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mmracing601

Pricing for doing fire trucks. Need some help on this one.

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got a local fire truck manufacturer that wants me to letter all of their trucks. They are going to include all the material and the cutter. all i have to do is design and stick it. most are going to be black background with turned engine 22 ct gold over lay on both doors. the rear will have to done in chevron. the side will have white reflective in a "z" pattern down the side. i have no clue on this one. they roll out anywhere between 2 and 7 trucks a week.  im thinking of just telling them $45 per hour to do it. any help would be greatly appreciated

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i have a bunch of friends at a firehouse and they are gettin a new/used truck and asked me to vinyl it for them. they havent gotten it yet but i asked them how much they payed to have the other trucks done and it came out to a couple thousand. they didnt give me an exact figure. just said it was alot. i know that really doesnt help in your situation since they are providing everything.

put into consideration how much designing you have to do. is the design going to be the same for every truck. how big or small the trucks are. how many doors and compartments are on them. catch my drift?

how long do you think itll take you. if it takes you an hour thats only $45. if your putting in an 8 hour day 5 days a week using all of their stuff at $45 an hour thats $360 a day. is it worth it? how much are you gonna bust your ass?

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If they already own a cutter and the supplies, you can bet you are going to compete with in house labor...perhaps their vinyl guy quit and nobody else knows how to use the equipment??  Watch out that they don't want to watch ya do it and get free training on their own equipment...If that is their intent sure, do it but charge for it.

I would doubt that $45/hour will go over real well unless you can do some whiz bang stuff in little or no time.....even though it is worth that any day of the week, they are probably used to paying $10-$15 hour and having employees that can do other stuff when not applying vinyl.  I would be very very careful when negotiating the $$ in this situation.

Who is responsible if the vinyl is no good and peels down the road? Will they pay you time to get their machine working and talking to their sign program if it is in need of help?  Can their computer do what they are asking you to do with it? Is the software a supported program or is it a bootleg off Ebay?    Is the cutter a professional machine capable of doing reflective? (Or is it a Cricut or Stika?)

All of the above may be just fine , just go into it with your eyes wide open.

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Putting vinyl on a firetruck could be a huge task.  I've never done one, but I'm a firefighter, and look at the trucks a lot.  The chevrons are a lot of work.  cutting around the compartments, lights, appliances, ugh! 

And the compartments on the sides.  These days most of them are roll up doors, so you'll have to cut slots between the roll up panels - that would suck!

We recently had chevrons retro fitted on a truck.  I think it was $1,000 just for the rear.

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I just went through pricing a fire truck job.  I am just printing and cutting and another guy is doing the install.  When I told him what I was going to charge for a logo printed on Sign Gold gold leaf he said it was way too low.  Here is what I was figuring on quoting.  I don't know if I am totally off on this or not. 

These prices also take into consideration design time, laminating, and cutting.  Does not include installation.

This for a black maltese cross outline printed on SignGold and laminated

22"  $360

16"  $250

If they choose a standard premium cast gold leaf vinyl from FDC, Oracal or whoever:

22" $150

16" $125

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i was told the guy doing the lettering now, makes $900 on a small 1 ton, up to $2000 on a 3000 gallon tanker. the website is www.deepsouthfiretrucks.com if you want to look at some of the trucks.

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I would do a flat fee per type of truck.  That way when you get really good at it you will be making good $ per hour.  Also don't want a customer to wonder why it took you 3.5 hours to do this truck and 5 hours to do another truck of the same type as somedays things go well.  I used to do all the firetrucks in this area.  Didn't mind doing them as they were very flat trucks (at least the ones I worked on) so the vinyl was pretty easy to apply.  Did have a lot of doors and knobs to cut around though.  Unless you approve of the vinyl I would not make any guarantees for warranty as they might choose a cheap vinyl then when it cracks and peels they will want you to repair for free...  Seems like it would be good steady work if they roll so many truck a week off the line.

Just my thoughts.

Jim

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I can tell you that I did fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars for 3+ years and they are not bad at all.  I worked right for the fire truck manufactuer making peanuts an hour and we were charging a fortune IMO.  I can do a complete pumper truck front to back and side to side install (stripes and lettering thats already cut and transferred) in about 2 -3 hours. 

Obviously designing and cutting will add considerable time to this but if your are doing basic work you will do alright.  I just quoted a local fire department with a pickup truck cab and reading body.  They want 6 inch scotchlite with a standard Z with no lettering and I priced it out at $450.  Whether that is high or low by peoples standards Im not sure, but I feel good with it and know ill make out just fine. 

When doing it just keep in mind that 22K signgold is far from cheap and can add up quick since fireman seem to really like it haha.  Oh and I cleared all my signgold with "frog juice" by hand.  Also, painted rollup doors are best done with individually cut pieces (1" or 1 1/8" wide) while regular metal doors can be put on full width and cut with razor blade on the top and bottom of each gap without damaging the weatherseal inside. 

Overall it seems like a daunting task because they are so large but its actually very easy, just alot of money in materials til your done. 

Good luck..

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This ones easy, charge hourly for your design time and hourly for the install.

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well friend, i quoted 3 fire trucks in a town near me, black background with gold leaf overlay, reflective white pinstrips, custom logos, and also a hazmat trailer,  my quote came to $488 for all,  they wound up using a person whos quote was $598,  cant answer that one, but sounds like i was just to good of a deal for them,    id seriously consider the price per truck route, some could be more involved, hope this helps

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