arches are not as deep as impact make them look.
You do have the narrow and very thin stripe at the top of the van. You could give it a dam good clean with IPA and feed it in and just explain to the customer that it is a small tight groove so there’s not much contact area for the vinyl, or you could cut the thin strip out and it again above reason is why you did that.
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If you are not estimating we use Trello as it was recommended on here. Increased our production of last 6 months with it. It’s free
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Fitted a sign once and I think they were open for 1 day.. maybe 2.
Think a lot of people do there cash flow best case (fairyland) get a loan and then spend the cash. I know my landlord once rented a unit to a guy who immediately went and bought himself a top of the range Audi.. then couldn’t pay the £400 rent and was put after 3 months.
It’s a shame. Business is a tough gig.
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I thought it looked nice when I did it haha…
But nah I bet that was mega money and I bet it’s gone one of two ways. It’s either not paid, or they where the biggest pain in hoop and only paid a part of it.
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My bet is glue or VHB tape or similar.
Also willing to bet that the old sign is still in the channel. -
We use hoarding board for pitch side boards, sort term signs like health and safety signs if it’s not on rails.
Long term flat signs skybond lite
Trays need to be skybond as they can fold. The other 2 can not.
Hoarding board has a bare aluminium one side and then I want to say matt finish white on the other, but maybe it’s gloss… my Christmas break mind can’t remember, the other 2 have a matt finish one side, gloss the other.
Hoarding board can still warp in the sun so will need to put more screws in. -
If your thinking about re-building this and borrowing I would go with something new/second user. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost but new head, cap station the works and a engineers fee its going to be 3k minimum I would of thought. And if they doesn’t work and it’s the lines or goodness know what else your even more out of pocket, more down time etc..
I’ve seen a few SG300 ex demo machines knocking about for not much more than that, plenty of the bigger size to.
I’ve heard of people using IPA on heads before. Moving left to right with the swab. Am sure I read Kevin on here has tried various things not so recommend and brought machines back to life. If your at rock bottom with it you might as well try. I would.
But I does still sound like and look like all the other bits are clogg up to. -
Hey Paul,
Roland user here but we have a cut adjust on our machine. Should be the same with yours, I’d YouTube it, do the test print as it could be out.
Cheap media could be another reason as it will stretch/shrink with the heat. If your printing and cutting straight away try printing some off today and then cutting tomorrow and see if that makes a difference.
Blade depth. If it’s to far out the holder it could be part of the problem.
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Museo 500 and must be a bold option although I don’t have it.
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It’s a tough old game.
I think if it’s not stinking fishy then it’s fair game in many ways. We all Got to eat. If someone came in and asked me for 500 comfort labels I would be lifting my eyebrows.
We get “local” bands in for merch every other day. Can’t say I look any of them up and also can’t say am up to date with the latest young acts coming up through the ranks. So maybe am guilty already.
I agree though. Unless it’s like the case where it’s incredibly obvious or someone looking to have a full police livery on there 2002 Ford Fiesta (saw a Facebook clip on a fake ambulance recently, looked fairly accurate on the signwriting) it shouldn’t be us taking the hit in anyway. We’ve effectively been scammed as well.
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Don’t know if there is and not sure if it would work to be honest as I once heated application thinking I was being smart and it left a weird imprint/mark on the bit of vinyl.
Is there no way you can cut to relive some tension/bunching in certain areas? Or remove the tape and heat from there? Am guessing it’s cast or a wrap? Mind you even polymeric with go flat with a wee heat.
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Roof yes as it can be seen on a small van.
Oracal 970RA is couple £££’s cheaper than others and not a bad film I think.
Metamark MDX is cheap. I actually enjoy working with it but there are certain limits on its conformity compared to Arlon SLX.
But am no master wrapper and self-taught!
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quote Luke Culpin:With that logo in particular, I would start at the flat panel, then work up. Then back to the bottom section, which should be made easier as you are able to cut the graphic where it passes over the wheel arch.
Ditto.
Also found when applying on curved panels and using a curved/circle graphic to go on a half moon shape with the squeegee.
The other way to do it of course would be to run some knifeless tape down the recess and print it in 2 sections with a 10-20mm over lap. Bottom down first and top next. But this would only work on Renault traffic for example on flat section of recess. Takes longer but removes any stress in that recess area also.
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One thing on “the list” to build. We went as far as getting some PC fans…..
Anyway took our inspiration for another local sign maker. However they didn’t build anything in at the top. Basically like a vase that it was plonked into and the fans blew up the way.
Lee was saying (boy who built it) that they are printing and laminating wrap in 24hrs and to be fair to them I’ve never seen any of there vans popping out or peeling.
