[Paul Hodges]

Well if that is true, they better inform all the engineers I’ve ever had or spoken to!

Changing the dampers on a Roland, or any other similar printer where the dampers are a separate consumable, is one of the first goto things to do when you have an ink problem. I’ve changed them many times on my own, engineers have changed them, never had any head problems resulting from that.

The only reason I can think they may not want to do it, is in case the manifold breaks. On the Roland, the manifolds are just plastic and fairly often they break off when you pull the damper off the spigot, because the ink weakens the plastic and it becomes brittle and snaps, so you end up having to replace the manifold as well as the damper – still not a big job for an engineer, but going from memory, the manifolds can be a bit over priced, so you can imagine an engineer not wanting to replace that at their own cost, but I see no reason why they can’t ask you to cover that should it happen.

If that were true that changing dampers causes damage to the heads, we would have been replacing heads all the time, and we don’t!

[Paul Hodges]

Good idea.. I quite often find that engineers are a lot more honest with answers when they are there on site, particularly as opposed to what sales people will tell you lol

[Paul Hodges]

Hi Leslie,

This is actually an easy one to answer but it took me years of experience to get a procedure that works.

As the other guys have said, quote a general price for different types of coverage on different size vans and stick to that for ball park estimates but always mention the final price will depend on the final design.

Then take a proofing deposit, Work out what hourly rate you want and cover your proofing time with that deposit. Explain to customer that the proofing is actually half of the job so in effect, you have started the job.

One of two things will happen – customer will accept and pay the deposit promptly, because they are serious about getting the work done… or they will baulk at the mere suggestion of a deposit to get a proof drawn up, in which case you know this person has not committed themselves to having the work done and is just wanting you to draw up a design so they can see if it takes their fancy or not with no commitment to them. Let someone else waste their time with those customers.

If you stick to that you’ll find you end up dealing with customers who just want to get the work done, and you won’t have the disappointment of working on designs for free only to never see the customer again, or worse, you see your design done by another supplier on the customers van a few weeks later!

[Paul Hodges]

Iain, why don’t you try a few letters in another yellow, just make sure it’s actually new. That will prove it one way or the other.

I’ve had this a few times over the years and it’s always been old vinyl that was the culprit. Difficult wall surfaces and you get the issue all over not just on one colour

[Paul Hodges]

If the question is, what to charge for vectorising a logo, then just your hourly cad rate as others have pointed out.

However, if the real question, and I think it is – is having quoted for some work, the customer then asks you to supply their digital artwork (so they can get the job done elsewhere), the answer is a little more tricky.

If you vectorised it at your cost and then keep it for your own production, you own the copyright, and don’t have to pass it on to anyone. If you charge the customer to do it for work you’re producing, they own the copyright and you are obliged to let them have the copy.

Problem areas occur when you’ve created it for your own use, and they want it. You are entitled to charge them to hand it over, assuming you suspect they will use it for another supplier. When they come to you asking for the logo for T shirt printing or stationery printing, you have to use your best judgement, but effectively, if they haven’t paid you for the vector, you should decline, because even when it is for T shirts or something else, those suppliers should generate their own copy to use like we all have to do.

It makes me laugh really because you don’t see this in any other profession – nobody machines tools or parts and gives the pattern away for others to use free of charge!

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Wilson: if you are not estimating we use Trello as it was recommended on here. Increased our production of last 6 months with it. It’s free

Does Trello keep an account for each customer with a job history?

Last time I looked it seemed more like just individual job cards that you could produce without all the job history just being in one place?

[Paul Hodges]

James, go back to your customer with a price comparison to show that it’s cheaper on printed panels than vinyl cut – which it would be in time alone, and tell them you printed it as it’s cheaper for them. You can offer to remove it and re-do in vinyl if they are willing to pay the difference, which they would have had to pay if it was done in vinyl anyway.

Just inflate the figure to cover your basic costs, the labour to remove and re-fit would be done at your own cost more or less anyway.

Even if it wasn’t the best way to have done that job, it’s always more expensive to do fiddly stuff in vinyl by comparison so it’s a valid way to approach this. What would be unacceptable to me, is to re-do it but using a more expensive method, for no extra money!

[Paul Hodges]

quote Iain George:

I will be going in my shop. I work alone so driving from home to shop is no issue. Shop locked and isolated inside. I also am providing lots of Coronavirus signage for local stores that are open along with Doctors surgeries. Unable to print from home.

Me too.. I’ve come in today and it appears that most of the trades are still working. The government document doesn’t really cover the trades, it’s pointing mainly at shops and public gatherings, and obviously lightening the volume on public transport, so I’m going to carry on working but not allow any public on to the premises – not that there were any now anyway.

[Paul Hodges]

Slightly confused because the government document doesn’t actually seem to clarify if you can operate or not, unless you’re a retail high street shop, all it really says on the last exception is this..

‘Travelling to and from work, but only where this absolutely cannot be done from home’

It doesn’t say you have to be an essential service or business, so that would seem to suggest that if you don’t fall under the named business types, you can still travel to work and back?

I have to go in tomorrow regardless because even if we’re not supposed to work, things have to be turned off, you can’t just not turn up one day, for three weeks!

[Paul Hodges]

quote Phill Fenton:

So the latest figures are 71 coronavirus deaths in the UK amongst a total of 55,000 suspected cases

Is no one doing the maths? Thats a mortality rate of 0.13% i.e no worse than flu. So why the massive over-reaction? All that is happening is businesess are going bust because of a virus that’s not the killer virus it was made out to be?

Like I said – the world has gone mad. Hopefully sanity will be restored before the economy collapses and we all die of starvation…

Totally agree Phill,

180,000 infections worldwide, 5000 odd deaths. Overwhelming majority recover without issue or never get the symptoms. Obviously we have to be very careful regarding vulnerable people.

The reason for drastic recommendations is purely to slow it down to ease strain on health services that’s all. What the Politicians are not telling you is that 80% of people will probably get this at some point, knowingly or otherwise, but the best way to weaken the effect of this virus, is to have as many people catch it as possible, which is the only way to build immunity to it. That will be quicker than waiting for a vaccine.

When the Spanish flu killed 50 odd million people, that was a disaster – but it came around twice. This virus will do the same, probably next winter, so the more people who have recovered and got immunity to it, the less effect it will have. If everyone successfully dodged this the first time, you may not the second time.

While this is all happening, life has to go on, economies have to go on, businesses have to go on. That’s the reality. This won’t be a case of stay out the way for a few weeks and it’s all done and dusted, viruses don’t work like that, we need to build up our immunity to things like this.

If we all shut up shop indefinitely, there will be no jobs to come back to. I for one will carry on working until the authorities enforce it otherwise.

