[David McDonald]

Hi

Use 6-pass and this will very likely have a lower saturation level set anyway so will save you some ink and speed up the print. Depending what RIP software you have you can also change the saturation setting in that. Lowering the resolution won’t really have the same effect.

The ink cost saving will be quite small though – I’d do it for the speed rather than saving some ink.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

As mentioned already the Mactac WW300 works really well.

We’ve also used a fair amount of Vion 3000 and 5000 Hi-tack from Wm.Smith and again that works really well on more difficult surfaces.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

If we kept it in house we’d go with the laser cutting of thick black press rolled card, satin finish both sides and then use the left over matrix from the laser cutting as the jig on the flatbed UV to print with white ink base and CMYK over the top as needed. I reckon with careful alignment it would be possible to get a 0.2 to 0.3mm tolerance.

I like the idea of a curved edge and curved scale and I can see how it looks better and could give greater accuracy but why not go with something like the attached – drop it into the tread and rock left and right – I think he double curved line will account for the fact that they may not have the vertical centre line of the card in line with a radius from the centre of the wheel. I don’t think the incremental curvature will need to be so pronounced as I’ve shown it though – a little experimentation would be needed.

Hey presto just get cheap business cards printed!

Just a thought

Cheers
Dave

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Attachments:

[David McDonald]

Thanks Justin

Much appreciated.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

3M 467MP is excellent for sticking acrylic to acrylic – comes in sheets or rolls. We often stick 2 sheets of acrylic together together and then laser cut them as one for thicker letters etc. Never had any failures on external items after many years.

For bonding the letters to the tray then the red backed style VHB/UHB tape is about as good as any other method, 3M original of course but the likes NovaBond SignFix LSE 80 from innova is really good and cheaper. (everyone does their own version).

I’ve not come across a single D/S tape that will do both jobs equally well. May be someone else on the boards knows of one.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

If you have the previous skin does it really matter? Just send that off to whoever is making it up for you and ask them to match the pole / rod pockets etc. etc.

The likes of Superwide should be able to do it.

Just a thought

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

(a) make the sign tray with an extra upward return lip on the very top edge

or (b) fix a length of ‘L’ angle on the top return edge (covered in the same vinyl as the tray)

either way gives you something to face fix into – you might need to get a longer bit for your drill to fit into the gap.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

The £1.80 was per square metre. Working that back to the cost of a cartridge then we are averaging circa 14 cc per square metre so a cc works out at £0.129 each – so not too dissimilar to what Chris has said.

Cheers

[David McDonald]

Hi Martyn

Never had a Mutoh but that seems pretty steep.

HP Latex inks on our 560 average around £1.80 + VAT per square across the range of what we are printing.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi Colin

We often make a surrounding frame out of aluminium L angle, mitred at the corners, and about 50mm bigger all round. We pre-drill fixings holes in the angle to match the eyelet marks in our designs and then bungee or cable tie in place. Its then quick and easy to swap banners and its usually quicker to fix the frame in place than having one eye bolt for every eyelet in the banner. Occasionally we will V-groove alicomp and install it as covers over the gap around the banner – looks a bit better but slows down the swap over.

I’ve seen somewhere you can buy "banner rails" to do the same job – they are like L angle but the side that would be projecting forwards is just continual wire hoops so you have flexibility for teh eyelets to be positioned anywhere.

Good Luck
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi Phill

We had some tins of spray adhesive for carpet and I noticed on the back that one of its other suggested uses was to spray onto exactly this type of material – I’m guessing to hold the fibres in place and stop them becoming airborne ??

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

Flexo ?

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Thanks Andrew, an excellent response.

[David McDonald]

Hi Gary

Wouldn’t mind if you could PM me the same information?

We’ve had HP latex as our primary roll to roll printers for years, 25500, then 360’s and now 560’s. We’ve never really had any problems we could attribute to not gassing out before laminating, the odd ‘oily’ print requiring lower saturation and/or increasing the curing temp but even then very few and far between. Just a bit worried now that we are storing up a potential future problem that could come back to bite us! That said we do currently remain very happy with with the HP Latex and virtually every print comes straight off and into the laminator.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

I was called by them on Thursday.

After saying we don’t ever listen to music she proceeded to list off about 50 increasingly unlikely scenarios as to how music could be heard by staff & customers. Could a stray dog that had swallowed an i-pod wander into the workplace and the staff could listed to the music???? (joking but not far off)

I got fed up answering no, no, no, no, no ……………… then hung up.

Thing was we had the office side door open onto the FedEx parking spaces outside, and the vans were pulling up with radios booming out – surprised she didn’t ask where the music was coming from in the background.

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Thanks for the replies.

In the end they were after a whole wall to be suitable for magnets to stick to and also to have a dry-wipe finish, initially thought it was magnetic wallpaper. We have quoted for the MAGwite product.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi Russell

Try http://www.uvprinterbuyer.com

Speak to Graham, we’ve found him to be very helpful. They always have stock of used Arizona’s.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Big thumbs up for Applelec – we’ve had some big stuff from them and always very high quality.

