Truckntran

With all the discussion about trademarked stuff lately.....How did you deal with any authorization to use NAPA's logo...? (remember the dewalt thread??) Just curious as I'm sure this pops up a bunch and I bet NAPA could have said ...the stores only can buy NAPA signs from us, if you make money selling our Logo you owe us....... This is the only thing about the sign biz that scares me... lawyers and corporate beancounters stink. Nice job on the sign... looks like a real NAPA sign to me.. .

I'll be really interested if anyone else has good input on this...I wasn't happy with the roll of MSI magnetic I finally used the last of....smaller signs were not sticking on the vehicles....There seems to be a shelf life to this stuff and they don't like not being on metal.....Mine came from Beacon as well, I do not remember which type it was, but it was plenty spendy. I bought signs from a truckstop shop last summer.. the magnetic is no longer enough to hold them, gotta tape them to th truck now. They started to wrinkle after 4 months. Nothin quite so ugly as magnetics taped on a truck. What I would suggest is make sure you do the numbers on a square of magnetic, don't try to give them individual numbers as there are so many places for the wind to catch on individual numbers he will be picking them up ever time he uses them. And definitely round the corners.. Also take a look at tehcar he is applying them to and make sure it is a suitable surface for mag signs, no filler or excessive paint, and flat and smooth area...Hopefully he isn't applying over body lines either.. BTW how fast does he usually autocross?

What does it in DR Stika is scrunching any script type font together or playing with the spacing settings.. As long as you proportionally stretch and don't change the aspect it will do OK, most of the time...Sometimes you just have to live with it or weed really carefully. I look forward to when I get new software that can weld....(Dang truck just blew the rear end so I am out the $$ for now..)

Red tractor, green seat...lol... You want a BUNCH of tractor pictures, go to YTMag.com the Yesterday's tractor site, or fastrack, or just google images for Farmall M or H or whatever tractor you are wanting..

I'd do the LHAC on top, and in smaller and undistorted text do the words underneath.Maybe Bank Gothic or similar for the small text. With it split up like suggested it is almost unreadable and seems awkward... Also the purple background needs to be either the whole sign or just the LHAC, but not split up the way it is.. It almost looks like your computer combined two different signs into one, kinda like th epeanut butter in my Chocolate thing but not quite as tasty as a reeses.. Remember... SIMPLE is READABLE.....And UNREADABLE signs reflect on YOU, even if it is what the customer wants.. So your job is to sell the sign they NEED, not the one they want. What is the significance of the current purple shape? EDIT: I wonder what it would look like if you were to have the purple background striped instead of solid? Try different stripe widths.. (alternating purple and white stripes, try both large polo shirt style stripes and narrow pinstripe ones to see what looks better..) At first glance the sign looked fine, but I see what you mean about readability once I started to look at it it drove me nuts..lol... Be glad you caught it now and have an eye for it....a lot of folks woulda just cut it out and went with it.....

How about putting it on coroplast sheets and installing grommets in the corner so he can hang it like a banner? Other than that you are going to be doing a "real" sign install with anchors , etc and aluminum /wood/plastic faces....and that is gonna be real money.. Don't know of any vinyl that will stick to concrete buildings for more than a minute or so. Other alternative is to actually paint the sign on..

Welcome, from Coleman, Texas! Where in Texas are ya? Just getting into T shirt transfers myself, picked up a new to me press and a nice old Graphtec to cut the material with this week.

Another vote for the d not being defined.. Remember if ya can't read it QUICKLY it isn't readable. Gotta try anothere font, the M isn't too readable either... Your avatar is much better.

Nobody seems to be seeing my post on the competitior board so I thought I'd post here.. Got an older sx -15 that works great except on longer and complex decals it starts to get off track or makes really ugly noises.. I have noticed it seems like it is going a bit fast, when I get home I'm going to try slowing down the cutter speed and see if it still does the miscuts.. parts of the design end up a few inches from where it is supposed to be, it is always off in the x direction ( paralell to the edge of the machine left right) and never off in height.. I'm using DR Stika, got version 1 with the machine so had to download drivers to use it with Vista.. If I attempt to do a larger design with an outline, like plain letters inside a 1 foot by 3 foot box, the box outline ends up being skewed to teh letters by up to half an inch. If I try to do a large splash with letters inside of it, one line may end up fine, but the line nearest the right side of the cutter may end up miscut by over an inch, or some of it is fine and the rest is shifted up (cutting in landscape) and ends up off the splash.. ANy things to check? Did clean the rollers, reset blade, try a different blade....Only thing I haven't done is buy a new 24 inch Graphtec....