[Paul Hodges]

It’s a joke isn’t it.. the news media causes the panic, they never balance anything, always hyping bad news and making sure you’re getting it 24/7.

As horrible as it is when these things cause a death, the mortality rate is low. The chance of small businesses failing due to this could be a lot higher in all probability

[Paul Hodges]

There is a question of time and expense, and a question of principle.

Someone is benefitting from those new signs whether it’s landlord or new tenant. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t order them, you’ve done the work and still own the goods.

I wouldn’t go to court on this one, purely because it’s muddy. You are not taking the guy to court who hasn’t paid, you’re trying to get payment from someone who quite likes the idea that your signs are in place, but isn’t responsible for paying for them. Getting a ruling in your favour is one thing, getting payment is quite another, so you could end up chasing your tail there and spending more money pursuing it.

In my experience it’s far better to remove the signs because while someone is benefitting from that, they have something to lose if you take them back, therefore you’re more likely to come to a deal and even if you don’t, sure you might not be able to use the signs again but why should they have them for free?

He can’t really pursue you for the old signs, that’s nothing to do with you, this is why in my view, if you give prior warning of taking the signs back, he may try to sort it out with you. Let’s face it, if you take them back, someone will have the expense of ordering a new sign so what would be the point in not sorting it out with you?

[Paul Hodges]

Phill, sounds like you have a mild shoulder impingement caused by, or in addition to, some tendonitis, which is why you felt the twinge in your arm. It is effectively, a repetitive stress injury, I’ve got it too although I did it in the gym, at least you did it earning money!

Yes it can easily be caused by something like wrapping a vehicle because your tendons at the forearm will be under tension and twisted a lot of the time. Using a mouse on a PC for hours on end is also big culprit for this by the way.

Hope this helps solve the mystery
Paul

[Paul Hodges]

But what if you’re not aware of the job yourself and an employee carries it out for you? If you’re a small operation, chances are you’ll see every job that comes over your desk, by the time you have a handful of employees trained up to do the work so you don’t oversee everything – what happens then? You may even be away and an employee undertakes the job.

I do agree that common sense in these issues should prevail, experience tells me it doesn’t always. Employees don’t often think too deeply about what they’re doing, they certainly don’t ask the same questions as the owner would.

I do think Phill has a point in principle, that it’s a dangerous precedent to set. Fair enough if the guy printing the labels is the guy selling the dodgy goods, but when the printer is a third party with no knowledge of that, it becomes a bit of a talking point.

[Paul Hodges]

Shocking. They should be honouring store credit because it’s not like they made people aware they would lose it, and most of us are potentially on-going customers so there should be some goodwill.

I would suggest we all stop using them if a decent alternative is available. Maybe that Josero guy is worth a try?

[Paul Hodges]

quote David Hammond:

quote John Hulin:

Hi

I have just received a request for a trade signage quotation from this company, so they are defiantly still trading.

John

It costs money to issue a winding up petition and gives you no more chance of recovering what you’re owed.

I’m not saying we’re perfect, we’ve had our fingers burnt in the past.

We are a businesses before signmakers, dishing out credit has inherent risk, simple things can reduce that.

How much money are you comfortable loosing? How much can your business afford to loose and remain operational?

How comfortable giving large amounts of credit to customers?

If someone cannot, or simply will not pay up, you’re not going to see a penny.

In my opinion you’re best spending your time tightening up credit control, than chasing debts.

Indeed, reducing credit accounts is the way to go, where possible. I will disagree slightly when you say someone unwilling to pay up means you won’t get paid, from experience I will say first hand that if a business intends to keep trading, they won’t want CCJ’s and bailiffs on the door. Plenty of people I’ve chased through the courts have been unwilling to pay, but because they wanted to stay in business, they had to pay in the end. Anyone running a sensible type of business, needs credit. When these companies are red flagged, the only way they can get credit is if other people don’t credit check them, maybe that’s the case with this one I don’t know.

You’re quite right of course in that if the defendant can’t pay, it’s all rather pointless but again, credit checking will tell you all that.

My point about the winding up order is that yes, it costs money – but if the guy can pay and wants to keep running, he will probably pay up at that point as there’s no other option other than go bust. Yes I know they can come back under another name or another director etc, it just makes life a bit more difficult. In some cases where it’s been a large debt, I have known firms pay for the winding up order out of principal, I’ve done it myself not expecting to get paid, just wanting some justice (I actually did get paid that time). It’s not an option for everyone though I know.

It is a minefield though. We operate similarly to David’s philosophy now, and we don’t really suffer any bad debts now.

[Paul Hodges]

Someone should put in a winding up order on him. That actually may be the only way you can recover a debt from a place like that

[Paul Hodges]

They owe £39,000 in CCJ’s alone! Listed as non trading now.

Bailiffs can’t legally force anyone to hand over money, the court bailiff can remove goods etc but it all comes down to what this company has left to take, which takes time to investigate before you spend more money chasing it.

Unless the debt was huge, it will be more efficient to write it off. Don’t fall for the old phone call from debt collectors either.. have you got any unpaid debts in the last 6 years, we can get the money etc. They can’t get money from people who don’t want to pay. The only people who pay debts are the ones who have to, to continue trading. As soon as they know they can’t save their own business, they won’t care about yours!

[Paul Hodges]

David,

Not surprised to hear any of that. We stopped using them a few years ago. Whilst the guy we dealt with was a nice guy and we had decent prices from them, it soon became clear they were pretty disorganised and would let you down at the worst times.

Your story reminds me of several episodes we had where it turned out the delivery never came on time, not because the couriers were late, but because the orders never actually went out when they should have. Mostly that turned out to be because our placed orders had just been forgotten about, until prompted with a phone call. I reckon you’ve had the same thing.

Back when I first started using them, I think they realised they could take a lot away from Ashby, and they did, after which they got very complacent and customer service plummeted. Times change though and short term attitudes don’t reap rewards. We never used them again.

[Paul Hodges]

Hmm.. If the magenta head was drying out whilst not being fired, why would it just be that head doing it – or why didn’t it stop when changed for a new head etc?

It really is a mystery. We were thinking of changing all the ink lines but when we swapped the magenta line over to another head it didn’t do it, but continued to drop out on the magenta head even with a different ink line.

What I could never figure out is why it’s always the magenta that drops out and never anything else. It does seem to be a high speed/ink starvation issue of some kind, but it’s intermittent

[Paul Hodges]

We’ve got this very same issue on our XC540. It became obvious on a print run of 20 large navy blue banners. All started out looking good but after a short while the dense navy flood print became very stripey. Stop the print and do a test print and it revealed about 25 per cent magenta nozzles missing. If you re-set the machine, the test pattern comes back to 100%, and it’s like that when you start.