I’m sure if you speak to them they will be able to guide you on an enhanced / more durable construction for letters that are going in an extremely exposed location with difficult access etc. The Sloan LED’s they use are warranted for 5-years so that’s a big plus.

The job sounds like it will be a significantly large investment for your customer but depending on how much margin you are making and your view on the risk of needing to go back and fix anything it might be best to exclude the cost of any access equipment hire from any warranty calls.

I’d be tempted to also pay a structural engineer to formally specify the type and volume of fixings for the building substrate suitable for the weight/square area/construction of the letters.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi Shawn

Thanks for asking, I’ve sent you and e-mail.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

This was a good number of years back in our early development and I had a Golf Course that owed us a very large amount.

I quickly put together a web site called xxxxgolfcoursedontpay.co.uk, explaining what the sign job was, how much we were were owed and the long history of the promises made and failed in respect of payment (it went on and on) – hasten to add that we made sure everything was 100% factually correct and expressed no bias.

We then posed questions / statements below such as

Suppliers – after reading the above consider on what terms you will supply your goods and services
Golfers – before paying your 12 months membership in advance you may wish to consider the viability of the golf club if it wont pay its bills.
etc. etc. etc.

We then mailed them a link to our website, plus a mock up of our vans with big banners on the side parked outside their entrance on the public road – the banners directed people to the website to for an interesting story on the golf club.

They came back to us straight away and paid the majority of the money and we took down the website – they even congratulated us on our efforts to persuade them to pay! We never got the full balance and I think a month later they went into a pre-pack administration and we found out we would have only got 5p in the pound if we hadn’t done something. We probably didn’t help their cause but at the time the debt genuinely threatened the viability of my company so no scruples overall.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Some positive feedback on this product;

We had to re-visit a job on internal glass office partitions that were finished with regular clear laminate over the prints. Unfortunately the surface scuff marks left by our squeegees looked really obvious, unsightly, and didn’t fade out as you would normally expect after a few days. Think it was because the office was unusually warm upon installation and the other laminate was very soft and was prone to deeper marking even from new felt squeegees. The lighting in the office really highlighted the marks.

We stripped it and did it again with the Protac anti-scratch laminate and it really does do what it says on the tin – no matter what pressure you apply there isn’t the slightest application mark on the material surface, and in tests at the workshop it was hard to make any mark whatever you tried attacking it with. It is very surface hard and we are pretty sure it will be very scratch resistant on more demanding installations than the office partitions we completed.

It’s quite thick and rigid – we did it dry and this thickness made it very easy to get excellent results with only the slightest hint of application marks / silvering in the adhesive.

The only down side was having to order a 100m roll from the distributor as they didn’t have any shorter rolls in stock, although I’m sure we will use it.

Also when we were laminating the prints with it we had to make sure that everything was 100% tensioned and straight as vinyl laminate can accommodate a little skewing and correction through our machine whereas the Protac being a polyester and thick it couldn’t without causing a wrinkle. Not a problem to sort and we should be making sure the laminator is always loaded correctly anyway!

Overall very impressed, you get what you pay for.

Anyhow just thought I’d share.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi Phil

Thanks for your posts on this subject – extremely interesting.

Taking the plunge on a Creality 5s very shortly (500mm^3 version). I’m planning on using ASA filament for outdoor use and will be facing letters with acrylic as I don’t like the ‘hatch fill’ effect on the final solid print face. Planning on building an acrylic enclosure to keep the heated bed constant temp and will also have a play with building an acetone vapour cabinet for smoothing.

Looks easy to get your first print off – looks hard to understand all the intricacies of settings to get the correct balance of quality (viewing distances), speed etc. I can see a lot of experimentation on wall thicknesses and internal infill / supports to create larger durable letters and also how this impacts their internal illumination.

Can I ask what 3D and slicer software you use? I like the look of Fusion 360 and Simplify3D

If its all rubbish then I’ll share, if its brilliant and a money maker then I’ll keep quiet!!

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

We operate along these lines:-

All holidays are signed off at our discretion but not to be unreasonably declined. The consideration is based on needs of the business, the total amount of staff on holiday at the same time, the number on holiday in the same department at the same time, and the notice period given. How people work,their flexibility with us, counts for a lot in these considerations.

Minimum 2 week notice for any time off otherwise requests probably declined.

More than 2 consecutive weeks in exceptional circumstances only and with maximum notice.

We close between Christmas and New Year and its mandatory to take these days as holiday

3 day maximum carry over on holiday days (or brought forward form next year) and then they need a good reason and all subject to the ‘needs of the business’ consideration.

Strictly first come first serve forms on my desk – dont book/pay for anything until your dates are signed off – otherwise its your risk losing your money!

If you add up holiday days and the average number of sick days then yes if spread out we’d have someone off virtually all the time ! (to be fair we hardly ever have anyone off sick though).

I get whatever is left and spend the rest of the time back filling for people who are off !!!!!!!!

