[Mike Grant]

I don’t know if its still available, but I used to use a product called "Frog Juice" Paint it on or spray it on.

[Mike Grant]

Hi folks, long time no see.
This one must be my most unusual one, long before the computer age. I had a permit for the scaffolding that only lasted for 7 days so the job had to be finished on time come Hell or High Water. After the artwork was approved and the go ahead given on the morning I started the job my scale drawing disappeared never to be seen again. I had to hurriedly re-draw it from memory whilst sitting in the van. It never looked as slick as my first original draught but the customer never noticed. This was way back in Cape Town about 1987. :smiles:

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[Mike Grant]

Hi guys, not been on the forums for ages. I was surprised to see this. I have lost just about everything. In the hands of the insurance now. I am currently trying to find my best route forward. At my age starting everything from scratch again is a very daunting task. I had everything computer related backed up in case of computer failure which I think most of us do, but please DON’T LEAVE YOUR BACKUPS IN THE SAME BUILDING!. Mine have all now gone up in smoke so totally irrecoverable. We all think the inevitable will never happen to us, my motto is "What you are prepared for never happens" well it happened to me! 🙁
Thank you for your kind words.
Cheers
Mike

[Mike Grant]

Thanks for the replies guys, I did find someone via the tinternet 😀

[Mike Grant]

Hi Vernon
I am in Swansea, but positive is small enough to post as a large letter so don’t mind paying postage. The artwork can be sent by email.

[Mike Grant]

A photo would be helpful! 🙄

[Mike Grant]

I can honestly say a sharp edge won’t make one jot of a difference. The last banner I hemmed with tape I actually cut the folded over bit off completely and just stuck it to the back with no folding. Didn’t make any difference it still puckered up. So I think the definitive answer would be to use the thinnest possible tape available for the job, any thickness will only help it to pucker if you know what I mean??? 😉 :shake: (puppy-eyes)

[Mike Grant]

Thanks guys, it had reverted to the object attributes, the problem was I was looking at all the menus and not on the bottom bar, never noticed those come up on previous program loadings. All sorted and back to normal now.
:thumbup2: :praise1: :appl:

[Mike Grant]

Thanks for all your input guys, Ian I have had my mate test those parts you mention and they are working ok.

Running into brick wall now 😥

[Mike Grant]

Update….
I crossed over the ribbons from the heads to the little circuit board above them and the head worked. So does this tell me it may be the little circuit board at fault?

*getting somewhere now* 😛

[Mike Grant]

I have now swapped the ribbons on the print heads and it is no different.
I have checked the only changeble fuse I can see and it is ok.
Any more ideas folks, got a few small jobs building up now. 😥

[Mike Grant]

Graeme, I was about to do that before shutting shop today but had to rush out. I got that info from an American forum. Will try again on Monday.

[Mike Grant]

Tried switching on and off but no difference. 😥

[Mike Grant]

Thanks Jamie I’ll try that.

What is a "slider board"??? 😕

[Mike Grant]

quote Phill Fenton:

Great work Mike – how did you go about producing this?

Phill, in the end as I had a tight schedule I had to put it in the hands of one company to do it all except the artwork that I done myself. They still made a balls up as the poppy should have been embossed but somewhere on their side they had an internal communication breakdown. 😥 Still looks good though and weighed a ton. I believe it was also filmed by Sky TV but I could not make the unveiling ceremony.

[Mike Grant]

Just a quick update on this. Job all done and fitted in time for unveiling last Sunday.

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[Mike Grant]

Thanks all for your kind wishes. 😀 I’m doing well thanks.

Here is an example of a line of lettering I lifted from an old poster I done. As you can see each time I have reduced it the fill "shifts" and does not scale with the image.

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[Mike Grant]

I will upload an example next week as I an on sick at the moment, had a heart attack last Friday, very lucky, had a stent put in and back in action now, will be allowed to drive from Tuesday. 🙁

[Mike Grant]

Chris, I never use layers. The plot thickens! 😥

[Mike Grant]

Chris, its the fountain fills that give me the problem. 🙁

[Mike Grant]

Thanks allan, I do have Cute pdf writer installed. The thing is sometimes I want to reduce the artwork to say 25% of full size to send down to the rip to speed up the processing a bit. Is there no other way to lock the fills to scale with the artwork???