An engineer even looked at that for us, swapped the head, swapped ink lines, nothing cured it, we had to conclude no one had the answer. It became obvious that it was better to do one large print at a time, rather than rip a run of banners or vinyl prints at the same time, as that seems to be where you tend to see it the most.

I wonder if static plays a part in this because one week ago I had plastic media that I couldn’t print on because the ink was over spraying into white areas, and now with the temperature having gone up a bit/humidity etc, it works fine. I can’t see how static would cause a nozzle drop out as such, but then again, it did render a couple of our print medias completely useless over the winter so who knows?

[Paul Hodges]

Hi Kev,

This is interesting because my Pro 3 is a bit under par on print quality too at the moment, have done all of what you mentioned except change the lines. So you just renewed the ink lines from the capping stations to the pumps? I have considered changing the lines all the way back to the cartridges but that’s really an engineer job!

[Paul Hodges]

I’ve had this once or twice and it usually comes down to whether you know you might have (or did) do it, or you’re sure you didn’t. If you think you did then you may have to do the right thing and fix it, if you’re sure you didn’t, don’t give him anything. Why would you want to give him a discount for something you haven’t done?

My question would be that if you did make this horrible scratch when cleaning, and then applied vinyl over or near it, would you not have noticed and therefore been aware of anyway? That’s the part that makes me suspicious, you would know. What you have no way of knowing of course is if he has cleaned it or wiped it down afterwards and done it.

One thing I will say from experience about customers bad mouthing, is forget about it because they will still tell people you scratched the door, but then fixed it or discounted it etc, so it’s still less than ideal from a PR point of view. Just have confidence in all the customers that will give you good word of mouth and accept you have to upset a couple of unreasonable ones. It happens to the best of us!

[Paul Hodges]

quote Simon Worrall:

Its a europe thing. It will be not out problem by next year. lol.

Yet more pointless bureaucracy from the EU, something else they dreamed up to justify their existence

[Paul Hodges]

Yep it’s wipe clean paint. You find this used a lot in school’s and childrens café type places so they can wipe down the walls easily. It’s usually slightly shiny finish.

Just to test the theory we tried Arlon 8000 on this paint – the most aggressive adhesive we could get, and it still peeled off. You have to get the walls re-painted or scrap the idea altogether!

[Paul Hodges]

We’ve been using color magic for quite a while without any issues. It’s all a bit subjective really because unless you monitor all your printer hardware constantly, you can’t really tell if a particular ink has caused a failure on a part, unless it happens constantly perhaps, and then you swap back to original ink and it stops happening etc.

I have asked a couple of printer engineers off the record and you usually hear that color magic and granthams in particular seem to be pretty good.

[Paul Hodges]

Hi Martyn,

You’re probably over thinking this a bit. We’ve had our Excelam apart, transported it then re-assembled, it’s really a pretty simple machine and it doesn’t really require expert setting up or calibrating.

Once you have new clutch pads (tension brakes), checked the springs are even, the only last thing that could be wrong is if the rollers are worn, but assuming they are okay, that is all that is required.

Our laminator like yours, is on wheels. Moving it across a room should present no difficulties at all

[Paul Hodges]

quote Andrew O Brien:

If you were putting a charge of £3000 on a regular basis,would you think the same chris.

For large invoices you would steer customer towards a bacs payment. Cards are for convenience and walk ins really aren’t they

[Paul Hodges]

There is another way to look at this, which is how I ended up taking card payments. If you offset the time spent chasing lots of smaller invoices (and sometimes not getting paid) against getting immediate payment, better cash flow etc and no chasing, card payments are a no brainer.

If you can take the monthly charges on the chin, it is a better way to trade and the card companies have us over a barrel because of it.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Martyn Heath:

quote Paul Hodges:

Is that an Excelam laminator? It’s the same as ours. Whenever I’ve seen that problem it’s usually because the brakes need replacing which is why you’re not getting the tension.

when the laminator is in proper running order it should never do that, it’s not really an operator error type of thing

Hi paul, yes it is an excelam gmp1400. If your right are the brakes something worth getting changed?.

Thanks for the other suggestions, ive not really tried loosening off the tension, i assumed that as the laminate is bunching up then tightening was the obvious way to go. Like i say im at max.

Hi Martin,

I’ve seen people on here mention they can see light between the rollers, that isn’t a fault, that is how it should be. The rollers are designed to push the laminate outwards. The only problem you will have there is if the slight gap is uneven at each end, in which case take the end housings off and adjust the big springs to make even.

You should run the laminator with the least tension possible, so if you’re at max and it’s creasing, it’s either the rollers are worn, they just need adjusting to even gaps, or the brakes are gone. Typically you might change the brakes once a year or so, if you’ve had the laminator longer than a year or two and not changed the brakes, that’s probably your issue. The brakes are just small discs to insert on the ends inside the housings, they are cheap to buy. It’s nothing to do with operator error, if the brakes are good and the rollers are good, and tension is reasonable, it runs without a problem. Give Rick at GMP a call and he’ll help you out with that.

[Paul Hodges]

Is that an Excelam laminator? It’s the same as ours. Whenever I’ve seen that problem it’s usually because the brakes need replacing which is why you’re not getting the tension.

when the laminator is in proper running order it should never do that, it’s not really an operator error type of thing

[Paul Hodges]

We stopped supplying design work before getting the actual job, years ago. As a general rule, if you ask for a payment up front just for the proofing, people who genuinely intend to give you the job and just want it sorted, pay up without batting an eyelid. The ones who are not happy to pay that fee up front, are the ones who want to hawk your design around everywhere to get the best price.

We’re always saying on here about bad customer experiences, and this perfectly sums it up because the customers none of us wants, are the ones who don’t really want to commit to giving you the work, they want you to do all the leg work and the running, then they decide if they want to give you the job, and you end up wasting your time.

A simple up front payment will always separate the good customers from the bad customers, especially for non account customers.

[Paul Hodges]

David, what I’m wondering is, can you publicise this story in your local press – or their local press? Obviously the Court victory and compensation are great, but the real damage to the other firm would be negative publicity in their local area.

It occurred to me that if these people were so stupid as to ignore your warnings, or that they didn’t care, this may not stop them doing the same thing to other firms, in which case it would be even better if this story was made known.

[Paul Hodges]

I think what this comes down to is the person who doesn’t want to pay for the design, is probably the same person who doesn’t want to pay for anything really, and you’ll have a fight on your hands with whatever you sell him because this guy can always get it cheaper down the road don’t you know 😉

So it’s probably a case of do we want these types of customers? I always recommend these types to Staples or some place else, as long as it’s far away from me.

I don’t think for one minute you should question charging a design fee or question how you present it. If the guy can get alternative design services for a bit less then of course you can revise your rate, but if he doesn’t want to pay anything then he’s in the wrong place isn’t he?