Contamination wise, we have very soft cotton gloves we wear with laminating. Put the machine on auto and wipe back and forth for any hairs etc.. appearing. Always worked well. I did see some sort of yellow tool roller type thing for this o Instagram a while back to.
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Did Burger King get bought by MacDonalds recently or something.. did I miss some this news? seem to remember they were recent stopped sales of here whopper or something to support MacDonalds raise money for breast cancer or something along those lines… hats off if not very sporting.
Might be light hearted but there still showing off the competitors name here… -
By looks of it others are similar to us.
We have 3 folders:
Artwork (Corel files with everything)
Digital print (actual files printed)
Graphtec (cut vinyl files)In each we have a-z and then in each the customers own folder.
We then name things like pop up banner may 2019.To go with this we have trello which we have started using so every enquiry goes in there on one “thread” the. We have garments, sign workshop etc.. and the jobs get filtered as and when required.
Before this we had a XCel sheet with 3 tabs. Litho, garments and signs.
Every job goes on as soon as a price is agreed or the order comes through.Customer name/ job (ie signs, pop up etc) value and then a box for invoice number. All colour coded. So orange job has been started. Green is done. Purple box on the invoice number means it’s been sent to the customer.
Quite handy as everything is there in front of me. So I can see, oh we have 12 pop up banner jobs in and I only have 8 cassettes, better get them ordered. Very quick to see who has been invoiced and also that no one has been missed by mistake and getting a freebie.
Trello is good for the Boys as we can create a checklist of bit of the job. Make notes such as printed on 24/10 so we know gasing our times etc.. all the lads have it on there phone and every aspect of the job is now in there. Saves typing out a job sheet.
Not sure how am going to cross over my xCel sheet into Trello just yet. So used to it. I would imaging it would be a pain in the arse opening every job to see the list of garments needing to be ordered. With xCel it’s in front of me in a big list.Also with our invoices we give a pretty accurate description I.e 2000mm x 1000mm skybond matt black face sign with 799 cast vinyl as per proof. There’s then no confusing of it was re-ordered again and we just have to type in the customers name to QuickBooks and boom. There it is. Quick and easy. No searching.
Possibly better ways of doing it and Trello is helping push the boys a bit faster and possibly more relaxing for them instead of trying to peace bits of info together at times.
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Screw fix have nice big foam cushion things. We have a few, just whip them under the knees. Or a ramp and one of those little seats. A detailer showed me a ramp for just over a £1,000 the other day.
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+1 for Trello. Using it for 3 weeks now. Improved work flow for sure
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quote James Boden:quote David Stevenson:quote Alex Crosbie:A stand-alone cutter would remove the bottle neck….. print and cut machines are good at space saving but painfully slow, you could get rid of the XR and replace it with a cutter.
The ej will happily print multiple rolls of material per day and a stand-alone cutter will be much faster than the XR.
Unless I’m missing something! Always happy to be proved wrong
It’s hard to see Alex but there a GR640 cutter hiding in the corner. It has a really useful but annoying feature. When we make stickers we normally gang up as many as will fit on a a4 sheet or there abouts then add a perf line around the outside edge. This means when we remove them from the sheet we’re left with a very well presented sheet which also saves man hours by having the machine cut them. The problem is that the GR has 2 blade positions. The 1st is for normal cuts and puts the blade down on the cutting strip. When you ask it to perf you have to change the blade position which allows it to go into a channel which avoids destroying the cutting strip as your cutting right through. To keep accuracy up the max sheet length recommended is 1.5m. It’s like playing the bloody hokey pokey moving the blade about. No way to bypass this really annoying feature which is a real pain in the ass. We don’t have to change the cutting strip very often on the XR and it perfs thousands of stickers!!!
David, how do you perf stickers? Is that an option only on the XR or can I do that in VersaWorks with my VSi?
We can do it on the vs. Different cut line setting (code) and then it pops up on cut controls.
Should be plenty of YouTube videos for setting it up. -
Paper can’t help with other than say been there before…
But we run the 3164 from orajet for labels and stickers. Has a thicker backing paper I think so stops the cockling.. compared to the cheap monos we have had anyway.
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Yea.. that’s must be one happy customer. Outstanding.
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[quote="Daniel Evans"
I’m thinking £425+vatDan[/quote]
Give or take a £1 seems fair to me for good few hours of work and materials.
Agreed with using higher grade than hoarding board though.
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Clear business and we are £45 a month for the two. Transferred our number when moving unit.
Internet could be faster some days being honest, but I think that’s more due to our location, 3 computers running off it and 4 phones. -
Well I don’t know very much.
If the machine has been sitting for a while it could be ink dependent.