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

We’ve had this on 3 occasions over the years and all on black ACM, all of them on different brands from different suppliers but none of them were Di-lite.

It looked exactly like yours and it is very small surface pitting that leaves a much bigger circle of staining. We are going back to a site next week to wrap a fascia with black gloss vinyl – after its lightly sanded with the finest grit sandpaper you can’t see any physical blemish once the vinyl is over the top. This was for a job installed a few years back and we are doing it as a gesture of good will. Clearly a fault with the black top coat on the ACM but we can’t get anything back from our supplier as they had gone away (back now but trading under different ownership albeit using one of their historical names).

I’d try for a refund of the board cost from your supplier – the board should last at least 1 year! You’ll not get anything for your consequential costs though. Good luck.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

Has anyone used a 3D printed for adding braille text to a sign?

Just wondered how well this works.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi Warren

We have a large 4m x 2m CNC and it’s a beast of a unit that can process almost anything but it doesn’t have a camera. We cover the UV printer with cheap paper from Europoint and print wire frame templates for the shaped items we cut on the CNC, then lay/register the items on the paper and print onto the pre-cut items. Works really well with pixel perfect registration. Slightly longer process than having a camera though.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Anyone interested in this printer? Best offer via fleabay is coming in at £3650+VAT, was hoping for a bit more but if I’m letting it go for that then I’d rather sell it to someone on the boards!

Some of the ink has been used since my original post but still a good amount left in full and part carts.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

We have Onyx Postershop – not sure how that differs from Thrive, looks the same from your screen shot though.

Could it be that you have the ‘after printing’ toggle set to ‘delete job’, this is found on the print tab in job editor and the print setup button half way down the page?

Cheers
Dave

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Attachments:

[David McDonald]

Hi David

Sorry for the late response, all a bit busy at the moment.

Once the whole cord is a single loop then just feed parts back and forth until the tension is even all round – probably wont even be needed but its a simple process.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi David

Have done this loads of times and it works really well, the cords allow for the more irregular spacing of the fixings. Using a continuous bungee cord weaving its way back and forth through the fixings and eyelets allows you to adjust the tension when some fixings are closer to the banner and some are further away.

Sorry no photos of ones we’ve done

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Thanks for the pointers.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Don’t print the overlap lines – you will never get the registration so perfect that they wont show somewhere and when we use Versaworks we always use all corners as a default (we did some work on figuring out why along time ago but cant remember the reason why we thought this was the best default).

[David McDonald]

Hi

We’d print that as follows.

Sides – large horizontal tile from the back to the rear of the front door, circa 5-10cm to wrap over the top over the top, 5cm bleed to back, leaving a 1cm shared overlap around the height of the slider bar (or a bit lower) onto a lower horizontal tile of the same length bleeding to the scuff bar, then a slim strip for under the scuff bar. The entire side recess being contained within the top larger horizontal tile so no joins into the recess. The doors would be a single vertical drop, and the wings separate pieces. Some just carry the big horizontal tiles right forward across the doors and wings but I don’t like the look of joins in these places.

Rear – left and right full vertical drops with 1cm shared overlap, minimal bleed to sides and base and 5-10cm’s over the top.

Front – over cab and bonnet as separate pieces.

This tiles well into a 60" roll with minimal wastage, apart from some waste alongside one of the lower side tiles (not the bit under the scuff strip), but we usually find something to fill this space – perhaps some design element that we will decide to print and contour cut to avoid it distorting elsewhere when wrapping the slab pieces of vinyl, or bits for the rear hinges or the grille surround.

We mostly use Photoshop and make the files as large as we can ranging from 100 – 250 dpi at actual size, save it as a TIF and the combination of Onyx and our HP360 being a ‘contone’ printer (no idea) means it RIPS extremely quickly compared to using an .eps file.

Hope that helps

Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi James

What about some type of anti-graffiti paint or coating rather than a film? We haven’t ever used it ourselves but there does seem to be a good variety of options available. Quick Google search found this company that stocks a wide range:-

https://www.rawlinspaints.com/anti-graf … AvFW8P8HAQ

Might solve the graffiti problem but not sure if you will ever be able to change the cut vinyl on the signs if needed.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

I’d doubt you’d do it with cut vinyl. (Seems that is what you are planning). You would never keep registration between the cut parts. If you could layout a grid of knife tape I think it would give a messy finish and would be very time consuming.

Should be done as a single print and wrapped, the jagged edge being part of the printed design as well.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi James

Quick web search and looks like these guys could help:

Panel Systems Ltd – Head Office
Welland Close
Parkwood Industrial Estate
Rutland Road
Sheffield S3 9QY
—
Tel: 0114 249 5626

Cheers

[David McDonald]

Hi

We use Oracal 7510 in Fluorescent yellow, and I think they do other colours. It’s cast and pretty easy to work with. Can get it from Europoint and Tennants. Think it’s only 1260mm though.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

Another thumbs up for Metamark WA, have used loads and it works really well, prints great, easy to handle and very dimensionally stable.

Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

In your case, with your own business circumstances, then the answer appears to be don’t get one. We do have extended cover on our printers, always have had, I’m 100% sure we have the technical abilities within the team to fix the printers but I know that we can earn more than we would save by using all our time and efforts on selling, making and installing signs – plus sometimes the printers are all working round the clock and any additional downtime is a real pain. When I started I used to do everything as a good all rounder (and out of necessity) and over the last years it’s been a struggle to get out of this mindset and pass things onto other people – whether our own staff or as in this case machine support. However, the more time we free up the sell, make and install signs the better.

I agree that 3-weeks is a long time but I guess manufacturers have to draw the line at some point. I’m glad you managed to source the part elsewhere.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

We are currently racking out our new LWB Sprinter, have attached some photos below. It’s only half done but will post again when it’s finished and populated with tools, scaffold etc.

The unfinished side will have a slide in rack

Cheers
Macky

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Attachments:

[David McDonald]

Cheers James

Yes been a busy old year !

[David McDonald]

Hi Andy

To be honest I’m not 100% sure that we will need to use this type of product on this specific Arizona !

I’ve just read loads of general comments that potentially you need need to keep some around as certain types of substrate can be more tricky than others, especially correx??

I’m going to order a bottle just in case.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi John

Thanks – think I’ll tray a few different brands to see which performs best.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

Hi

We use 3M Scotchlok crimps to join wires, or seal the ends. They aren’t the cheapest but they are 100% reliable and waterproof as when you crimp them they release the built in silicon which seals everything. We have a tool for crimping them which keeps both sides of the jaws parallel so they crimp evenly but you can easily use pliers as long as you make sure the whole ‘button’ is evenly pushed in.

Think we get them from Europoint.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Tim

We always print with a 10mm overlap. It’s much easier for trimming and especially for installation.

End customers always ask us NOT to have overlaps but it isn’t like installing traditional pasted ‘paper’ style wallpaper where you have some ability to stretch and manipulate the wet paper to maintain a butt join even when the wall has slight undulations in the surface. Also as its vinyl, albeit good quality, it still may shrink slightly over time and hence the overlaps are better. The overlaps are hardly visible when finished anyway.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Tim

It is mostly Metamark MD-WA, Wall art, with the ‘Artisan’ textured surface. A self adhesive version with the air channels. Prints well on our latex and nice to handle and install.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi David

It was a prototype for the full size design – It was an RC car that they had whizzing around on the exhibition floor to promote the franchise.

Cheers Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

No idea if they are still going but we have used them in the long past and the quality was excellent.

We often get e-mail flyers from these guys:-

http://www.lightboxsigns.co.uk/

Seem to be a budget product?

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

All very good advice above.

We have found that applying it over the slats and slitting gives the most complete visual finish – i.e. the text / graphic is broken up less, but sometimes you just can’t get right in between the slats to clean to where the vinyl ‘falls’ after slitting – some shutters are worse than others.

We often take measurements and pre-cut the gaps between slats so we finish 1 – 1.5mm back either side, or just off the radiused edge. This takes longer to cut and weed and a bit longer to install but avoids this cleaning problem and also to a certain extent if you cant get between the slats bone dry. The other advantage is that seems to last longer.

Some designs don’t suit having the gaps cut out, others do – will leave that up to you.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Thanks for the replies – have tracked it down, M59 profile from Lion Picture Framing.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Yes, a bit ropey!

Anyhow if anyone can recognise the profile that would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

We’ve had two come through as apprentices and who have now progressed to being very valued sign makers. They have NVQ’s in Sign Making, are very keen, and its good to have some ‘young blood’ in the business.

Contact Walsall College who can make everything relatively easy from recruitment through to the coursework and assessments, although its Walsall they come out to you.

We have been very pleased with their service and will be taking on another apprentice in due course.

Yes it can be a little bit pot luck when selecting school leavers but that is true whether they are an apprentice or some other terms.

The other important thing is that they have a good sense of loyalty to the company and I think the whole apprenticeship scheme has helped create.

Cheers
Dave

[David McDonald]

HI

I think you will find the laser on this cutter is completely passive. i.e its just a dumb pointer and not linked or connected to the software in any automated way. You manually jog the laser pointer to the correct registration mark position (by eye) via the software, sequentially through each of the registration points so the software will take account of skew.

There re a few videos on YouTube showing this.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi George

Good tip, thanks.

Couldn’t track them down in the end but managed to work around it.

Cheers

[David McDonald]

Hi

There’s two ways of looking at this.

(a) Passive – Let the business grow organically and when (if ever) you are already making enough to pretty much cover all the overheads of the new unit then look at moving and/or buying more kit. Slower growth & less risk.

(b) Proactive – Think of the new unit, or kit, as an asset that is going to generate more business, make you more productive, make it easier to achieve high quality, attract new customers, expand your product / service offering, improve your reputation / image etc. etc. Yes, you take take a hit for X-months but thereafter your investment pays dividends. Faster growth & more risk.

