[Mike Rawlings]

Yea, I’m with David on this. This is no way I’d offer finance out to my customers.
Those who might order in the £thousands are of a size where 5k doesn’t cause any concerns. Those that are likely to take up the finance offer would be those who are otherwise unable to pay for the sign there and then / within 30 days.
That means you’ll be taking the risk of them going under in the next 12 months if you’re financing it yourself. Through another company is just added paperwork imo.

[Mike Rawlings]

Hi David,

Thanks for the info. We use the Quotes and Sales Order modules of Sage so the invoicing isn’t any additional work.
Essentially, an enquiry is booked up in Sage as a Quote, then converted to an Order and then , once completed, converted to an Invoice.

We could send one person up there, but… it’s a bit of a compromise considering the costs.

[Mike Rawlings]

We’ve done a job for a ‘company’ where we installed their internal signs.
Been stood in their cash vault where we had to put a sign up on the side of the wall. Ladders couldn’t reach because of the stacks of 1m x 1m wire cages of cash in the way! So we stood on the cages to get to spot we needed (about 12ft up).
No idea how much was in each cage, but it’s got to be millions that we were stood on!!
Shame we couldn’t take photos, but it’s understandable given the level of security there. 🙂

[Mike Rawlings]

We’ve got 13 people working here and use a wall planner and some different coloured stickers (stars for office / circles for production persons).
Each person has an employee folder in which I keep all relevant paperwork. There is an A4 printed sheet in there as a holiday record with "from", "to", "paid?" and "days left" as the headers.

We also have a calendar built into our email client (eM Client) and holidays are shown on there.

When someone fills in a holiday form, I put the relevant coloured sticker on the wall planner. Add an event to the calendar and then fill out the section in the holiday record in the employee folder.
Takes a couple of mins per form maximum and means I’ve got a hard copy in the folder, and two easily visable planners (calendar on email & wall planner).

I personally wouldn’t pay for this facility as it wouldn’t save me that much time unless I had more people working here.

[Mike Rawlings]

Well… that was entirely uneventful and resolved quickly. After sending the email I got a reply back that the customer is removing the logo from their sign. As we pass it quite often it’s easy enough to check.

Good point re: the van graphics and having a selection of designs. That’s one of the main type of people we get showing us proofs from another company, someone after van graphics.
Normally it’s a semi screwed up paper proof handed over with the words, "I want my van done. How much for this? These blokes want (insert ridiculously low price) for doing it".
99% of the time I just tell them that we can’t even buy the correct vinyl at the price they’re telling me.
I dont doubt ‘other company’ is doing it for that price, but it won’t last long and we’re not prepared to put our name to crappy work.

Thank you all once again. I’m going to tighten up the disclaimer / t&c section of our proofs a bit more too.

[Mike Rawlings]

Cheers folks. It’s good to get opinions and experience from people in the same industry.
In answer to the ‘why are we doing design proofs’, for me it’s a selling tool. It shows the customer what the finished item will look like. We don’t do it for every single job as that’d consume too much of our time but for those jobs which we deem ‘worth it’ then it’ll get a proof.

Again, thank you for taking the time to respond. It’s a subject which has reared it’s head with us here a few times as people bring in proofs from other companies and say "how much for this" which is met with a suitably short reply…

Waiting on a response and will update when I know more.

[Mike Rawlings]

Thankfully we don’t get too much of that.
The ones we tend to get are… "hey! Here are 20 documents (up to 200 pages per document) and somewhere in that lot is some signage we want for the new building".
IF you spend the time to find it, the limited information is inevitably along the lines of "sign for front of building", "fire exit signs", "way finding signs" and oh you’ll need to supply samples, and a proof of every sign.

Needless to say, we rarely even bother with these.

Its also amazing how many people in need of a quote for van graphics are just about to purchase 2 or 3 other vans which they might need doing….

[Mike Rawlings]

We had someone not only take images of one of our products but also copy the text from our website and put the lot on amazon pretending to have been a supplier!
Tracked the person down with a ‘I’m really interested in a lot of those, please call me’ email and had a phone conversation with them. Issue resolved within 2 hrs.

Bloody cheek!

[Mike Rawlings]

We took on 2 apprentices from Bristol City College.
The course, Im sorry to say, was totally abysmal. However, we took them under our wing and trained them up.
One left after 4 years , due to moving home 80 miles away, and the other is still with us.
We’ve heard of apprentices in that same class who were expected to pay for their own PPE and workwear… Sorry but when you’re paying apprentice wages, thats a bit tight imo.

If they are keen to learn and honest then I’ve all the time in the world for them, and vice versa.

