Wildgoose

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Everything posted by Wildgoose

  1. Wildgoose

    Cutting small files

    Those are some nice tweezers
  2. Wildgoose

    Cutting small files

    Be prepared to see the price tag on the Summa. With a stand and additional 60* blade holder I was at over $3200.00 They don't come cheap. I don't honestly know if they will do better on tiny stuff like this over a Graphtec or Roland but they are the best at tracking, period and that is mostly why I bought mine. I don't do a lot of contour cutting but the Opus X system for that is supposed to be the best too and it does work awesome. I just use it for contouring around transfers when they are small enough to still have room for registration marks. The fine cutting ability is due in part to the accuracy of the motors and the other high end machines probably have similar success for the same reason.
  3. Wildgoose

    Some new work....

    The only thing I wish it had was auto open. Their clams have that option and it would be nice at my little operation to be able to walk away and not have to time my trip to be back for the opening. I am not going to buy a clam though. I spend too much time placing small layered stuff and I don't want to be under the platen that much.
  4. Wildgoose

    Cutting small files

    I have a Summa
  5. Wildgoose

    Barter deal I made today.

    Just a follow up on this machine. I did two jobs with it to give it a good try and was pleased with the results. The only complaints I had are #1 I am spoiled with my swing away and don't like working under the platen and it's harder to place fine cut layered items when under there. Burned my hand only once though. #2 the handle would occasionally pop up on it's own, not every time. I suspect some of the linkage might be getting worn or something for this to be going on. It only did this near the end of my last session. As long as i stayed there and kept my hand lightly on the handle it was fine. #3 The old fashioned twist timer is noisy and annoying as are the sound of the springs when moving the upper platen at midnight doing late night work. All in all I'm thinking this is a perfect back-up machine to have around. I really like the ability to lace shirts on and just heating the one side, my swing away is a lot more cluttered under there and more trouble than it's worth to go that route.
  6. Wildgoose

    Some new work....

    Thats a nice press Jarrotto. One of these days I want to get me one of those.
  7. Wildgoose

    Cutting small files

    Good point, if sluggo can leave that stuff alone and weed from the final resting place it would be easy, well maybe not easy but very reproducible. Not sure if you can see where to install it without at least a little weeding though.
  8. Wildgoose

    Flag

    Any of the Opaque feel stiff like that, I'm not a fan either. I did just buy a few sheets of the IYA brand that is supposed to be the old Iron-All dark and it is a little better but not like I was hoping for. I have a couple clients that call me and want one or two sweatshirts here and there and they like them in a hurry of course. I do enough other stuff that I basically do them for the cost of the product and donate my time to the cause. They sooner or later end up ordering nice big orders that more than make up for it. Like 500 hats last summer and 50 hoodies this winter, the hat job was my jumping off point to upgrade my cutter. There were two colors front plus a small logo on back. If you are already doing the rest of the shirt with HTV then you can at least squeeze them in during that time and reduce the overall time spent on the flag itself. If you are already doing the whole shirt then throwing the flag on for a buck or two is a lot less of an impact to the costs of that job. I throw names on the back of shirts for a buck all the time if I'm already doing the shirt anyway. At least your only doing 9, that may actually be a good thing. Personally I would probably say something like "I would usually charge XX amount for the three color flag on the sleeve but I'll throw these in for nothing for you because your one of my best clients" and butter him up rather than worry about the 9 bucks.
  9. Wildgoose

    Cutting small files

    I took a shot at it but that stuff is pretty small and most of the stuff that is outside the panels just comes up with the weed. One of these was on a scrap of greenstar and the lower boxes with the cirlcles came up wit the weed, pretty well got the two dashboards or whatever these things are. THe second one was some ORacal 751 and it did better on the lower squares but weeding them without picking the whole thing off the carrier was tough. The right dash I tried to weed with a pair of tweezers and you can see the result with the dash setting up above. It got stuck on the tweezer and wouldn't come off. I would hate to have to do these on a regular bases. My eyes aren't good enough to even see some of the smaller holes so I quit trying to stab them and took a pic. If you were doing a one off for a special model and had the patience to cut a dozen of these and keep trying I think you could get all the elements but my experience with tiny stuff is you had better cut extra and plan on cannibalizing a few to get all the pieces.
  10. Wildgoose

    Cutting small files

    Thats pretty good doug! Sluggo - the servo motors are much more accurate but I don't know if it's worth it just for that?
  11. Wildgoose

    Flag

    The HTV cost isn't an issue on that small of item but the weed on the starts and stripes would be time consuming. I think I work too cheap but even I wouldn't touch that for $1. Maybe if he was a major client and this was a promotional good buddy type thing then you could at least justify the investment of time. You will be lucky to get 6 shirts an hour done. I would say if it has to be HTV then probably 3 base color and at least a dollar per each color on top so $5 minimum. If you could do the transfer you could get like 10 per sheet of paper and easy to cut out nice and square and maybe then for a buck or two.
  12. Jiffy is real fast as the name implies. I can usually save a little money by using SanMar though but you have to have a resellers license to get an account with them.
  13. Wildgoose

    copyright question

    The text and the shape of the text are irrelevant unless used by a trademarked business or organization such as the "Mountain Dew" looking text etc... Like Banner John mentioned, if you have legitimately designed the elk or bought the correct usage license for it then you are good to go.
  14. Wildgoose

    full color opinion

    If you get a pigment printer, spring for the large format. That's the one regret I have had. I bought an epson WF30 and can only do 8.5x11 sized stuff. I have gotten creative and can do multiple sheets at a time with the JPSS pretty good with some practice but really wish I could print on 11x17 but then my press would be pushing it at 15"x15" ...oh man it just keeps snowballing doesn't it!. Jet Pro Soft Stretch is the bomb for white shirts. Really awesome product. I have not been sold on the opaque (for dark shirts) transfers, of any brand. They feel like crap in my opinion. I very recently purchased a sample pack of Jetwear Dark IYA brand that I think used to be called Iron-all and it is a little better but still not as soft as I was hoping.
  15. Wildgoose

    My first post,be gentle.....