For me the first question should be what you want out of the business. Different scales of business have a ceiling as to the rewards you can receive; whether financial, a nice modern place to work in, ‘toys’ to play with etc. etc. Some people will be happy to work from the home office, others will want a nationwide mega company. Sounds like you want to grow and your mind is made up on that point – just a question to what level.

We have moved to bigger units on three occasions and once the dust had settled each time we would never go back. In each of the years we moved our growth was more modest due to the business interruption but each year following a move our figures hugely jumped up and stayed up.

I’d say go for it and don’t look back! Good luck!

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

We’ve had the same e-mail and suspected it was spam so just deleted it – just didn’t feel right!

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

We have both Roland eco-solvent and a Latex 360. The latex (& Onyx) isn’t quite as easy to live with as the Roland (& Versaworks) and it has little quirks you just get used to but the print quality is simply superb (even at faster speeds). For wraps they are unbeatable. The only downside is that we can’t get super vibrant reds or 100% pure bright yellows off the latex – not that its bad and has never been a real issue for any customer but our Roland just gives better reds/yellows when the design has big slab areas of these colours. However, getting gray scale prints without green/red/lavender colour shift is easier on the latex

Overall we like the latex best – the quality is fantastic and it never misses a beat – always leaving full rolls on as we go home and find them perfect next day. That said our Roland is a reliable workhorse that just keeps on earning money!

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Thanks for the suggestions

Will start ringing them!

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Thanks for the replies, yes "Rowmark laminate", all makes sense to me now and should be something we can easily add to our portfolio.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Denise

The slats on our shutters are each about 4ft tall – not really roller shutters as such – the whole door sort of angles up into the roof space as it opens, hence we just printed each slat as a separate tile. We have done smaller scale shutters for customers in the past and have applied the whole graphic and then sliced is as you suggest.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Thanks for the comments.

Being honest the back doors are huge and we just reversed the plane in.

Martin – I’d like to stick some photos on as we’ve got the unit all kitted out really well, however, I’m paranoid about competition so don’t really want to ! Sorry.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

We have the 7000 model but guessing the process is the same.

We add the Graphtec marks in the design file – 2cm black crop marks on each corner with a 1mm stroke width (we have them set up as a template to quickly create any contour box size layout) . On the plotter you cursor position the the knife over one corner crop mark, tap in the expected size to the nearest 10mm (so after finding one crop mark it can fast wind towards the next mark rather than wandering along for ever trying to find the next mark when its still another 4m’s further on), choose the 4 corner marks option, and of it goes measuring – you then input the exact measurement it should have been and if there is any difference it accounts for any skew or differences in print length.

The above process only takes a minute or less and we have found the cutting accuracy to be superb.

We have Onyx alongside Versaworks (have Latex and Roland printers) and keep meaning to try using that to automatically add crop marks in the RIP for the Graphtec – we do that all the time when cutting on the Summa. We only have print Rolands, not print and cut, so not 100% sure on this but doubt whether Vesaworks has the ability to automatically add anything other than it’s own style of of marks.

If you do get a Graphtec then give me a shout and I can send through more details for you.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Did you ever sort this out?

Was it possible?

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Ewan

Bit of a catch 22 for you but I can sort of understand where they are coming from.

If its 40m2 out of 1520mm wide vinyl then assuming the tiling allows you 100% material utilisation and you can you can print to 1500mm width then you need 26.7m linear length of wrap and laminate. However, depending on the van model (shape, size) then in the real world you are going to need a greater length – possibly 35m’s linear length, or even 45m’s – who knows? It all depends on the design and your preferences on tiling, either way it’s still 40m2 of ink but the vinyl length is variable.

Can you not work out how you want it tiled, work out the linear length of vinyl to contain it all and then ask them for a price for XX linear metres of media, and containing a total XX m2 of ink ??

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

http://www.lettercrafttopsignsuk.co.uk/

Not much margin achievable on this type of product though due to the price they sell them direct

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

300dpi at 600mm width is equivalent to around 22.86 dpi at 8m width, which is very low for 2ft viewing – it could be OK for a billboard viewed from 10m’s away though – these can be printed as low as 18dpi for really long range viewing. 72dpi at actual size would look fine, and any more than 150dpi (some might say 100dpi) would be unnecessary.

The software tools that help when enlarging images sort of fill in the blanks and add extra pixels between those in the original small image – they take an average of adjacent original pixels, also they round off the hard square pixels as they enlarge – this has the effect of softening the focus and causing image grain. Some do better than others but the magnitude of enlargement you are wanting is going to give poor results – the tools can’t make up image data that doesn’t exist.

Can’t you use a montage of several images blended together to achieve the overall 8m image width?

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Try these for temporary signs on posts:-

http://www.laminaid.com/

We’ve found they work really well

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

It’ll never happen – never found a PDF security that couldn’t be cracked within a few seconds – loads of websites you can upload a PDF file to and get an unlocked version a few moments later.