We all know that serious customers just want the work done quickly and efficiently and they accept the associated costs.
The minute you get dragged into trying to justify why you charge for certain things with the cheap and cheerful customers,
you’re just wasting your own valuable time.

[Paul Hodges]

I like the sound of that. Currently we are using external 3TB drives to back up our main server but it doesn’t give you that accessibility you get from cloud storage.

What has stopped me going the cloud route up till now is the thought of what happens if they lose your data, or what happens if that company goes bust?

So I would probably end up with a cloud account and a physical back up drive. I suppose you could have the two systems running like that. Everything is so complicated these days!

[Paul Hodges]

quote Warren Beard:

Sign Waves is another one who deals in similar ways with operating side line companies offering the same products less than trade price.

This is interesting to know. I use Signwaves quite frequently but will revise this now.

[Paul Hodges]

James is correct…and still being polite about it actually.

The fact is, you can’t have it all ways. You can’t sell hardware to a trade like this, then undermine everyone by competing against them, doesn’t matter whether they take money off you in sales directly or not, the principal and intent, is to do so should the opportunity arise.

That is an ethos that none of us has to entertain and given that there are plenty of suppliers of printers and materials, we can all simply choose to put our business elsewhere purely out of principal.

Maybe then, some of these outfits will realise where to draw the line if they want to keep our goodwill.

I would like to know all the companies who are doing this.

[Paul Hodges]

Sounds like you were a bit too much trouble for them Ewan – asking too many questions, easier to wait for a less demanding customer who isn’t asking as many questions!

I suppose I can see that from their point of view, but it is disappointing. You just have to deal with someone who has a bit better customer service.

I’ve had less than ideal experiences with Grafityp in the past also, you just get to know what to expect from each supplier you use in the end.

[Paul Hodges]

David,

I can’t see how it’s your responsibility to check that, you have to take the word of the customer, but in any case, even if they are not genuinely accredited, all they are doing is paying you to put certain info on to their vehicle, and they can ask you to put anything they like on there.

No one can come back to you and insist you remove it, but they could do the customer, but then that’s their problem isn’t it?

I’ve had this before where customers have even said they were in the process of becoming accredited and would add the number later etc. End of the day it’s not our job to check all the possibilities.

Customers have to take responsibility for themselves. What made me laugh though was that someone actually checked it from the photo!

[Paul Hodges]

Ah yes, I know the employee has to have their contribution deducted from their wage, but the employer has to also pay in the same amount, which makes it sound good for the employee, but obviously is an extra cost to us employers directly.

Therefore, if you’re spending X amount extra on your employees now with the pension contributions, you’re not likely to hike their wages up any time soon now.

But you’re right, it’s a Mickey Mouse scheme really because in the big picture, the pension scheme would only really be worth anything if the employee was piling their own spare cash in to it because these mandatory contributions are quite low in pension terms.

My understanding is that a lot of employees are opting out anyway

[Paul Hodges]

quote DavidRogers:

https://www.gov.uk/workplace-pensions-employers

you don’t pay out more…just do the dirty work for the gov…so instead of them using NI contributions collected today to pay pensions

Is that really true that it won’t cost more? Up until now, you paid employees a gross wage which then has the tax, NI deducted. Now we’re going to be paying the same gross wage out, but also paying 1% pension, up to 3% I think in year 3.

From the discussions I’ve heard, it seems like small business owners are basically saying that if they have to pay out for pensions, that would be basically deducted from any future wage rises, because we can’t cover all these costs. So on the one hand, your employee may benefit from free pension payments from you, but probably wouldn’t get a wage rise which helps them right now, plus as Dave said, the schemes are crappy anyway. Some pension firms won’t even take your application now because they are so inundated, only the government one is guaranteed to take you.

But I’m not an expert on this so I may be wrong on some of those points

[Paul Hodges]

The deposit approach is sensible, but I would go one step further…

Anyone I don’t know or don’t have a trading history with, I always take full payment before a job.
I’ve found this to be the best approach because it’s bullet proof. You will find out straight away what kind of customer you have. The serious ones pay up without any fuss, the tricky ones don’t come back.

It saves you all that admin time chasing people for the money too. Customers who pay a deposit are also quite often hard to get the balance from, so that’s more time you have to commit to that.

What I have noticed, is that when you get full payment first, no one ever complains about the job you’ve just done, so you have to come to the realisation that pretty much most customers who quibble over payment because they have issues with your work, do it just because they don’t want to (or can’t) pay for it.

I think it’s fair too because when you buy goods from ebay or internet, you pay fully, you don’t pay a deposit, and you don’t know who those sellers are most of the time. At least with a local sign place, as a customer you know exactly who you’re dealing with.

[Paul Hodges]

If the suggestion is that the vinyl is faulty, then all of that particular vinyl will show signs of failure, i.e. not only will you see it on other jobs, but all of what you supplied will fail – or that particular colour etc.

If inspection of the decals proves that some of the vinyl (of the same colour) has not failed, then it’s going to be down to some other factor outside of your control.

We had a roll of Avery vinyl fail once, it had been on the shelf too long. It was obvious because all of that material curled up what ever we did with it but everything else on the same sign was good.

[Paul Hodges]

You know what I would do in your position? Find the best job opportunity you can with an established Sign Manufacturing firm, companies are always looking for good people with experience. If you choose the right people to work for, you’ll have job security without all the headaches. If you think your current situation is stressful, try running a competitive sign company in full flight.

This is a tough economical environment to come in to now if you want to compete with others who are established and already competitive in the type of market you want to move in to, in some ways I would say it’s too late, unless you have the luxury of having no real competitors local to you, which is a rarity these days.

It can literally take years and years to get a decent size business in this market to run nicely and profitably, so you either have to have money to see you through and fund that, or you have to have zero overheads to survive.

This is why I say you’re better off working for someone who has gone through all this. I know everyone likes to look at doing their own thing but a lot of people fail at it and it can be a painful draining experience. If I was starting again from scratch, I wouldn’t start my own business now, I would look to bring what I could to someone else’s business and let them deal with the day to day hassles. The 70’s, 80’s and 90’s were all good times to start a business of this type, not so much now though.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Del Blanchard:

quote Paul Hodges:

Sometimes I think people see sign makers as a bit of a push over for getting artwork created cheaply and then using them as a supplier to furnish every one else with said artwork.

I agree. I recently had a lady tell me to get the artwork for her logo and letter style from her website , then she went on vacation. I had to design the logo from scratch and alter the font which I downloaded. I was told to quote her on a tray sign with 1/2″ perspex cutout letters and logo attached to front with digital print attached to the faces in the exact colours as her website artwork.
When she got back from holiday I presented her with my quote and she presented me with 3 other quotes about 1/3 of my price. I told her she would be better off going with one of the other companies. She wouldn’t pay me a dime for my design work.
2 months later she got her sign. It was a digital print on a tray. I heard through the grapevine that the guy who did it for her would never do any work for her again as she refused to pay for his design time and made him change the digital print 3 times.
I seem to attract these people like a magnet.