Hi everyone.. I better introduce myself...as I already posted a pressing tech question.. My name is Bill, and I have been into lettering and signs ever since I was a kid..I'm constantly looking at the signs anywhere I go, checking them out for neat ideas and also checking out the things NOT to do.. I am one of those guys that would buy an old sign as "art" as I just think the old hand letterred stuff is neat. Wish I had the talent.. I have lots of old books including Atkinsons' lettering guide. Some of those old walldogs had talent by the bucketfulls! I don't seem to have the motor control to hand letter, but with Vinyl Cutters I can actually do the things I could only dream of doing before.. About 5 or six years ago I needed some signs for my pilot car business, so after paying for the first set, I started researching cutters and bought a used Roland Stika.. Mainly I made signs for my own businesses and friends, trying to gain some experience. I am one of those dreaded garage operators......but I try to not compete with the brick and mortar local shops... The pilot car biz has slowed down and I finally got a chance to get my Stika out of storage..We have some new businesses in town that had made all their own signs (They ought ta make magic markers illegal for some folks ya know...) One guy paid several hundred dollars for a guy to make some vinyl signs for his place... and they were (in my opinion) really ugly. I offerred to make him a nice A frame sign to put out by the road in return for some free merchandise from his store, and once the sign was done, I have been bugged by folks wanting signs. I guess it turned out pretty good..lol. The other place traded for a few small signs and some RTA vinyl.. Unfortunately they just add my good signs to their homegrown ones instead of tossing the homegrowns in the trash.. At last count there were over 20 signs vying for ones attention in front of their place.. Anyhow, I am looking to get a little bigger, maybe buy a REAL cutter and software to cut and print(gonna farm out the printing......)I have found having ones eggs in only one basket isn't too good with today's economy.. I am looking to be the neighborhood sign guy, kinda like the neighborhood carpenter...maybe some day I will be able to get off the road and just do signs and play with my old Jeeps. Thanks for listening, now back to your regularly scheduled forum..

Here's my experience with a Stika. I bought one (SX-15)used from an online ad ...got the cutter in its original box from a guy who had used it extensively doing decals. I had it working in a few hours, cut and applied decals the first day. lately It has had issues with tracking and has started to make expensive noises, but I have a feeling it is plum wore out.. I went to Roland's website, found a place to ask a tech question, and got an email with a phone number the next day.. I called, talked to someone, and he agreed with me it is probably worn out somewhere.. and needs service.. I will be dropping it off soon , we will see if their service guys are as good as their phone help. It is nice to know that an old cutteris still something they will support, and they were relly helpfull on the phone, even tho I bought it used for less than half the original price. The DR Stika software is pretty easy to learn, basic stuff.. the only thing is it won't vectorize images you import, like the big dollar software does, and you can't distort your lettering into an arch shape.. or at least I have no idea how to.. 15 inch is a good size but you won't be doing any really large stuff as it can only tile into two panels for a job. Tracking can be an issue for longer decals too. Mine is version ONE, so it may have changed by now...lol. Would I pony up close to a grand for one now?? probably not.. but if I could find a good used one for $500 or less I'd do it in a heartbeat. the new one is too close in price to the real 24 inch cutters avilable now(like a Graphtec for $1500 or so...) but if you don't see yourself doing anything larger than your saw stickers,it'd be fine. Another suggestion.. if your saw shop is like my workshop, be sure to establish a clean room for the vinyl machine.. Dust and junk isn't good for them..

I just did a 15 inch by ten feet flat sign that had lettering in ten inch letters and a border.. Didn't have any paint mask so I just cut it in plain vinyl, in a color I had a lot of. Other than it pulling the base color off in a few spots ( someone else did the board for it...) it wasn't that bad for a one off deal. I think if it was a intricate sign I would have had some problems tho... but mainly because the board was not as smooth as I would have liked. Try it and see how you like it on a test sign, ya may not need to go buy paint mask.