    If you look at it and think it resembles a JD logo then you are bumping up against copyright and trademark laws that have the potential to land you in a lawsuit. There are people who copy stuff all the time and seem to get away with it but IMO it's not worth the risk. In a lot of ways it depends on the application. I have a "Hardly (not Harley) Davidson" logo that I built to poke fun at a home built bobber bike I built a few years back, I still wear it on my own clothes but I don't sell it 'cause I want to keep my house.
  16. Wildgoose

    New to vinyl graphics.

    I have heard the Copam is actually a pretty good cutter. I don't want to steer you away from a graphtec though. The difference is in the motors and the higher end cutters are real nice. On your budget be aware that there are other expenses that will be involved too like app tape and some tools but I would not recommend going and buying a whole bunch of vinyl right off the bat which is what I did. You will be fine to buy some white and black but for colors I would order per the job. You probably should consider an affordable heat press too. You will have the ability to cut Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) and can garner a lot of work from that side of things, more than you'd think. I started with a P-Cut which is several steps off the bottom but also several below the Copam I think. I used it for 2-1/2 years and built my business up and then upgraded. I can't tell you how nice it is to have a quality cutter so looking back I wish I would have just bought it right up front, I just didn't know if the whole thing would be a lark or a money maker. I pretty much guaranty you can do enough to pay off a quality cutter fairly easily even if the business never gets all that big so if you have the coin up front for a good cutter then maybe go that route. Size, I wouldn't worry about getting anything bigger than a 30inch and you can actually do just fine with a 24" machine and tile the bigger stuff. Tiling is also much more spot on with the higher quality cutter so the size is less of a concern. My P-Cut was 48in and I never cut anything above 30" so when I upgraded I went down to a 30" machine. I actually went to a Summa but they are a lot more money than you'll be able to snag a graphtec for. I might have wnet to a 24" machine but the Summa only goes down to 30" as their small cutter. I just decided if I was going to upgrade I wanted to go with the best knowing that it will probably be my last purchase unless I get crazy and go huge with a printer etc and at that point I'll have a whole bunch more decisions to make. I work road construction by day so I know where you are coming from on that end. There is great money in vinyl. I just do it as a side thing for extra cash, I have too many kids! Some day I hope to retire into just doing this.
  17. Wildgoose

    I need a contact to give my customers.

    There is a guy in y town that does nothing, NOTHING himself, just a major salesman and subs out everything to others and I think he does pretty good. I think you should be upfront with them but if you tell them that SOMEONE is going to be doing this for you and it might as well be them then if they are smart they can cut you a decent price and gain that much more business volume.
  18. Wildgoose

    I need a contact to give my customers.

    You will have to collect sales tax on any mark-up plus the cost of the product like normal. You would be basically buying the item from...Say "Joe's Shirt shop" rather than Jiffy or Sanmar or whomever you would normally use and they are going to come already done with the graphics.
  19. Wildgoose

    I need a contact to give my customers.

    What her is saying is go find a local shop and start up a relationship where hopefully they will give you a decent price break so you can have them build the products for you and then you give them to your client. That way YOU are the one dealing with the other shop and handling the problems if they arise and your client hopefully won't even know the difference. I don't think most people even care all that much as long as they are dealing with you whom they trust, I don't do digital and when I get a request I tell them I have to sub that part out and they don't seem to mind.
  20. Wildgoose

    Who has a DTG with white ink option?

    Whats another $20k for a second printer...pocket change. LOL
  21. That JPSS is real tough too, I have a couple test shirts that I lost counting on a year ago and still doing great. I read somewhere that you can take Hydrogen peroxide and remove the burnt look? can't remember and I am pretty sure it was on the edges not on the actual transfer but you might try it.
  22. Wildgoose

    Printer and CISS Kit arrived!!

    I got my sample pack of the Jetwear dark IYA brand opaque transfers. I did one last night and was hoping for better than it feels. I think I'm asking too much out of an inkjet product. It still feels pasty although noticeably less than the other brands I have so it's probably my new favorite for darks. I put a lot of dark ink on it and will wear and wash a while and see how it holds up.
  23. Wildgoose

    Multiple vinyl layer.

    I'm not sure how much you have messed with these things so here is a version without the gradients to worry about. Depending on what cutting program you are using it may have just ignored the gradients anyway but you never know and it would definitely get confused in the cut by color pallet. There were several other little issues with non-welded paths etc that I fixed while I was in there. Welcome to the forum! LNR no gradient.eps
  24. Wildgoose

    Multiple vinyl layer.

    You won't have any problem with that one at all. There are some gradients in there that you will have to take care of but what little overlaps on that won't even be noticed.
  25. Wildgoose

    Bowling Pins

    Awesome! Fader I was hoping to find that one particularly!