[Gordon Connelly]

Conversations like this justify the membership fee… good variety of contributions and it looks like I can contour cut on my old PNC-1860 after all.

Just need to figure out what John meant 😉

[Gordon Connelly]

I guess you’re an American sign or t-shirt maker — I often wonder if they do it any differently over there. They say everything is bigger over there.. if you are ever visiting the UK/Scotland, maybe you could pop in and have a look at my equipment. My plotter is pretty big and despite being kinda old it still does a good job.

I’m building a new purpose-built table at the moment, just for… well… I guess I don’t need to explain to you, you probably have one yourself?

G xxx

[Gordon Connelly]

I need to learn this stuff. I’d love to be able to offer help and say "give me a call and we can work through the possibilities…" Sadly all I can offer at this stage, Nancy, is more general moral support and you’re more than welcome to contact me for that. Apart from the technical problems, how are you? Love the photo.

It’s so heartening to be amongst such nice, helpful people. Sometimes I’m just so glad I joined this forum… Hats off to you all
😮

[Gordon Connelly]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the response…

As of right now I haven’t done any commercial work in any of the various fields of sign-making, garment printing, van graphics etc.

It’s something we are intending to ease into over the next few months.. I’ve been doing quite a lot of learning though and have my first t-shirt job (25 t-shirts with just 2 colour vinyl).

We aren’t short of space really so having a new printer / cutter is appealing.

Looking at the market and interest shown so far, we expect to pick up business doing vehicle graphics, garment printing, window graphics and occasionally sign boards such as foamex type stuff.

[Gordon Connelly]

I have a PNC-1860 Roland cutter…

I’ve been offered a Roland Print cutter SP-540i for £4500. It apparently has had very little use, comes with all original packaging, and has an automatic take-up roller.

Is that a good deal, assuming it’s in good working order? he says he bought it in March 2011 for a project that didn’t come to fruition. (that’s as much as I know about the guy selling it and the printer)

[Gordon Connelly]

Cheers John, very good.

It sounds like I need to find out if my Roland cutter has an optical sensor then for the registration marks.

I very much take what you are saying on board about the question of buying new versus buying used and I think I agree, new would be better.

The problem, of course, is cash. Tempting to whack it on a credit card or something though 🙂

I’ve seen the odd dodgie looking printer on ebay that can do vinyl printing for under £1000… the idiot in me says have a punt, you might be lucky.

Now you know why I gave up Russian Roulette.

[Gordon Connelly]

Thanks Rob…

I suppose what I want to know is this… as you know, I have a pretty good cutter, should I buy a printer that also cuts or is it going to be easy enough to print on one machine and then take it to the cutter I have for cutting?

I have seen some reasonably priced Mimaki printers etc but they do not cut. I am worried about how difficult it would be to take printed vinyl from that machine and then contour cut on my existing cutter… (seems to me that doing that on an all in one would be easier but I don’t know how much easier)

G

[Gordon Connelly]

No comment 😮

[Gordon Connelly]

I came here looking for a second-hand printer… I’ll probably end up in Guantanamo.

If this is life, I want my money back 😮

[Gordon Connelly]

Harry, I have no idea what poteen is. Did you notice, though, during the documentary, when the dust sort of settled a bit and the two women were lying there on the road, one of the cops asks "are they Irish?"

The only bit I laughed at :lol1:

[Gordon Connelly]

[quote="Robert Lambie"]And to think people say i look too deep into things Gordon? 😉 :lol1: :lol1:

I could say much more but it hurts my head 😮

It’s fascinating stuff. One of the few things to have happened in the last 5 years or so to puzzle me and grab my attention.

[Gordon Connelly]

Obviously the official story is correct… 😮

[Gordon Connelly]

So, Murray will be Team Scotland at the next Olympics? 😮

And if the divorce goes accordingly, do we get a refund on the cash they blew on all that Olympics stuff? 😮

Only joking… Right? 😮

[Gordon Connelly]

I see.

[Gordon Connelly]

Why do all that if it’s dormant? You can fill a form in, takes about 10 seconds, and have it removed… If it’s not trading, why keep it?

G

[Gordon Connelly]

I’m not sure how to respond to these allegations… let me get back to you after thinking about it all and consulting a few key people.

G

[Gordon Connelly]

Good luck with that, Gert. I smoke about 30 a day so let me run through the advantages of quitting for you…

As a consequence of quitting smoking you will;

1) Live longer (see footnote 1)
2) Have much more money (8 quid for 20)
3) Have whiter teeth and look better
4) Smell better (to non smokers at least)
5) Have more time for other things
6) Not need to drive to the local garage at 1.15 am
7) find it easier to sustain erections (according to an NHS leaflet I read recently… I guess this could be "off topic" Robert and you have a place for discussing such things but I haven’t found it yet, I’m all ears though…)

Footnote 1: living longer might not be all it’s cracked up to be and would presumably depend on how enjoyable you find life. I happen to be in the DVD replication business and we recently produced some "entertainment" DVDs for old folks homes… I managed to watch about 8 minutes and came away thinking maybe living longer isn’t such a good idea.