[Mike Grant]

I’m sorry but that picture is not good enough as it is looking to the left not right! 😕

[Mike Grant]

I always make the customer take my "SQUINT" test when they absolutely want a bad contrast. Just last week I had one in, business card in hand thrust under my nose. "You don’t want that mate" I said, "Oh yes I do mate" came the reply. *sigh* So I typed in a few letters and coloured it in accordingly and then dragged and copied it and stuck an outline around it. Then I told my customer to squint his eyes until one of them disappeared and told him to tell me which one disappeared first. Point proven and no more hassle. (chat.) (:) (hot)

[Mike Grant]

I have spoken to the foundry and have a rough price that my customer has already approved so cost not an issue at this point. (and yes it is expensive) I am making from scratch and have been warned by the foundry not to use CNC moulds as the tool marks are difficult to eradicate. (what do I know 😕 )
Rob, the bronze is cast into a sand mould and not CNC’d directly.
I am also looking into having it (deep) etched and I am waiting for a call back from a supplier.

[Mike Grant]

quote Craig Brown:

“are you left handed”…if the answer had been yes I wouldn’t have been employed…

Now today I’m sure that would be discrimination of the first degree and it just proves how wrong that decision was today and yesterday. (chat.) (:) (hot)

😉

Just an afterthought, did your employers ever think it was to a lefty’s advantage when signwriting in reverse on a window! No, I didn’t think so! 😀

[Mike Grant]

quote John Singh:

Never mind the hair………Can you still get down that low for so long? :shake:

John, to be honest if I could get down there even for 5 seconds chances are that I wouldn’t get back up.
I have even bought a table lift for my motorbike as I can no longer get low enough to polish it anymore. 😥
We are all getting older by the day boyo!

[Mike Grant]

Another lefty here as well… 😀 I had some hair back then as well. 😉

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[Mike Grant]

I use vinyl screen printing ink.

[Mike Grant]

Monotype Corsiva

[Mike Grant]

That last picture looks just like the common banding to me. You can always tell a print of a pc60 by that banding, you will never get rid of it.

[Mike Grant]

All sorted now thank you. Thanks for the link. 🙂

[Mike Grant]

I do this often, but don’t heat treat it after, not had one fail on me yet.

[Mike Grant]

I don’t participate as much nowadays as I am fed up of people wanting something for nothing brigade. I will no longer give out advice to people who won’t give anything back, I have been in this business too long to give out my knowledge to some Yuppie with all the gear and no idea. We used to have a great rapport on this forum and everyone was chipping in with advice left, right and centre, but over the last few years I have noticed that even the most regular of helpful users have reigned in their help a lot. Most forums usually have a hard core of users and I think that the fact that a lot of newbies to the industry find they don’t get the easy answers to their questions quickly abandon the forums after about a dozen posts and so seek help elsewhere.
There is another sign forum I visit who quite honestly and bluntly tell these people in no uncertain terms that they will not give answers to their questions as they are sucking the life blood out of our veins slowly but surely.

[Mike Grant]

Thanks for that Phil, but I have already sorted what I am going to do. Just got to price it up now. 😀

[Mike Grant]

Phil, you’re a genius. If you weren’t a bloke I would kiss you! 😳

I even have 4 of them here so I have mocked one up to show the customer.

Couldn’t see the forrest for the trees.

:uksbrules:

[Mike Grant]

Can you try this way?

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[Mike Grant]

*rofl* :2thumbs: :thumbup2:

[Mike Grant]

Give me your best price on this van and there will be 10 more to follow

Really means:
I only have this one vehicle and I am going to scam you out of a profit! Mwahahahahhhh

[Mike Grant]

You are by law obliged to inform your customer that they will need planning permission, but the actual planning application can be done by either party. I always tell my customer to do it as we no longer do planning permissions due to the council repeatedly moving goalposts and messing me around making the application non profitable.