The superb printed book is Impact’s best guarantee of preventing wholesale instant piracy!

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Ewan

This isn’t uncommon with Flexisign – soft shadows become solid, gradients become 100’s of small vectors etc. etc.

It’s not just the ‘cut’ versions – does it on them all.

As Phil says print from Illustrator, or export as an EPS into your RIP – haven’t seen a RIP that takes native AI files?

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Yes, we’d laminate it with ‘frog juice’ from Victory, I think Landor also do a version.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Just offer up the vinyl cut as a rectangle with a few cm’s bleed all round. Hold into the recess with magnets, run a hard squeegee all the way round the base of the recess to mark the vinyl, put on the bench and trim to the mark you’ve made. Most will be just straight lines and its pretty easy just to trim the large curves with scalpel / scissors. Flip it over for a mirror image, lay over your vinyl for the other side recess, draw round it and trim the other side. Better than cutting on the van and only takes 15 minutes.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi David

I’m sure that will work but it would probably look better printed on something like MDT-600 from Metamark which a translucent, back lit, white vinyl. It wont show up any squeegee marks or silvering that clear can initially show.

I don’t know what printer you are using but I’d lay down as much ink as possible, ‘overprint’, in Versaworks + high quality. The print can look washed our when illuminated at night otherwise – you will never get colours as strong as translucent self coloured CAD cut vinyl.

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

To get Magento looking its best and fully create your own unique templates and layouts it seems that you really need some reasonable coding skills, especially PHP.

However, we have launched a few e-commerce websites using the following tool that allows you to create custom themes / templates without any coding at all – just select options from drop downs etc. It wasn’t free but it was worth the £50-£60 we paid.

http://templatetoaster.com/

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

We have the previous model, 26500, and we use this to print almost everything apart from banner – so 1000’s of metres of vinyl and wrap and all superb quality, all PVC banners go on the Roland eco-solvent though.

I’d have no hesitation recommending the 26500, and surely the 360 will be better still – I know its loads faster.

We will probably upgrade for the extra speed. (suppliers please don’t ring me)

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

If you are fitting in reasonable bright daylight then don’t worry you will still be able to see the design well enough showing through the white vinyl (turn the lights off inside to help further), or if you have a light box then line them up first on this and put some pencil / pen marks on the back for registration.

Not sure why you need the white exactly over the clear though as the prints wont be edge to edge on the media and you will have to trim them to the print anyway??? Even if 270cm is the window width, you’d have two drops 135cm, or 135.5cm width with a 1cm shared overlap – you should be able to get the 26500 to print that on a 54" roll still leaving you 8mm tolerance either side for the white vinyl drifting when laminating onto the clear. Of course if the window width is 250cm or you are using 60" media then you have loads of tolerance when laminating.

APS do an LG lower tack clear for printing onto and this is easier to apply and remove, also there is a clear product with ‘easy dot adhesive’ from Neschen which is like a ‘mega’ air release. I’ve only applied samples of the latter and its ridiculously easy to apply – not sure if its intended to be permanent though.

Hops that helps

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

5-months old? I’d be straight back onto Radecal, surely its a warranty fault?

What Kevin says makes good sense though.

Check the pulse equivalent setting on the Z axis hasn’t changed if the DSP is resetting.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Going back to the original topic, I’ve just had a webinar invite to a new Clarity feature – Clarity web forms –

"This webinar shows how to put lead capture forms on your website that automatically log and allocate opportunities to your sales team"

Possibly a coincidence but maybe Clarity take on board the topics on UKSB??

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

We mostly tend to print the whole lot irrespective of windows, cut them out and fill in the Contravision as you describe. It uses more material but its quicker overall and its much easier for registration. We save a little ink by only printing around 5cm bleed into the window spaces though.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Jonathan

I’m in Chorley – will have to say hello face to face sometime.

Can’t recall it ever being sunny here though !!

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi David

We have the same requirement and we use Clarity quite heavily and pretty sure there is nothing that exactly matches this. I suppose you add a customer record and then set an action against it?

We have up to 4 people who could take an enquiry via phone, their e-mail, or 2 other general enquiry e-mail addresses. Not everyone who could take an enquiry uses Clarity.

Unless it goes into Clarity as a quote then there isn’t a single point of visibility to manage – no central list of outstanding to quote.

We tried with a shared spreadsheet on the network that anyone receiving any type of enquiry made a quick line entry into – this was ticked off when done. It worked but but not an elegant solution.

We now have a shared ‘sales’ hosted e-mail address that can be accessed from anywhere. All enquiries received are forwarded to this box – simpler if the enquiry came via e-mail. Everyone can access the mail account and this serves as a single list of all that is pre-Clarity quote stage. We just pick them off oldest first.

