Wildgoose

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Everything posted by Wildgoose

  1. Wildgoose

    Hello NOOBIE from NW Indiana

    Well printing is a bigger deal than you might think. To print on vinyl you have to have a solvent or eco-solvent based printer and they cost....well...A LOT! Starting above 10K I believe. I also imagine that if you buy the lowest price printer you may also be getting the cheapest. Follow me? Any way. Cutting vinyl is another story and you will have tons of fun with that new cutter once you figure out the ins and outs. There is a definite learning curve and you may be frustrated at first but once you get the hang of it then all you have to do is figure out how to install it properly. <deadpan humor> While you wait for your cutter go online and download "Inkscape". It's a free vector graphic program that is superior to what will come with the laser point (You will still need the program that comes with your cutter to be able to send files to cut). There are tutorials in the help section and there are tons of youtube videos to help learn to draw and trace which you will need to know how to do and might as well get started learning while you are setting around biting your nails waiting for the cutter to come. This forum is a veritable cornucopia of information so at some point you are going to want to set down with a cold drink and do some searching on various topics but until your cutter gets here you don't even know what you don't know yet. That will all come soon enough. Welcome to the forum and I speak from experience that you will not find a better group to help you. Most if not all of us started out exactly where you are right now.
  2. Wildgoose

    Chrome Vinyl...

    Who knows with the factory and that's always my worry that I am already getting an old roll! I think it's a year or two shelf life. Probably better if you keep them in the plastic bag sleeves. I have some stuff that is three years and still seems to work but I have been able to tell the difference when I used up a roll I had for a while and opened the new stuff I had just gotten. Cut easier and weeded better (the new). I have never thrown any out but I bet the stuff that you see on discount sale or to ebay is getting up there.
  3. Wildgoose

    2 More T-shirt Designs

    Wish I had a DTG. I'm jealous
  4. Wildgoose

    Chrome Vinyl...

    It does if you use it up. If you don't it gets old and stale. Vinyl has a shelf life.
  5. Wildgoose

    Chrome Vinyl...

    I'd say you jumped in in a big way with a full 50yd roll. Maybe they only sell 50 at a time directly?
  6. Wildgoose

    2 More T-shirt Designs

    White shirt no graphics? Pretty plain IMHO. LOL <edit> Ah now I see it! Much better and they look great. is that going to be DTG printed or what?
  7. Wildgoose

    Another "Official" Introduction.

    Welcome from Idaho.
  8. Wildgoose

    Another piece of garage art for a friend....

    Ya light boards are cool. i broke mine. They don't work out on an install either where the parchment works great and you can avoid the bubbles that sometimes come when layering on a carrier prior to install.
  9. Wildgoose

    Hix heat press

    I'm thinking about seeing if I can find a slightly upsized roundstock and drill the whole thing out. I am afraid the handle part is as worn as the two flatbars. Not sure if there are any options like that out there. For now I just unhooked the springs and am setting it aside as a back-up that cost me all of about $8 in HTV It works you just can't walk away. I definitely prefer the swing away for what I do. I don't like being under the platen all the time. If I ever decided to go do a booth somewhere I might take that press along rather than the swing away because it's lighter.
  10. One thing I have done in the past when I have under charged is let the customer know at the time of delivery that I made a mistake but would honor the deal I had made. I basically did a bunch of hats too cheap (first hat order ever) and didn't want to do more at that price so I let him know I was off on the labor to perform the work and that I couldn't afford to do them that cheap. He felt grateful for me honoring my bid (which I would even at a loss, a bid is a bid. Take your lumps and learn) and then was aware that they were going to be more on the next order. No problem, I have been doing tons of stuff for him ever since and was able to get my prices up where they are profitable (or more profitable as the case may be). There is a point where I would rather turn the machine off and go hang out with my kids than work for minimum wage. Like a big percentage of us on this forum I am a part timer and don't rely on this to support my family. Just extra cash and the first hobby I have ever had that was a money maker instead of a money PIT!
  11. Wildgoose

    Looking for new plotter

    15 ft is definitely an improvement over what you can count on with most of the budget cutters. Here is a comparison from spec sheets from some of the better cutters out there: Rolland Stika & Graphtec Cameo - 39" Vinyl Express R series - 5ft Roland GX24 - 9.8ft Graphtec CE series - 25ft Roland GX Pro - 26ft Graphtec FC series - 49ft SummaCut D series - 164ft (yeah I'm a tracking snob! Ha ha!) By contrast the budget cutters don't even list a tracking distance but they do have a max cutting distance MH -8ft SC - 12ft Copam - 20ft
  12. Wildgoose

    Paintball Jersey Blanks

    Well if you start stacking too much the HTV doesn't feel to good anyway and some logos are too intricate for it. If I am in charge of the design I always steer them in directions that I can produce with HTV just cause I don't do the other and....well, I want the business dang it! LOL
  13. Wildgoose

    Another piece of garage art for a friend....