[Mike Rawlings]

They can pay money into the account, but the trick / scam is that they can also get it refunded themselves.
So they pay £2000 into your account for a £1000 order and say "oh no! Ive overpaid.. please refund me £1000.
You do the refund.
They then cancel their payment (cant remember the exact nature of how, but they do), so you are out of pocket by £1000.

[Mike Rawlings]

For our Arizona 350 GT we use Sericol UVIJET Adhesion Master ZE720. Its not the cheapest stuff but does the trick on correx.
Stinks a bit though…

[Mike Rawlings]

Hi Dan,

We’ve got an Holzher 1205. Been with us for ..err.. 20 years? With the exception of a power button fault, which a local electrician fixed for us, it has been faultless. We’ve made a few modifications to it within that time, mainly to stop consumable items wearing through. eg: We’ve added metal plates on top of the wooden supports which run along the bottom of the frame.

Having seen a KK12 (8 year old) this morning, we’ve decided its not for us as we do cut a reasonable amount of small panels on our existing panel saw and what we saw, wasnt able to reproduce them to the same level of ease / accuracy.
Yes I could use a table saw for this.. but when we’ve got a vertical panel saw which already does it, it wouldnt make sense to add another step into the process.

[Mike Rawlings]

Thanks Russell.
The customer did mention their name and said they’ve gone under.
Assumption being the mother of all.. etc, I just assumed they were a sign making company which had gone under and didnt actually make the sign themselves.

Your info is much appreciated.

[Mike Rawlings]

Think Ive found it, so will update this thread in case anyone stumbles upon the same problem in the future.
http://www.cobal.co.uk/what-we-do.html?pgid=14

Little photos on the right. Health and lifestyle 2 image.

[Mike Rawlings]

Shane / Gary,

(excuse the caps but…) "THANK YOU!!!" 🙂
Been searching high n wide for this stuff and it turns out its pretty common in engraving isnt it.

Astounded by how quickly you’ve both been able, and willing to, help!
Have spoken to pantograph and have sample on the way,

Thanks tons again!

[Mike Rawlings]

Completely agree with you Peter.
We had a customer try this very same thing with us. Was a lot more than £300 thats for sure too. When I told them no, they got a bit arsey and tried to bully me into it.
Simple explained it as "let me get this straight… you want me to help you gain £xxxx pounds with no risk to you and every risk to me. Yea.. that REALLY sounds fair." **cue phone getting put down.

Now if insurance companies were offering incentives for shopping in people like this.. 😉

[Mike Rawlings]

quote Jillbeans:

Was the copy
SAVE THE CHILDREN
or some other sort of religious/charity theme?
It’s a scam.
Sometimes they just ask for blank banners.
Love….Jill

Funnily enough yep. Was a bunch of text for a church.
Glad we spotted it now 🙂

[Mike Rawlings]

Thank you both VERY much. I shall now obtain a 751 swatch, show to customer and go from there. 🙂 Its been one of those mornings and what should have been a simple colour match just hasnt been… Im sure you’ve been there too.

Again.. Thank you 🙂

[Mike Rawlings]

Just placed an order. Looking forward to learning something I dont know I dont know 🙂

Grats on the book – must have been a lot of work for sure!

[Mike Rawlings]

Thank you both very much 🙂
I’ll give them a call later today!

[Mike Rawlings]

Solara Ion (UV flatbed)
Last printed on the 24th Dec, came in over Christmas and did a quick print to ensure it wasnt left idle for too long. Came in today and it printed perfectly fine after a 10 min pre print run clean.

Also found a bird trapped in the art dept. No clue how it got in there, but scared the crap outta me in the dark as it looked like a bat flying at me 😀

[Mike Rawlings]

Seems their online quoting system is "offline" at the moment..
http://www.lightbrigade.bplightbrigade.com/onlinequote/

[Mike Rawlings]

No, I havent had the key update file. Ive literally opened the box and tried to install it. Updated the HASP drivers and then got the error message.

Same as yourself, Ive looked on their website and its a little inconclusive as to wether its supported or not. I would be amazed if its not as its one of the few ways of getting more than 4GB of memory in your PC to work(Vista or WinXP 64) and Onyx is a popular rip.

Hopefully someone on these forums has got Onyx working on WinXP64 and I can then look at other reasons why its not installing on mine.

[Mike Rawlings]

Had something similar a few days ago.
Had an email saying that a person wanted to buy nameplates from us, and would pay by credit card. They also said that they would work out the quantity once they had seen the price.
Adding that together with the broken English… SCAM!
I filed it in the bin.