Typical isn’t it? Someone under cuts you but the customer doesn’t understand it’s not the same job. They blow you out for being too expensive, then realise the quote they’ve gone with is not what they wanted, but are too embarrassed to come back to you to admit it, so they end up with something they hadn’t intended to have.

All you can really say about that is that good customers who use you often, normally trust you without having to get other quotes all the time because they know you know your stuff, and you don’t get all this. Randoms – or casual customers if you like, are quite often like this. That’s where experience tells you when to spend decent time on a customer and when not to bother too much.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Mike Thornley:

Thanks for the replies.

The logo I did for free, but I didn’t want to hand over to the other sign company, a vector’d logo to make it easy for them.
They quoted 50 quid to sign up a Ford Fiesta van, which is just ridiculous, which our client has jumped at.
If they are daft enough to offer such a price which included recreating the logo, then they probably won’t be around to long.
I did offer to price match and do as a loss leader to keep their future business, but to no avail, I did also point out about consistent branding etc etc.
But hey ho…

£50 is not a realistic price to even get started to look at doing a vehicle livery. If you really stop to think about it, an average rate for someone in your studio to produce the design and manufacture it, would be at least £25.00 per hour, so that job allows you two hours from design to installation…clearly not a very good business plan whatever type of job you do.

This is the type of scenario where you don’t want to be passing on any artwork/advice/knowledge etc etc

[Paul Hodges]

Technically, if you charge the customer to create artwork/logo for them, they have copyright to that item, which really means that you cannot feasibly withhold the artwork from the client should they request it. It doesn’t mean you have to give them a vector file, you may have created it as a photoshop document etc, so you can only pass on what you have.

You can adopt another approach – create artwork/logos without charging the customer, and then use that artwork to create signage etc. You then retain copyright of the artwork.

The difficulty with these things is always how you deal with the customer when they ask you to do something you don’t have to do, which usually comes down to what kind of working relationship you want with the customer. Sometimes I think people see sign makers as a bit of a push over for getting artwork created cheaply and then using them as a supplier to furnish every one else with said artwork.

Try getting original artwork files out of someone like Vista Print just because they did some cards for you, they’ll tell you to take a running jump!

[Paul Hodges]

Never had any problems with our XC540 doing photo work, I’m using versaworks.
Usually the print is fairly close to the photo on your monitor, you would have to go some to significantly get a different print result from what’s on your monitor.

Are you sure the original photo isn’t already like that?

Like Chris says, only other thing you can do is check your profiles

[Paul Hodges]

Sounds like you’re getting the boat wake pattern, which happens when the edges drag a little bit.

That is usually caused by laminate being same width as vinyl, but inevitably overhanging and grabbing.

Best piece of advice for laminating issues: Get it serviced, if the brakes are worn then you’ll get incorrect tension, it won’t matter what you do it will never give nice results.

[Paul Hodges]

The problem with contravision is that it only works with optically clear laminate, nothing else is 100% clear, including frog juice.

The result is that you can’t see clearly out of the other side. If the contravision has to operate with correct visibility from behind, you either have to not laminate it at all like most people, or you get the optical stuff.

It’s quite rare to find anyone who uses that, even big trade suppliers don’t seem to use it very often.

[Paul Hodges]

That was one of my other concerns Rob, the average price to do a full digital wrap to a medium size panel van, would in theory increase due to the contravision – and it’s no small amount of window either, they run all the way down the sides plus the large window in the back doors.

That makes it a fairly pricey job, even by wrap price standards

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks Macky,

That’s a good idea, I’ll follow your lead on that.

Thanks
Paul

[Paul Hodges]

Hexis are very hit and miss in my experience. They have some nice products but not that easy to deal with, you never get through on the phone very quickly and the pricing does seem to fluctuate a bit.

They should have told you about the price difference before you bought it, or at least matched it for that one purchase.

Long term sales are what should be in mind when suppliers deal with these types of issues, in my opinion at least

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks guys,

We’ve had the laminator 6 years and tried all the various tension tweaks. We have to have the tension fairly high on the feed roll because if it’s lower, the laminate doesn’t go down flat on to the print.

The real point though is that when it’s colder time of year it’s perfectly fine again.
If the warmer temps are causing tension problems with the rollers, I’m up the creek because I can’t slacken off the tension anymore.

Manufacturers have said you should always release the rollers when not in use, we’ve never done that actually, they reckon it will wear the rollers – but only in the summer?!!

Scratching my head over this one!

[Paul Hodges]

How much do you need the work Ewan? This one will likely yield the same profit and turn over as a local equivalent job but at twice the time and effort which doesn’t really add up in economical terms.

What I do with these is to ask the customer for photos of the locations for the signs, rough idea of size of sign, then put in an estimate subject to survey. naturally your estimate will cover your time travelling on the job etc. Tell the customer if they are happy to go ahead on that basis (that the cost could increase subject to survey), then you will proceed with the works.

At that point you have to use your experience to allow enough money on the job to cover most eventualities, if you don’t get the job you haven’t lost anything.

[Paul Hodges]

I had a job from them some while back and they made mistakes on the order, the folded pans came in bent in one corner, and the paint finish had a spotted pattern over it.

One of the production guys told me that was due to the bubble wrap leaving marks on the pans because the paint had not cured properly, because they were late getting it out and rushed it. You can imagine my mood when I un-wrapped it.

The best part was when they told me they would not replace it because I hadn’t reported it within 24hrs of receiving the parcel. We had actually left it wrapped for a few days to protect it until we wanted to start work on it, I wasn’t aware of this policy. So they told me the reason for not replacing it after the 24hrs was because I may have tried to install it, damaged the goods and then tried to return it to them. My photos emailed to them were a fair indication we hadn’t handled it.

What got me was that regardless of the refusal to replace because I may have bent the pans myself (apparently), they made no acknowledgement that they had messed up the joining plate and ruined the paint finish, which were reasons enough to have replaced it – but it wasn’t checked within 24 hrs so it didn’t count!

So like all of you, I voted with my cheque book and stopped using them. It still makes me laugh to think that some people think it’s okay to run a business this way.

[Paul Hodges]

The take up is a good feature but it’s not the easiest thing to get set up without rolling around on the floor!

Therefore if you were only putting a few prints through at a time I don’t know that it’s worth using the take up, unless you somehow sheet cut jobs off, leave them on the take up, re-set the media and join it on the take up roll.

Otherwise I can see an endless round of taking that lower take up roll on and off the machine day in day out

[Paul Hodges]

Hey Chris, thanks for your reply.