In Clarity it would be nice to have a lightweight ‘pre-quote’ message / enquiry screen. Just to take the bare bones – more of a message for a sales person to ring back (and then they’d create customer record and so an actual quote). Also an enquiry ‘mail box’ that individuals can forward e-mail enquiries in to – wouldn’t have to be a functional working e-mail system, just something to list and view in date order alongside those messages typed in. i.e a single screen of all outstanding enquiries and quotes that nee to be done.????

Anyway our shared e-mail box is making sure nothing gets missed.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

They look fine and they are 3T compliant.

Think the horizontals are thinner than on Boss scaffold but northing wrong with the weight limits.

Only downside is that I’m guessing they aren’t compatible with Boss, hence you will have to get all extras and accessories from the same company. We have a Boss tower and can get almost unlimited cheap extras and add ons from the likes of eBay.

The platform size is fine for 1-person, just looking at their website the ‘industrial’ range with wider and longer decks will give more space for a 2nd person and tools etc. Dearer but still seem a really good price and compatible with Boss.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

http://www.whatfontis.com/eurofurence-l … text=rivew

Potentially this one?

Cheers

[David McDonald]

Hi Chris

Thin its called ‘easy dot’ adhesive from Neschen, possibly Robert Horne stock it.

Cheers Macky

[David McDonald]

This really makes my blood boil, had this happen a few times over the years

Customer given an extremely accurate proof of sign super imposed onto building – nigh on perfect scale to the fraction of a millimetre, rendered with any shadows / lighting etc. etc. – effectively a photo of the finished sign. They approve it and sign it off to go.

Then we get "yes I know it looks exactly like the visual but It’s not what I expected", or "I know its exactly as shown in the artwork but its the wrong size and I imagined it would be bigger", or my favourite "I agree its identical to the artwork but you cant really tell until its up" !!!!!!!!!!!!

New policy – Instead of doing pro-production artwork for customers to sign off, we’ll make them a sign, install it, then keep taking it down and changing it until they are happy. Oh and if they then decide to go elsewhere we’ll just take the sign down and bin it

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

We have a graphtec fc7000 series and a summa T series plotter. We find the graphtec is slightly more accurate for contour cutting, especially over longer distances (although we calibrated it and haven’t done on the summa) The fc7000 doesn’t have a perf cut feature (later 8000 series do) but our summa handles this fairly well. Perf cutting takes some effort in playing with settings to get it to work – too many cuts and it all falls to pieces, too little and they don’t separate well, and there a million and one permutations of cut length, tab frequency, and tab length. Also you really need to watch over anything perf cutting, the vinyl doesn’t always fold backwards and forwards into the basket or onto the floor and ‘kinks’ very easily and can then jam under the knife and pinch rollers.

The summa is better for the thick stuff though – at max pressure it seems like it would cut anything! Our summa recognises the bar code printed with onyx rip so it will cut one contour, find and read the next bar code on the next print then carry on cutting – in theory the whole roll. (Again the later graphtec may have this feature). The tangential knife on the summa also gives a better cut on small detail on anything thicker than regular vinyl/lam.

Overall both are the best brands going, and either will really do what you want.

Chees
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Jason

We have hemmed quite a few mesh banners with excellent results.

Not sure if you can add any extra webbing in the hem to strengthen it although there is an attachment to allow you to put a cord/rope in it if that’s what you mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liO44KOMnhg

This is us hemming a 10m mesh banner on the day we got the machine – the table top wasn’t very slippy so the banner crumpled up as it came out of the machine – hence someone rolling it up as it came off. We’ve since changed the table top to alicomp and this is much better and 1-person can hem long banners OK, we’ve bought some second hand conveyor roller tables to put either side which will mean 1-person can handle any length / width / weight of banner.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Phil

We generally find in our location that a straight basic colour change is dearer to wrap than a spray job. That said the quality of the cheap spray jobs are usually poor but people don’t seem to be bothered with that? (when I know what response we’d get if we turned out a less than perfect wrap job!!)

If done properly then prep time seems similar for both spray/wrap, thereafter I’m guessing the spray can be done quicker than the wrap. I don’t know how materials costs compare but I can sort of see why the spray could be cheaper.

But as we say to our customers that’s not the point of the wrap – why go for a standard basic gloss colour when wrapping can give you 100’s and 100’s of colours, effects and finishes simply not available with paint? (and as you say can be removed, or can have printed parts etc.)

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

As the above posts you can’t really go off the outline CD, a flat 2D drawing is never going to give you accurate vinyl to fit the real world 3D object.

I’d continue to design it as you are and then pen plot it to paper, align it on the vehicle and mark up where its over, short, angles different etc. then back to your software and edit the vector paths accordingly. Then be prepared to repeat the process 2-3 more times as you gradually get closer and closer.

I’d concentrate on the overall shape of the vinyl and slice and dice it up into the 2-tone colours wants the perimeter is correct.

It took us about 4-5 hours yesterday to make an exact rear chevron kit template for a Transit Custom (and I think that was fast for a 100% accurate template) – worth it as we’ll use it many many times though.

If its a one off then I’d recommend buying them in.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Good luck Kev

Your notes when we got our router were really helpful in getting us started.