[Mike Grant]

I am a 1 man band but a LTD company and my accountant has just charged me £900 + VAT and I am not VAT registered anymore, so it sounds like you have got off lightly. 😥
They were charging me £1800 at one time until I threw my toys out of the pram. I even started looking around for cheaper but it seems if you are LTD they stuff you good and proper.

[Mike Grant]

I have used these.
http://www.badgesuk.net/

[Mike Grant]

I have personaly used RH for the last 17 years and my predesessor years before me back when they were ADP. They used to supply 95% of my requirements. Many years ago I used to have a rep Brian Hunkin (still remember his name) call on me regular and keep prices sharp and competative. Sadly he was forced to take an early retirement and my good relationship with ADP/RH retired with him. I hardly buy anything from them now.

Last week I had some engraving laminate from them. £40 a sheet but got a call to inform me there was a minimum charge of £70.00 and £20.00 delivery if below this value and £10.00 for cutting. So I had to buy 2 sheets of laminate to get to the minimum charge and free delivery. (made sense to me for the cost)

There’s loyalty for you. Doesen’t exist anymore. It seems they go further downhill with every take over and they have been taken over many times since my first dealings with them. 🙁

[Mike Grant]

I gave up using vehicle outline library’s over 10 years ago. Now I just take a picture of the vehicle and a few critical measurements, then scale it up on the computer. Much more accurate and I find that the vehicles change so much that the library’s are soon out of date anyway. You will also find the same vehicles with rubber bump/trim strips that are not on all models so you don’t have to worry about any minor differences as you photo is of the actual vehicle you will be working on.
Simples 😀

[Mike Grant]

You have a pm. 🙂

[Mike Grant]

I will try tomorrow as I use both programs and often swap between the two.
As long as I remember as I very rarely get on the boards during the day. 😕

[Mike Grant]

I had 2 slimline lights mounted in mine for the last 6 years, makes life a lot easier to see things in my dark hole of a workshop.

[Mike Grant]

Thanks Guys.

Craig, that is great, thank you very much for taking the time to find that info.
😀

[Mike Grant]

I have always believed that they only have a 3 month shelf life from new, so 2 months out of date would mean you throw it away. Whenever I have had to do some I always make my own domed stickers for my signs, looks posher than just a sticker and you would be throwing the dome stuff away anyway.

[Mike Grant]

I would make the number as big as possible and use the vinyl as a mask to paint the number on. Paint is a lot harder to remove than a sticker.

[Mike Grant]

I cheat a little with some church posters I do that are 760mm high, as long as the print is not edge to edge I just make sure that there is no print closer than 25mm to the edges, make sure your tracking is straight and print away.

[Mike Grant]

I was VAT registered but now work is so shy most of my customers are not VAT registered so saves me being asked to drop the VAT and then the long story that goes with it. You may loose out on bigger jobs where the buying in of materials can kill a job as you have to add the VAT into your price. You win some, you lose some! (chat.)

[Mike Grant]

All this good advice for free and not a peep from the question asker, theres thanks for you! 🙄

[Mike Grant]

Thank you Greame, That is nice and clean but will still need a wee bit of editing from my side but will probably be ok. I will try some samples and see where we go from there.

:thanks2: :thanks2: :thanks2: :thanks2: :thanks2: :funky: :uksbrules:

[Mike Grant]

Graeme, I still need it, that would be brilliant. 😀

And Kevin, thanks for your input as well, I also like a challenge. 😎

[Mike Grant]

Denise, you shouldn’t have to test your box, the tubes should be at 200mm centres for even illumination, and as I said earlier the box has to be a minimum of 150mm, 6" in old money deep front to back.