Yep, I’m pleased with the machine, well, I’ll be ecstatic one this is sorted lol..

Yes these are the ones that you tighten up, I haven’t really used the black collars yet because I’m always doubtful how well the circular rollers are fitting into the media core.

So what I should be doing then is pushing them in and tightening up, then locking the black collars flush to the media rollers, pulling out some media, clamping the pinch rollers down then reverse the media back to the roll to see if it’s running out.

Do you find it easy enough to get the whole thing running straight even when attached to the take up, over long print distances, say 10 to 20metres

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks for that info chaps, it does sound like this might be a worthwhile upgrade for us. I like the low maintenance of the SP50v and relatively low running costs but it is slow. The extra speed of the Soljet sounds very attractive.

The machine is probably about 6 years old, it does come serviced I believe, and with a 3 month warranty, by which time hopefully we might have discovered anything obviously wrong with it

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks Chris,

Would I be right in thinking then that the Versacamm although slower, is easier to control the quality of the output, or more consistent in quality of output?

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Windebank:

they do a near full version free (well did) to use on another pc but wont cut

I remember that. A bit sad when you’ve been a customer for over 20 years and spent several mortgages with them, that they can’t find an easier way foor you to run their software, especially on multiple machines with full function.

Sometimes seems to me it’s a case of trying to wring every last drop out of you

[Paul Hodges]

It’s a dilemma isn’t it?

And if you run it on more than one PC, you have to buy multiple copies at the same price, they don’t even do a bundle deal.

[Paul Hodges]

Hi Chaps,

Yes you can change heat settings etc.

I use Avery 700, some metamark, some ultramark. Some calendered vinyls are better than others.

The original idea was to use scotchcal 220 vinyls on the edge, the softer, thinner face film of the cast printed really nicely, naturally you can use any cast that has a flat face film.

With calendered you obviously won’t have quite the same compliance. I just did a job on avery 700, the first few labels didn’t print perfectly, the rest was okay, so as long as you put spares in there, you’re good.

The aggro of the odd re-print probably out weighs the cost of using cast vinyl. You do have to be careful with foil creasing as well.

That’s my experience of using an Edge since 1995 anyway

[Paul Hodges]

I find one of the biggest advantages of the Edge, is in fact the accuracy when you put it through the Gerber 380 plotter, it is unrivalled in that respect. I’ve actually cut an entire 50 metre roll of vinyl, all individual labels.

Where it isn’t always as good is actually printing the image down properly on the vinyl. If you’re using a flat cast vinyl it’s good. A typical calendered vinyl quite often takes several out puts to get one decent one.

[Paul Hodges]

Chris, I’m really intrigued to know why you want to get in to Edge printing!

We’ve had ours since 1995, we use Omega, always used Spandex software as it has been the best bet, some people sell used copies.

It was a great little machine in it’s day, still is if you happen to own one and it doesn’t cost you anything to keep it, but they are only good for certain things now.

What are you thinking of using it for?

[Paul Hodges]

Interesting one this.

Like Phil said, if you’re not busy then you can be more diligent chasing up quotes – but if you are busy, presumably you’re already doing things well enough to not have to spend time on smaller details…unless you’re making no money of course.

In my experience most customers know what they want to spend and don’t like being upsold to, I know it works sometimes, but not much.

Personally I think you judge each job and customer on an individual basis and use your experience to do what’s right. Some are worth throwing extras in, if they spend a lot with you, some not.

I think we would all like to spend more time on these sorts of details but to really make profit you have to have the fundamentals right, get your materials for the right price, get your sale prices right, and get a good level of business through the door. I like the idea of the small details but you have to have time to do it all

[Paul Hodges]

Yep, the Spandex parts are sky high prices but you can get some of them yourself – there are some engineers around who have some of these spares.

We were recently quoted £1000 for a repacement board for our 380 gerber plotter, but you can pick them up second hand for around that price.

[Paul Hodges]

Are we allowed to post contact details on here of people who fix these things? I know someone who will know about this

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks Neil,

I’ll have a look at that

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks for this advice Neil,

I think I will take your suggestion of having someone have a look at it. What you’re describing sounds like it could well be the problem.
I don’t know if it’s possible with the material out of the machine, to lower the rollers together and visibly be able to see anything unusual in the way the rollers come together but I’m going to have a look anyway, then make a service call I think

[Paul Hodges]

quote NeilFox:

I had a similar problem with my Royal Sovereign laminator. If I remember rightly yours has the notches at the side where you set the thickness. I found that if the rollers were too tight together, then I would get buckling. Normally a slight adjustment would work, better still, get the machine services and all should be well.

There are two large springs either side, inside the housing which need to be level and I believe they set the gap between the rollers, we’ve never changed those in six years. I wonder if there could be any expansion on the rollers in the recent weather that has made the rollers too tight?

Something else to investigate!

[Paul Hodges]

There are two tensioning knobs on the left side of the machine, the general idea obviously is to get the laminate running tight and even on the roll, which I have to say, we have tensioned at maximum in order to avoid any creasing issues. I tried backing that off but we seem to get that angled ripple pattern you see on the roll before it hits the vinyl, so we resorted to tightening it all back up.

I think I’ll try loosening both again and see what happens, I did notice before that when the tension is lower, the laminate pulls off the roll much higher up and it;s all a bit looser on the bars. We’ve never managed to get it to run very well on the lower tensions but I’m going to give it another try.

[Paul Hodges]

Hello Kev,

That is a good question – probably two or three years ago, we replaced some minor parts as I remember, nothing major like the rollers.
The trouble with servicing this thing is that we’re quite a way away from the place that sells them, last time we had to take it apart and drive it up there because they wouldn’t come here (and it weighs a ton)..

Do you think it’s just a servicing issue then or something a bit more specific?

[Paul Hodges]

Mostly it’s cutting after laminating the following day or so, in one process it’s normally okay.

Seems that it doesn’t like the workflow method of doing a lot of varied prints in one session, laminating in one session then cutting in one session.

Have also had it where you can print the same file multiple times, laminate then cut a day later and some batches it will cut accurately, some will be nowhere near.

It just seems that the longer you leave it to cut the file, the more the variables change, but when you do the whole operation quickly it’s usually spot on so it’s not an accuracy set up problem.

Loads of people have had the same on the SP 540v – a sales rep told me it had been cured on the VP but then another guy who had one on here I think confirmed it was still a problem

[Paul Hodges]

I think the problem Andy, is that it’s not one specific issue that causes every fault in this area, some people don’t ever get the problem, but some of us are getting the same persistent issue.

I’ve tried the environmental match so many times now and sometimes the cut works okay sometimes it doesn’t so i could never isolate it to that.