I’m sure you’d have been as helpful even if we were based just round the corner from you!

Tell whoever is buying the business to get involved on uksignboards

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Jamie

Sounds good – who’s that with?

Although we’ve had an odd issue where nothing physical was broken or damaged and the print degradation was due to the electronics – can’t see how how the insurance would cover that?

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

We’ve tried vinyl-ff from http://www.vinyloff.co.uk

It’s an extra tool to help but it isn’t always as quick as the videos show.

Sometimes the vinyl comes off so cleanly and quickly that it’s almost unbelievable (almost falls off the van), other times it just makes a slimy mess of the vinyl and glue that takes ages to get off, or just seems to have no real effect. Its a delicate balance as to how long to leave the stuff soaking into the vinyl and we’ve found that too many variables make it difficult to predict – the temperature, type of vinyl, laminated or not, how long its been on etc. etc.

They do 2-types, a standard strength and a stronger one aimed at reflective.

The best we found was to wet the vinyl with solution before going home and stripping it when we get in the next day – I think the instructions say a lot less time than this but the recommended timings didn’t seem to work – the vinyl adhesion was pretty much unchanged.

As mentioned nearly all the glue on reflective remains on the paintwork, although at least getting the actual vinyl off is quicker.

We now tend to only use this product more of a last resort when all the other methods of stripping are failing.

One thing to point out is do not get the stronger stuff (possibly the standard as well) on plastic light covers – it "melted" the surface of the rear light cluster on out VW Crafter. We noticed this the day after stripping so no idea whether it was an immediate effect or because the stuff was on it for hours. There was no adverse effect on the actual metal/paintwork.

Overall – its worth trying.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Martin – Thanks, I’ll take a look at these. Time moves on – we’ve been in here 10 months already and still sorting things out. Have built some new offices and a mezzanine, plus installed a CNC router and built a machine shop around it. I’ll have to post the before and after shots.

Rob – thanks, will give Wm Smith a call.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Second what Ian says.

The Festool milling tool is excellent. Quick, easy to use, blade seems to last forever, and always a perfect depth and finish.

Yes, its expensive but it doesn’t take many jobs to give a return and its more than just making trays – we’ve over clad numerous shop fronts with aluminium composite as its easy to measure, cut and fold on-site.

OK I don’t think there are millions in circulation but you never ever see one for sale second hand – once you get one its a tool you dont want to give up.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

No the Weldmaster uses heat only and has a really strong puller to drag the banner through which is really handy – however if the banner is still soft with solvent inks off the printer then it can stretch and tear it. As mentioned not a problem if you leave it a short while or ensure the foldback for the hem isn’t printed and left as white banner. They are over £11K for the machine, compressor and table – is it worth it? If we get a few years of service out of it then easily (and they are very well built).

Sewing machine – yes got to be an industrial one a stand with a decent motor – get an industrial one built into a table with the foot peddle switch and knee pad lever to lift the foot. (and a puller as mentioned before). You will need a single upturn hemmer so get a machine that will take one of these (most will). Even with an upturn hemmer it can be much easier to pre-crease the hem before sewing.

Hobkirk in Preston will be able to help you with a sewing machine (dont know where you are based).

Cheers

[David McDonald]

Hi

We have tried everything and now have a Miller Weldmaster T3, superb machine, excellent finish and easy to use BUT even though this is the entry level machine you need to be making a lot of banners to justify the expense. They have even bigger machines available but unless you had someone using them all day every day non stop then I cant see how you could justify one. The only downside is that if the banner is still a little chewy with the solvent then it can foul easily – either leave it a few hours or ensure the bleed for the hem is left unprinted white.

We tried a sewing machine and I reckon this is the best option if the volumes don’t justify the above type of welder. Much faster, cheaper and easier than taping when you get the hang of it (although it takes a while before it becomes second nature). Strongly recommend getting one with a ‘puller’ otherwise it can be difficult to manage the weight / bulk of larger banners on your own. From memory there was some cheap ones on fleabay when we last looked.

A sewn hem isn’t as strong as a welded hem and whichever thread you choose it usually contrasts and you can see. Not a major issue but always bugged me.

We still use banner tape from time to time when we want to finish a banner that’s still warm off the printer but other than that avoid using tape now as don’t like the way the hem puckers if you or the customer has to roll it up.

Hope that helps
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Another thumbs up for APA, not used a massive amount but worked really well, stripped OK but more glue to clean than regular vinyl – not a problem but just takes a little longer

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi

Try a backlit white?

Metamark mdt600 is good

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Hi Ryan

Metamark MDT600 is good but regardless of media I’m sure you will still have to lay down more ink to ensure it doesn’t wash out too much when illuminated.

Cheers
Macky

[David McDonald]

Rob – sorry your humour was totally lost on me!

Jamie – superb, sincere thanks, that’s the one!!

[David McDonald]

Hi Rob

Yes getting to that stage where I’m going to have to redraw it!

Fortunately only two words.

Cheers
Dave