    Looks pretty good. Did the gold get off on the hoofs a little? I have found a little technique almost by accident that has helped a TON on fine detailed stuff. I use a piece of parchment paper (for backing cookies, my wife keeps huge rolls from Costco on hand), nothing sticks to that stuff. Just peel your carrier off and slap the parchment on and you can lay it right on the lower layer and see though about as good as having the whole thing on a lightbox. Then I tape it in place with a hinge and pull out the parchment paper and it's right in place at that point. It has saved me tons of times since I started using it. I still use reg marks but the added ability to nail a perfect placement is nice.
  14. I think if you were doing 1 then $4.11 would be more reasonable. I have had a hard time coming up with a good system that doesn't drive the price through the roof on one end of the spectrum or the other. There so many variables that it's hard to have a generic formula even if it has a built in curve. How much weeding time and is it so small you will lose some...etc....That looks like a lot of weeding BTW. I think $1.50 is plenty aggressive given the amount of weed time that you must have put in. Bottom line is cost plus mark-up and then your time and how much it's worth to you. Some times I work way too cheap.
  15. Wildgoose

    Hix heat press

    I recently got a very old HT-400 as a trade for some shirts I did. I used it a little to get the feel of it and was happy with the results. Mine is a little worn and the handle wants to pop open if you don't stay there with a very little hand pressure on the handle. Other than that issue it works great and did a great job. I plan on keeping it as a spare in case my Chinese swing away takes a crap on me in the middle of a job. Hix is one of the top names in the industry. I don't like the noisy manual timer much but the ability to "thread" a shirt on is handy.
  16. Wildgoose

    Paintball Jersey Blanks

    Why not use HTV? If they are stretchy go with the stretch version of easyweed. I have never looked for paintball jerseys. Here is one supplier a quick Google search for paintball jerseys wholesale brought up: http://www.ansgear.com/Paintball_Distributor_Wholesale_Paintball_s/1796.htm
  17. Wildgoose

    A couple questions for you veterans...

    To tell the truth I had horrible luck with the rollers on my P-Cut. I think you are supposed to be able to set the roll between the two and the plates with the crappy O-rings are supposed to keep the roll centered but I found my machine would pull the whole roll off and it would land on the floor and go rolling. What a mess. Sometimes I would hang my roll on a single rod and let the guides keep it centered that way but the guide on the right side seemed to be in a bad spot and wouldn't let me put it where it really needed to go. Most of the time I would just cut some off the roll and load it as a sheet and not even worry about the whole roll. That ends up wasting a little more vinyl off the end but it worked better for me. Good luck, it's totally annoying.
  18. Wildgoose

    Needing a long black ladies glove

    You do help a LOT of people out Skarekrow and that says a lot about your character. It warms my heart to see people helping others out. Keep up the good work.
  19. Wildgoose

    Needing a long black ladies glove

    It all becomes easier with a little practice and you will be surprised how easy it becomes for you and will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. The hard part for me is not having as good of artistic brain as I would like. I can manipulate the nodes with ease but getting the look just right is the hard part. I have a knack for re-creating existing art, like rebuilding someones logo from a worn out business card. To me that it easy. Coming up with the original stuff or figuring out the best way to highlight a silhouette to get it to look right is a whole different thing which I do NOT excel at and have to spend a lot of time monkeying around. I think the glove looks fine. The pinky finger looks like it could use a little thinning where it separates from the other fingers and possible the rest of the fingers could be slightly longer but I doubt anyone but you (or those who are looking as critique) would really pay any attention.
  20. Wildgoose

    cutting issues

    You know as bad as I bash on the greenstar vinyl I have actually had surprising success at cutting some small stuff with it. I think it may be the fact that it is a bit stiffer than other vinyl and stays down on the carrier. I still occasionally sell a little here and there, mostly to people I know won't get pissed when it goes to crap and I give them very explicit waring that it's total junk vinyl. For instance, I used some as a test run on a 40 ton articulated dump truck as a black background for some white 651 and I used some white GS on the bottom of a wheel barrel in 10 inch stencil letters as a theft deterrent. Some day I hope to use up that starter bundle I bought when I started. LOL
  21. Wildgoose

    Whats the secret to selling dirt cheap?

    Sell for a loss and make up for it in volume. Bwaahaahaa!
  22. Wildgoose

    export to signcut

    I'm not totally sure I understand what you are trying to do. Are you looking for the SignCut Pro plug-ins for Inkscape? I don't know where that can be found but you can just save your file and then open it in SignCut Pro. That's what i do. (I actually work and save in Illustrator but I think it's the same compatibility with SignCut)
  23. Wildgoose

    Needing a long black ladies glove

    Ya Scarekrow is all over the place for sure. Just don't forget the "teach them to fish" principal.
  24. Wildgoose

    Looks like they are upgrading

    Being staff, were you working on things the whole time? Or are you just like the rest of us sitting around missing the yackity yack?
  25. Wildgoose

    Looks like they are upgrading

    I am glad it's back in action.