[Mike Grant]

Also a tip when applying a coloured background with the letters cut out. Do not weed out the lettering! Apply the application tape over the unweeded vinyl. Apply as per normal then weed out the lettering once stuck down. This will keep the application tape under the same stress all along its length and avoids creasing the background vinyl due to different tollerances between the weeded and unweeded areas. 😀

[Mike Grant]

First thing is make sure you order "050" not "50".
You will only see the tubes if the box thickness is less than 150mm. If it is a slimline box of 100mm then you my friend are stuffed and you will see the tubes. I have never fathomed out why people use slimline extrusion without the old fashioned bubble faced acrylic fascia. Just because its cheaper I guess and no experiance or concience or work ethics. (chat.) (hot) (:)

[Mike Grant]

Kevin, we are not getting anywhere here. Maybe this one might explain it better. I need the single line on the left, when I cut along this line with the thickness of cutter I require, it then gives me the finish of the one on the right. You are presenting me the one on the right which gives me two lines to follow that will give me the wrong cut as I will be cutting along all visible lines. I am finding this very hard to explain. 😕

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[Mike Grant]

Kevin, I really appreciate your efforts to help me, top man.

Just to clarify what I mean by single line engraving, have a look at the attached.
In effect the artwork you have supplied looks like the example on the left, however I need it to look like the example on the right. It is the thickness of the cutter that gives the letter its thickness. The example on the left would need a "fill" command to execute and would consist of a line spiraling around the inside of the letter until it clears out the area. I hope this makes sense.
Thank you again for your help.
😀

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[Mike Grant]

Thank you for that Kevin, better than the other one but still to fussy as artwork goes. Ideally I need it to look like this one when finished. Tried to vector this one but again it is to low a resolution for a good result. It will only be 40mm high when finished so if it is to fussy the machine will chew the smaller deatail to bits.

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[Mike Grant]

Thank you Kevin, not the best for engraving but could be used at a push. I am waiting for my customer to get back to me as the undertakers apparently had the badge engraved on the coffin plaque. This job is a memorial plaque and it is a very fussy thing to put on something so small.

[Mike Grant]

Thanks John, that would be great if I was printing it but I have to engrave it. I have one other avenue to follow but that will only happen tomorrow.

[Mike Grant]

A word of advice, screen printing is NOT for beginners.

[Mike Grant]

Neo Sans Standard by the looks of it.

[Mike Grant]

The Perspex reference you need is Opal 050 and use translucent vinyl.

[Mike Grant]

Looks great, but how is the face done with led’s, cant quite work that one out.

[Mike Grant]

In the workshop I use an infrared heater, warms you up quickly and does not waste heat by trying to warm the air. When you walk away just turn it off until you need it again. Simples.

[Mike Grant]

I think you have to choose what machine you are outputting to. It should be on the top menu bar somewhere. Not got it in front of me at the moment.

[Mike Grant]

Look on the positive side, it weeds out the cheapskates that are going to waste your time, and when the cheapskate gets his piece of vinyl that has the same layout in Helvetica medium as everyone else from cheapskateland, then they c ock it up applying it they will eventually see the error of their way and find a decent sign company to do it properly. 🙄

Sigh! 😥

I have a van in my village that has a flimsy A/4 magnetic that’s badly faded in no time on his BIG van. It looks absolutely ridiculous. I can’t see how that piece of cr@p is going to sell his product. I have been thinking of printing a magnetic sticker and putting it on his van with my details on it. (chat.)

[Mike Grant]

I have bought these 2 years ago…..
http://www.screwfix.com/p/2-way-adhesiv … -100/80760

I haven’t needed them until last week then I couldn’t find the darn things. 😳

[Mike Grant]

Ebay is your friend there.

[Mike Grant]

Wait n’ Load is Marker! 😀

[Mike Grant]

I usually tie two boy scouts to the end of my fishing line. Just wrap it around their waists a few times and Roberts your fathers brother. Mind you they do make a bit of a noise when you use them, I have tried some socks in the orifice and it does muffle the sound quite a bit.

[Mike Grant]

Just give him a price for a sheet of dibond and some wooden posts and a pot of paint and a brush. Then tell him to do the rest himself. Can’t get much cheaper than that.
Then tell him to feck off and stop wasting your time and move on to the next paying job. (chat.) (:) (hot)

[Mike Grant]

I had the exact same propblem a few weeks ago. As Phil replied to that thread you should know what happened. The screws I used were just a tad and I mean just a tad to big to sit properly in the bottom of the cup. Every single one of them failed as per your picture. After spending hours running around to find these very small screws I ended up admitting defeat and had to fork out £23 to get the right screws from the fixing supplier.
Phil you have not said how big the cups are? mine were the smallest you can buy hence the scaresity of the screws.