Regarding the out gassing, a lot of people including ourselves now don’t worry about leaving the prints over night, not for small labels or jobs with relatively low ink coverage. Naturally if you’re doing big flood coated stuff then you have to but we don’t tend to machine cut that type of work generally.

The procedure i mentioned before is the only way i found to avoid it happening. I was told that Roland Japan know about this but did not know what really causes the issue therefore there is no actual cure for it

[Paul Hodges]

Been battling this problem virtually since we bough the machine back in early 2006.

Since then I’ve been through every conceivable possible solution and can confidently say that using environmental match or automatic alignment does not cure this problem, although it is possible that some machines do it for varying reasons, it’s so hard to say what causes it therefore it’s hard to say for sure what to do to cure it.

For anyone who gets this problem on a regular basis, if it’s any help, the only way to avoid it that we found was to print your document, take it straight off and laminate it, put it back on the printer and cut it – all in the one continuous session and it works brilliantly.

Where it seems to hit a problem is if you print a variety of documents in one session, laminate some time later and return for cutting some time later or following day, then results are hit and miss and you end up binning half your work.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Robert T Walker:

i have a similar problem with my 4 month old vs640 where a line appears out of sync
its not all the time but i have no confidence in it,

Roland have been out a few times with no results the did mention that the next step was to replace the print head but that was 2 engineer visits ago!

I had the print heads changed as a result of my drop out problem at Rolands cost, the upside was that we got new heads, the downside was that of course it didn’t cure it because it’s nothing to do with the heads directly. When it gets to that point you know they are desperate because they don’t know how to cure it.

Obviously if you’re getting the problem all the time it could be something else other than what we know as drop out banding

[Paul Hodges]

quote Elena kalispera:

Was this problem ever sorted it sounds similar to mine??
ELENA X

nope, it’s a problem for the versacamm. some engineers i have spoken to say it affects a lot of printers.

this particular problem is not media related, it seems to be something to do with either static, which temporarily throws the dot pattern out or it’s a feed problem with the motors whereby it doesn’t move the media properly and consistently.

i ask this question to every engineer i meet and so far although they know of the problem they don’t know the absolute answer.

another thing i do know for sure is that this problem also occurs on the VP models and later, not just the 540 v

[Paul Hodges]

quote Gert du Preez:

They are as puzzled as I am, claiming mine is the only one they know of with this problem….

There’s a familiar story – i’ve been getting that line ever since we bought our versacamm.

I think the problem is that there are certain inherent problems that come about with printers like these which they don’t really tell you the limitations of. Some people’s machines suffer more than others but at the end of the day they can’t really solve all the problems.

I’ve been told on at least one occassion by a roland tech guy that roland japan knows of some printing and operating faults on the machines that can’t be totally fixed.

From my own personal experience i think the effectiveness of the print/cut feature is limited. We’ve had good results and we’ve had bad results without ever being able to isolate it out to any particular reason, but generally speaking the more you ask of it the more it screws up.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Andy Blackett:

quote Gert du Preez:

Andy,

Are you always only slightly out, or is it way off on occasions? Our SP540v will sometimes align perfectly, then out of the blue (while doing multiples of the same job) it would be out by about 50mm in the scan direction, 20mm in the feed direction! I can for the life of me not figure it out – it sets up etc as per usual, then goes totally bonkers!

I also have a problem that it does not complete the cut – on a 90mm circle it would cut, and leave the last 3mm uncut. When cutting text (no matter the quantity) it would do this on only 1 letter. If i nest several jobs, each of the jobs will have 1 uncut section.

Strange…..

It can be both Gert!! and yes its very frustrating.

quote Lee Attwell:

Versaworks gives you an option to set the page length so if I’ve got to do say 64 stickers at 320mm x 260mm, I set it up four wide on the roll and 4 deep allowing for 4mm per decal for spacing I set the page up as a custom cut with a page length of 1060mm.

I couldn’t do a page anywhere near that long Lee, we have to stick to 1370mm wide x 600mm max to retain reasonable cut alignment.

Andy

I’ve had this alignment problem on our printer also, it’s a constant irritation especially when you have to do multiples. As previously mentioned, it will do some spot on but some will be off.

It’s not a calibration problem. Things to check to make it more reliable:
encoder strip must be clean, rubber grip rollers are not worn, metal grit rollers are not dirty.

It’s an intermittent tracking problem, the prints quite often twist as they are being cut. When it’s way out it’s usually encoder strip.

[Paul Hodges]

Hi Stuart

Thanks for the details so far.

My first question would be what about the latex water based performance as regards printing on materials that are unlaminated, versus solvent and eco sol max etc?

Laminating your prints is all well and good but what about banner printing etc? Can we expect similar durability to solvent?

Paul

[Paul Hodges]

don’t think they do print & cut though do they? that’s one feature i wouldn’t want to lose if at all possible.

also need to know what the ink costs/cartridge arrangement is

[Paul Hodges]

are they really? blimey that’s a bit high end then, the one they’re advertising is a 60" machine!

[Paul Hodges]

just to follow on with this topic, i’ve just printed 14 banners more or less back to back on a few different weights of banner, all flood coated purple and black, and every single one of them has left some light coloured dropout stripes in them.

Whether the end user notices it or looks for it is arguable, but it isn’t a desirable situation when your printer does this especially when under a bit of pressure. Head height adjustments made no difference, heater adjustments made no difference.

Printing on vinyl the following morning in high speed and it’s doing the same thing on a monomeric 3-5 yr vinyl, changed it over to our spandex polymeric 2503 vinyl and it isn’t doing it, or at least isn’t as noticeable.

My feeling is that it’s a combination of the eco sol max ink and certain medias, or the coating on certain medias, whereas full solvent trade machines appear to be able to flood coat onto just about anything, our eco sol max ink is not quite aggressive enough to achieve the same.

This problem has plagued us since we bought the printer in 2005 and i still don’t know the definitive answer to it. Whereas at one time i would have stuck with Roland for any future printer purchases, i think i would be more inclined to buy a mimaki next time

[Paul Hodges]

quote Mathew Gibson:

I have just printed 50 metres worth of banner material from europoint on my VP540 solid green and never had a problem i know this might not help but it can be done without the banding!

What weight banner media is it mate?

[Paul Hodges]

It’s not the weight of the roll that causes it, or the pinch rollers or any of that, you should always have banner media unwound as slack on the back because the versacamm motors aren’t really powerful enough to pull it through properly anyway.

The way to stop the dropout effect is to substitute your average 550gsm banner media for 440 or 450 – i have virtually eliminated it using lighterweight materials, it just doesn’t like printing on thick media.