Anyway, all the best, Gert. I’m thinking of acupuncture myself.

Gordon

[Gordon Connelly]

Hi again, Frank.

Thanks very much for the advice. We got it working on an older parallel printer cable. We had to change the settings on the cutter to parallel and as soon as we done that it sprang to life.

Your advice of ignoring the windows driver really helped.

Gordon

[Gordon Connelly]

Thanks a lot, Frank… I’ll try that. Appreciated.

[Gordon Connelly]

Denise, kindly pretend you think it’s not that bad and is growing on you… it’s already booked.

To be honest, I hate the word Easy so I’m not offended at all by any of this. We chose our name using a split testing experiment and for some reason using the word easy in the domain name beat all the others we tested for — you can use adwords for split testing and that’s how we did it.

Anyway, it’s done… it is what it is… so be it… now the grim task of somehow making it work begins.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Gordon Connelly]

Hi Craig, I think you should commit 100% to the name you have, especially if you like it. I don’t think names matter that much on Google etc, unless it’s something that gives a distinctly bad impression.

I take what Robert says on board about being descriptive, but looking at successful companies out there, it seems most of them have names that describe very little about anything: Shell, Google, Amazon, Kellogs, Sony, etc.

I actually hate my company name and envy you. How we ended up with that name is a long story but we’re here now and stuck with it.

I’m assuming most of your business comes either through your website, word of mouth, or through exposure to local adverts — there’s no reason why an undescriptive company name would hinder you in any of these areas, providing you get the design, strap lines, and branding right, etc.

[Gordon Connelly]

Thanks for the advice… easysignmakers it is (assuming nobody blagged it 😮 )

[Gordon Connelly]

Hi Stewart, welcome aboard…

[Gordon Connelly]

I know a lot of people in the web and SEO industry who have wasted a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter stuff. I was nearly one of them myself but I struggled to see the potential as a marketing tool unless you were willing to pay someone famous to promote your brand or products… and in that narrow sense, I expect it has paid off for some but not many.

If you find it useful for communicating with clients and showing the pictures etc then I’d be happy at that and expect very little else from it.

Selling on there with "buy now" buttons etc seems a bit odd to me when you have a website for doing that? Why not do it on your website where you can push your brand (rather than Mark Zuckerberg’s) and control every aspect of the process?

If you want to avoid costs and do it yourself then you could install wordpress for free, giving you a complete Content Managed facility that you could update and manage from anywhere in the world.

I’ve never really understood the whole Facebook and Twitter thing so I could be the wrong person to talk about this; I’m probably anti-social or something…

[Gordon Connelly]

Very difficult to find domains that are available nowadays, Robert… finding ones you like where the .com and .co.uk are there is a nightmare.

Gordon

[Gordon Connelly]

Cheers, Martin… I wonder if in years to come people will wonder how my company got its name. 😮

Some chance.

Those logos look great though. Someone should start a religion of logo loving fruitcakes.

[Gordon Connelly]

$this->auto_embed_video(‘http://www.youtube.com/v/JgwvVrCy8ns?version=3&hl=en_US’, ‘560’, ‘340’)

[Gordon Connelly]

If anyone has a cutter they might be selling, please contact me…

[Gordon Connelly]

Brilliant, thanks. I’m always reluctant to pester with questions but doing so here probably saved me about 8 hours searching etc.

[Gordon Connelly]

Pleased to meet you, Peter.

[Gordon Connelly]

Hi John, Graham, Neil, and Brian… Great to meet you all.

[Gordon Connelly]

Got Fenton’s book on the iPad… perfect, starts with the basics and has a great chapter on building a cutting table.

Thanks for that recommendation, David.

[Gordon Connelly]

Cheers Nicola, hiya Harry…

[Gordon Connelly]

Thanks folks, & Martin in particular. That’s the sort of information I like.

David, I’m a bit of a jack of all trades design-wise, we do a lot of print design, web design is something I’m good at but don’t particularly enjoy any more, and I’ve also worked in video, animation, SEO, and various other areas.

I’ve actually always been driven by my interest in things, never by the prospect of making money. I believe if you do things you enjoy then you can’t fail. It just so happens the things I am interested in have made me a living.

I will not be rushing into anything but I am looking to figure out how much money we will need to invest to get up and running. I hate sending stuff out to get done elsewhere, but I take on board the thrust of your suggestion.

The CNC is something we have been messing around with for a while. My friend already has one so he is going to be useful.

Thanks for now.

[Gordon Connelly]

Thanks Neil & Phill.

[Gordon Connelly]

quote Martin:

Welcome to the forum Gordon.

Thanks Martin, it’s brilliant in here… Been reading and following links all night. Looks like an excellent community you all have here and I’m looking forward to being part of it.