[Mike Grant]

How long will it take for some ham fisted pillock to stretch those springs beyond their no return point.

[Mike Grant]

Try Insight.

[Mike Grant]

What colour are you looking for?
most places have a minimum order quantity for special colours.

[Mike Grant]

After softening with the remover use a high pressure water jet. Don’t hold it too close or you will rip a hole in the mesh.

[Mike Grant]

Signwaves do a double sided A frame with snap frames.

[Mike Grant]

Insight do illuminated poster cases but they are not like your picture if they do have to match.

[Mike Grant]

Thanks guys, still not getting what I want. 😕
Will have to keep trawling the net to find something. 🙄

[Mike Grant]

Thanks for taking the time to upload those Jill. 😀

It is more the wood frame/post combo look that I am after. The main sign will be a dibond panel, just need a nice way to frame it with somthing more than just posts.

[Mike Grant]

Looks like another trip to B&Q is on the cards then. Now where did I put my magnifying glass. :clap2:

[Mike Grant]

I use Sovereign Screen Printers for these, they need to be high frequency welded for a proper job. I don’t think printing to a flat piece of static cling will cut the mustard with your customer unless he/she is a complete tight wad and a fool.

[Mike Grant]

If you use genuine Eco-sol max inks you will not have a problem. It is the full solvent printers that you have to print everyday with to stop blockages.

[Mike Grant]

Nice, nice, baby! 😀

[Mike Grant]

I’m sure I have seen buffing soap in my local Machine Mart, but can’t find it on their website.

[Mike Grant]

Niel, you are a star! Thank you very much.
This one is a non profit job for a friend so didn’t want to go messing with deleting loads of nodes etc or spending to much time on it.

Thanks for your replies guys. :thanks2: :uksbrules:

[Mike Grant]

Just cancel the job after the print is finished. Simples.

It has probably got a wayward bit of artwork coloured white that it is picking up. I have had that problem, just go back to your original artwork and look for it.

[Mike Grant]

Thanks Jill. 😀 :thanks2:

[Mike Grant]

I would use aluminium composite, definately not foam pvc.
You can get wire cable from B&Q or any good hardware store along with any wire clamps needed. It might be worth asking them to supply the cable themselves as they are fitting it and save you the hassle of any problems.

[Mike Grant]

Bit of Welsh discrimination going on there! (:) (hot)

I know we still live in caves but we do have roads you know! 😉

[Mike Grant]

You can use ordinary emulsion paint. The only trouble is if it is being folded it will crack and look ugly. Canvas is a pig to paint, if you have never done it try out on a scrap piece first. Do not try and use a vinyl mask….you will be sorry! :thumbdown: :police2: :no1:

[Mike Grant]

Just put a small one on about 8" high and tell him it’s a Bonzai! :lol1:

[Mike Grant]

Check this out.
I have seen more detailed pics of this one.

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/01/16/bea … he-rescue/

http://eaa241.org/2013/02/

[Mike Grant]

:dance1: :rabble: :cheer: :doh: :wedgey: :you: :nagnag: :police3: :dance2: *rofl*
What more can I say! :lol1:

[Mike Grant]

Phoned Ashby, the guy could not find the product in the SMP catalogue but funnily knew it was called an "Easy out tool". He said he will look and call me back. I won’t be sitting by the phone! 🙄

[Mike Grant]

quote Derek Heron:

hi mike
hows the bikes
not sure if the same but kits available here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Audio-Dash-Remo … B0057DHMFG

sure a well known auction site has them as well

derek

Down to one bike now Derrek, times are hard. 🙁
Those things look a bit flimsy to me.

For those that are wondering what this tool is for, it is for removing cut out letters from signs that are fitted on sign locators. 😀

[Mike Grant]

I checked out Ashby’s site before I posted but could not find it on there.