[Paul Hodges]

quote George Elsmore:

And i thought it was just me this happens too….so in essence dont bother doing banners on a roland if printing a block colour as it even does it with spot colours 😕

it was explained to me that our printer (SP540v) wasn’t really designed to handle banners or heavy media, vinyl printing of course is fine but when you go outside of this with different medias, you hit the limitations of the machine – of course, I, like all of you no doubt, were sold a machine which could do this, and i suppose it can, if you can live with the inconsistencies.

Something in the ink delivery/eco sol max setup is just not powerful enough for really good flood coat results.

[Paul Hodges]

John, the reason i know about this fault is that i’ve been complaining to Roland for over 3 years about it, it’s a known fault although they quite often tell you they haven’t seen it before.

It is specific to Roland printers which is why you won’t really see it on the bigger full solvent trade machines, i’ve tested all the banner materials i can get hold of and it isn’t really down to profiles or different banner suppliers, it seems to come down to the thickness of the media you’re using.

In a nutshell, the machine isn’t really man enough to put down a consistent solid bank of colour on a heavy media type, which is why you will more often than not, see this on your flood coated banners, trust me, I’ve been through all the variables and you still end up with this.

Eventually, a chap at Roland admitted to me that it is a flaw but Roland Japan either can’t or are not prepared to do anything to solve it.

It’s interesting because your machine is newer than mine, some Roland sales guys have recommended i look at upgrading to that machine, they promised me it doesn’t do the dropout flood coat effect that mine has done since day one

[Paul Hodges]

John, if that’s what i think it is, then join the club – in fact, get in the queue lol…

Is your problem that the print leaves a feint band in the dark areas of the banner, then jumps back to the correct colour, and so on…not ‘mechanical banding’ as is widely seen with inkjet, but more of a random ‘dropout’ of colour?

[Paul Hodges]

Just spoke to Jo at perfect colour and ordered the eco sol max carts – as well as being extremely nice 😉 she is indeed offering very good pricing on these.

[Paul Hodges]

quote marshy:

The point i was making was that Solvent is a lot more resistant to scratching. I agree if you wanted to scratch it you could but not as easily

full solvent is marginally more resistant to scratching on banners compared to eco sol max inks, on vinyl there’s not really much in it in my experience, and considering damage to your exterior print would usually occur unintentionally or just by wear and tear then laminating is the obvious solution, therefore full solvent has no particular advantage in that regard.

I do agree with Shane on the price of the ink though, as troublesome as bulk systems can be occassionally, the max carts are still dear by comparison

[Paul Hodges]

quote Shane Drew:

Ian, I don’t think they are not being as generous as you think.

Their profit is in the ink, and its huge by all accounts.

I can buy solvent inks at almost half the price of eco max. They’ll get their money back very quickly by having you back on board.

In terms of scratch resistance, thats why I changed to full solvent.

I do a lot of work in tourism – too cheap to laminate. My jobs were being scratched in transit using eco inks. I changed to solvent and 4 years later, I still don’t laminate those jobs, and I’ve never had another complaint from my clients with regard to scratching.

Banners also scratched easier than with solvent.

If you are laminating everything, then I don’t think either way is an issue, but if you want longevity without laminating, solvent has to be a serious contender.

Thats just my experience anyway.

Whilst I totally get the point Shane is making here I would have to say there has never been a solvent ink that I couldn’t scratch, whatever the strength of the ink, so to have inkjet prints in a tourism environment without laminate and no complaints, I would consider myself very fortunate, I certainly wouldn’t be asking too many questions lol

Eco sol max has so many good points that I don’t think most people would go to full solvent from there, maybe if you’re used to full solvent then you stick with what you know, but any inkjet print un laminated and within reach can easily be spoiled, just a question of your customers expectancy

[Paul Hodges]

Hi All,

Did start reading this thread but it’s gone on quite long, so just in case it hasn’t been covered – which I’m sure it has by now –

Be it signwriting or design agency, the land lies the same way, you create artwork for someone who hasn’t paid you specifically for the design, you own it and in theory control it – you haven’t given customer digital copy.

If they pay you for this service, you give them digital copy and they are free to reproduce wherever and whenever.

If you originate artwork that the customer doesn’t pay for yet they go to another firm to reproduce it, you can pursue the client in county court, so long as it’s obvious they have used or stuck closely to your design – because you were verbally asked to undertake this design service, so in theory they still have to pay you for the design, you can’t stop someone else making the sign though.

This happened to me and I pursued it through trading standards.
Like all these things though, it’s a case of time and if you can be bothered to pursue. As a signmaker you are not responsible for any come back from copyright, it’s down to the client to settle with the originator.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Fred Mc:

Write a stern letter to the managing director and any other high up contact e-mail you can get a hold of, and any trade magazines too! 😀

Hi Fred,

Yes, I did consider this, trouble is, the guy at Andover who cancelled our account, is the son of the major shareholder of that company so I can’t get past him really, and HMG themselves have said they can’t pull them up either because they don’t have any say in the way Andover is run, they just sell their product through them etc, so the problem is coming right from the top so I don’t think we’ll ever change it or get an apology, and they won’t re-open the account.

The only action people like ourselves can take against this type of treatment is to be vocal about it and hope they lose some sales from it.

[Paul Hodges]

There’s another point to make regarding ashby that we’ve fallen foul of a few times. Whilst they usually give good prices and service for larger signs, their smaller sign quotes are actually very expensive and are not pro-rata at all.

I was told once that their folding and welding charge remains the same regardless of whether you order a 20′ sign or a 2′ sign, which quite frankly is ridiculous seeing as those of us with manufacturing backgrounds know full well that it takes a lot less time to fold and weld a small sign, but it’s details like this that make some of their stuff way too dear and something to be aware of.

[Paul Hodges]

don’t price to be the same as everyone else here, you’re not in competition with them (i assume) lol..

like John just said, pitch your price to your area and get what you can because one thing you can guarantee is that your prices will only ever go down in the future not up! and there are already too many people knocking out rubbish work with cheap prices in this trade.

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks Rob,

Space is the issue, would love to have both and run them, at least we would have a back up if one goes wrong etc, but realistically we only have space for one. I know the background of this VG and it’s only had light use, seems like a better choice going forward, as long as it’s as much of a work horse as the XC has been

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks David.

The VG has just had a service, and only had light use as far as I’m aware. Maybe upgrading to the newer machine is a wise step then.

[Paul Hodges]

If that did happen there would suddenly be a lot of people out of a job!

[Paul Hodges]

Even if you’re house is burning down lol? Seriously, it’s yet another case of a state where no common sense applies anymore and over officious rules are there just there so people can be fined, because it’s just about money like it always is.

I would like to think you could explain to the Police that you had no choice but to work on your business, but in isolation, and that they could be lenient and apply some common sense, but I don’t fancy your chances. There has been plenty of lockdown footage showing the Police enforcing some of these so called rules in very heavy handed fashion. Power trip!