I have priced out the hinged signs and the guys in the oversize books get so little for one it wasn't worth it for me to make one. I couldn't get the stainless piano hinges for what they were getting for the whole sign. Right now I use the coro signs, and mount them with bungees just like a banner. Seems the most foolproof method on my Chevy,and they look good too. The only problem is storing the signs does more damage when they rub on stuff than actually using them does. (I probably could be a little more careful with them, that'd help...lol..) Interesting that you work in WV....We just recently brought wind towers to a small town in Western WVA coal country and it was the most dangerous pilot car work I have ever done.. Seems the local folks were really unhappy to see us and they did not want to cooperate or get off the road when our 16 foot load was coming at them around sharp curves.. I was told I was number one more there than I have ever been told anywhere else. Not good when you are hauling 120K on 13 axles on a skinny two lane. I'll have to look up that CC font..

I did a large run of magnetic signs for a pilot car broker a few years ago, and cutting the magnetic was the hardest part of the job. What I eventually did was make a cutting board with a nice smooth piece of plywood and a pair of 3/4 inch aluminum angle screwed to the board to guide the magnetic material. I used a square to make the ends of the angle even before I attached them to the board. All I have to do is unroll the material , place it between the angles, and Use my large metal ruler butted against the end of both angle irons to guide my utility knife. I'd get ya a picture but it is stashed in the shed right now. I guess you could use it to cut 24 inch coro as well, or anything smaller. I use the snap off Olfa style knives.. I found someone at a yard sale selling off a bag of about 50 of 'em a few years ago and I'm still using them.....They are cheapo Chinese ones but as soon as they get dull I just snap off to a new cutting edge and all is well. They are also my cheif weeding tool.

Thanks for the big welcome, everyone! Just finished a nice 10 foot long painted "Sandwiches" sign for the local deli.. Looks like a real signpainter did it.. and best thing is no vinyl peel after a year like alot of other local signs seem to be failing.. The deli guy was ecstatic.. I think I'm getting free food for a while.. lol. Now I get to pack up and take everything to my Texas location for the winter. I found out Roland has a service depot in Richardson , TX, so I may have to drop off my cutter for some tweaking.. It will no longer cut a straight long line (another reason I painted the sign for the deli..) Roger, I've made my own engineer grade reflective O/S signs with black vinyl on engineer grade reflective background... I have found almost all of the commercial signs you can buy do not meet DOT standards for brush stroke, I use a different font and bold it up a bunch to meet the minimum 1 1/2 stroke that is required to be 48 state legal. We have a shop in Coleman that has the coroplast O/S signs, screenprinted for $35... They use a thicker coro than the election signs, and it is a decent deal, but again, the brush stroke is wrong for several states. I just recovered one in vinyl, we will see how it holds up. My reflective roof sign is 4 years old and still reflects pretty well but in daylight it looks shabby. Anyhow, thanks again, hope I can contribute some here instead of just askin'questions.. Seems like a great forum!

Hi everyone, glad to find this place.. I do signs as a fill in between other work, and have a Roland Stika SX-15 I bought used, using it with DR Stika on Vista. If I try to make a decal that is any larger than say 10 inches in length, it occasionally "burps" and relocates the lettering anywhere from half an inch to an inch away from its location.. Sometimes this is accompanied by a rude "Stripped gear" sound, other times no audio indication, I just find the error when weeding. If I try to cut out an oval , say two feet by ten inches, with words inside it, especially if I use a "star shaped " oval, it will do this nine times out of ten.. I have paint masking I cut last night (actually just odd vinyl) where it was simply a large 10 inch letter with a border.. In 39 inches of cut area, the border tracked off by about 1/4 inch up to a half. I have tried not cutting off a roll ( I have a nice roller stand for the roll) to lessen the load on the drive rollers, and I cleaned the roller wheels and the drive shaft (I couldn't believe they use adhesive perforated foil for traction on the driving shaft..) and so far have only been able to limp my way thru the larger decals.. If this wasn't a paint mask job it would look like poop. I also have tried cleaning and resetting the depth on the blade, and even a different blade.. Any Suggestions? (I know , new cutter...but that is in the works after I do enough signs to buy a Camm or graphtec or...?? and I'm spoiled by DR Stika's ease of use..) Thanks in advance for any help...!!