[Mike Rawlings]

Thanks for the feedback folks, glad to see its not just me getting hit by it. Although it does seem like Im getting hit more and more at the moment.

Have a good weekend all 🙂

[Mike Rawlings]

..and no sooner have i posted this thread than another form has arrived in the post for me to fill out.

[Mike Rawlings]

As Hugh said,
Why were you not given a chance to rectify the problem? Did they seek advice on the removal of the vinyl beforehand or did they just ‘do what they thought best’?

I wouldnt say you are at fault based on whats been written here. I find it very hard to believe that normal 7 year avery would have enough bite to remove a decent paint job.

[Mike Rawlings]

Seen one running twice now. Once at a demo in Alpha Signs and once at a demo in Spandex. I have to be honest and say that from what Ive seen it looks very good. Nothing fancy or technical, just a soild build. A bit like an Edge 1 if you like. No frills, no gimmicks.. just does what it says on the tin.

1st demo I saw there was occasional banding, but apparently the heads were not aligned properly and it wasnt fully set up. When I saw the ION again at Spandex I couldnt fault the print. All areas of concern I had noticed on the ION at Alpha had been removed. Spot on.

We did look at getting a Solara UV2, but decided it wasnt for us. The ION is an interesting machine though for sure. 😉 Though at, i think, £72k its not a cheap option for us.

[Mike Rawlings]

Matt,

It helps a lot. Thank you for taking the time to give some info 🙂

[Mike Rawlings]

Yep, we do a large amount of this work.

To help clarify what we do, and help you folks give some advice on what you see as the better UV Flat bed printers Ive given a summarised breakdown of the processes below.

The current process:
Print large area of solid colours + text onto vinyl via Gerber EDGE
Send it to plotter to cut out the shape (for this example lets say a rectangle, 1001 x 281mm)
Remove the excess, unneeded, vinyl.
Laminate to 1000 x 280mm foamex
Trim off the excess vinyl. We cut the print 1mm bigger than the substrate to ensure we have vinyl from edge to edge of the substrate & no substrate showing.
Clean sign.

Imagined process via UV Flatbed.
Clean Foamex
Print onto it via UV Flat Bed printer.

Hope this helps clarify and give a bit more info. Im really looking for information from people who have bought / have considered a UV flat bed and can recommend one which is capable of doing large areas of solid colour.

[Mike Rawlings]

Glenn,
Thank you for your reply. We do use screen printing at the moment as well as the EDGE 1. However, most of the work we do is print runs of 5 No. or less, hence the thought of a UV Flat Bed coming in and removing the need for laminating / trimming / printing to vinyl and replacing it with a ‘straight to substrate’ machine.
In my mind I can see a lot of processes being removed by the introduction of a UV flat printer. ie: At present we print to vinyl, weed it, laminate to substrate, trim, clean and then pack. Whereas the alternative (I hope) is simply to print to substrate and pack.

Feedback / advice / help more than welcome. 🙂

[Mike Rawlings]

I’m very interested in this topic and would welcome feedback from others who have researched it.
The company I work for prints a large amount of block colour. ie: Large area of solid colour with no fades / images. We’re currently using an EDGE 1 for the most part and have been looking at an alternative in the form of a UV flat bed printer to print straight to substrate.

Ive seen the Gerber Solara Ion a few times and have to say that what Ive seen Ive been mostly happy with. Remember we do lots of solid colour, and very little in the way of photographs / images etc.

Is there a particular machine that anyone would suggest we take a look at? Im not fussed about roll to roll, if the printer has it then fine, but Im more concerned about flat bed straight to substrate printing.

UV printers not being cheap by any means, any help or advice or feedback greatly appreciated.

[Mike Rawlings]

I was looking into a flat bed printer a while ago and located some people who had already bought one. I sent them a few jobs and asked them to run it through their printer. I have to be honest and say that what I got back from the 2 (unnamed signage companies) was far far far from what I had seen at last years Sign UK. The quality was poor, lots of banding present.

I wont put down anyones printer here, based on what other users have produced. However, I would strongly suggest that the one of best ways to find out what a machine is like day to day is to talk to the people who have one. Get them to run a few jobs through it. When I did speak to one of the signage companies using this printer, I found they were having a whole host of problems.

For the sake of a phone call and a few ‘throwaway’ jobs… I think its worth doing.

[Mike Rawlings]

Spot on!!! You have just saved me about £200 when buying 300 No. I knew there had to be a cheaper supplier somewhere.

Thank you very much! 🙂

[Mike Rawlings]

Andy,

Thank you for both the welcome and also the super speedy reply 🙂
Have an excellent weekend!