We had a similar issue with our vs. Expect in working order. Blue suddenly dropped out. New head. Ok for few prints. Blue gone again. New head and all the trimmings. Nothing. Replaced all the lines. New ink, complete clean out, new head again and BAM no issues since. Our Roland engineer thinks that flakes of ink stuck to the ink lines has flaked off (apparently this happens) and was sitting on top of the head. When he replaced the head it just pulled more through.
And that’s why the nozzles where bouncing around in and out. Or a thick ink that had gone wrong.Thankfully we pay for cover… otherwise I’d be living in a cardboard box.. with all my duff heads of course.
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MDP are very quick with there acrylic.
If we have a fair sized job on I tend to order a full sheet of and cut out of that and use the off cuts until they are gone.
But as David says it is messy. We had to buy a blade for the table saw so it doesn’t shred it. Then we flame polish each edge. It does take time. It is also fairly expensive for a full sheet that can sit for a while.
I think if I had a job of 30 small signs for a doors I would just suck up the cost and use MDP and get on with other jobs till it arrives -
Artwork in vector format or more money please.
Restrictions I.e can’t park close by between 9am and 3pm (some silly rule we have in our town centre) although I suppose that would fall under your installation.
… am struggling now though. Though question.
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We always have rolls of the Grafityp easy hem tape knocking around. Think it’s a closer to £5 a roll than it is £10. Does the job/odd jobs.
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It is a little bit harsh but clearly sales driven.
Am sure lots of people will trade the machine in and upgrade. There will be plenty of “offers” kicking around soon.
To be honest it just puts me off them more. We can live with prints sitting for 2 days or so. I personally feel Roland have our back. Even if we do pay for it. Machine get serviced once a year, covered for all parts and they are still supplying eco sol 1.. and we’re on 3.
Feel for you. Crap game to play with customers.
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Pretty sure grafitpy do a glitter type laminate. You could just buy gloss white and then laminate.
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We have banners across our high street. We don’t do them, but as far as I know they are made by Montrose rope and sail. There is a loop top and bottom with steel cable like shown above running through each. They are stitched and not taped. Someone locally is re-applying graphics and then the council fit them. Must be the same banners that have been up for years. Quite thick, thicker than anything we print on anyway or had samples of. Not a mesh either. Could be as much as 800GSM.
Anyway sure it used to be Montrose rope and sail that did these sort of things so might be worth giving them a call as they do the job all year round. We quite often get 70-100mph winds this far north.
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Think it’s much harder to discount if you are at the lowest price you want to go already.
I’ve bumped my 1/2 meter prices up, so that my discounted prices are more inline with what we need to and should be making.Big signage jobs does come down to the customer. How busy we are/ the profile of the customer etc.. I have a price for 8ft x 4ft composite sheets printed and ready to go and if there is 3 or 4 i don’t discount and then add on our “labour” cost and that’s the price. I don’t break things down though. I given them a all inclusive price. Am sure plenty of customers thing me and the lads should be on £8.20 an hour and material should be cost. So I don’t give them a way in by breaking it down.
I also work in sheet size. If a sign is 2m x 1m there paying for a full sheet and that’s that.
Also learning hagglers are not worth the hassle. If it starts of with them being a pain it’s only going to get worse.
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Yea downloaded it and giving it a go now. Just don’t want to get 75 jobs in and find that’s the limit… although I see there is a gold option.. looks good though.
We’ve sort of reach capacity again and it’s going to end up a mess. Need the boys to take on more with information in front of them. -
Just taking a wee browse through this and it is the free version you are using? Not another version am missing?
How many jobs can you have on the board at once. With our enquires/litho printing and garments we are normally on about 100 jobs at any all at various stages. Some just one t-shirt but if am going to move to this can’t really be missed or it will be forgotten.Xcel sheet is getting out dated, not enough info for the lads. Job sheets take to long for me to write out.
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Could be wrong but I did notice in a catalog recently that a few garment films are not latex suitable and then others that were but more expensive. Didn’t read to much info as we are on solvent but something in back of my mind to look at when upgrade time comes.
I just know I have a few customers that know what they want. They’ve had lots of it before and god help us all if the yellow tone in the print changed ever so slightly. Am sure you could match it with some tweaking but it’s time at end of the day. Even worse if it makes it to a big bundle of tops and they kick up a stink.
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Victory design- colour print pu satin finish.
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We only removed the stand for weight and to make it less awkward. To be honest not sure if the tape would of done much if it was moved quickly or dropped but she survived.
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We just moved our VS. Taped the head so it could move (not the actual head) took the stand off. 4 boys and kept it very flat. Very slow drive. Straight in and straight on. All was ok.
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We do these all the time for a local theatre. Biggest window/print is 4.5m x 2.3m and we strip and the clean that in about 45 minutes.
