juniorranger

As far as applying it to wood i have found that it is best if it is finished, It needs to have some type of gloss or shilac on it to (a) protect it from weather and ( give the vinyl something to adhere to. If you sanded it and sprayed it with paint or some type of clear gloss i dont think you will have a problem. I have seen oak sanded down smooth enough to hold vinyl without a coating but i didnt see how long it lasted.

I basicly just have business cards and a registered business name so i could open a business checking if i wanted to or not, You can do as much as you wish as far as your business is concerned, I dont charge sales tax so i dont have a tax id number, And i just pay tax up front on all my materials so i dont have to pay taxes at the end of the year. I prefer to just make enough for extra cash and keep it small, if it blows up great but if not i am happy with it at a managable size. As long as your not making 100k a year you can probably operate for many years with out worrying about taxes and llc's and all that, And believe me thats when the headaches start.

This was my first attempt at layering. Turn'd out not so hot..

Here is the final XS Speed decal that I sent to the customer, After some tweaking it came out just right, Problem is he wanted a triple layer'd sticker to fit in to a 2" x 9 7/8" area but still be able to read everything, these were made to go on the top of valve covers for a Professional Jet Race Boat. Which these led to lots of other work. Charged him 5 bucks each for the stickers.

Here are a couple i cut that are ready to be applied to coroplast sign board, Did them for a fence company.

Here's a logo i did for a local fence company, I scanned it in to SB off a catalog cover they had, turned out better than i thought it would have giving what i had to work with.

That was the hardest part was weeding the lattice, It was a pain....!

Here is a truck i did the other day.

No bubbles it just turned out choppy, tried to upload the bad ass ones but it says file to large, any ideas??, The decals are already gone to the customer so i only have the pics of the ones i cut.

Here are some signs i did for a lady that has yard sales every weekend, never dreamed there would be a market for those.

Cool, thanks will try it when i get to the casa, Nice website.. I still need to set up mine..

When i try to cut this image that i have scanned in it is cutting a line on both sides of the letter, you can see the letter looks like it is 1/4 inch thick and thats what i get is a trimmed out line of the letter. It is cutting like on both sides of the letter, like you could weed it and have a fully outlined "E" or whichever letter. Instead of just cutting the outline of the letter. If you know what i mean. When i am done cutting i have a fully outlined letter that is a quarter of a inch thick, the center of the letter stays on the backing but you weed the outline which messes up the finished product. I hope yall understand what i mean, cause it's hard to explain but simple if you saw it. It's like you drew it with a 1/4" sharpie and it cut a outline of the letter you drew, instead of cutting just the outside line of the letter. Now i am just rambling trying to explain this. Please help.. Banner john - Terry HELP!! J.R.

You changed the nodes? Guess i havent played with that portion yet. What do i need to do to change nodes, how exactly do i do that? Thanks for any help you can offer, Sorry to be so ignorant but i just know enough about SB to get myself in trouble.... Thanks again for helping me out..! (Sorry, i didnt see the post till i messaged you..)

Tykite, Terry & John Exactly, i was eating diner and it dawned on me a minute ago.. Damn i feel dumb, sorry guys.. Guess i had a brain fart for a minute there. How did you get it to fill in the letters Ty???

At fast signs, the last time i got a quote it was like 40 bucks for a back window decal that was like 15 x 30 and they want 30 bucks more to put it on.. At least thats how it is here in the dallas fort worth area. Now there are a few sign shops that charge like .50 cents a letter regardless as long as it is one color. Thats to cheap i think, There windshield banners in 2" letters come out to like 12 to 15.00 bucks. They dont even have a minimum charge, I wouldnt even cut something for 12 bucks in just a qty of one unless they were buying something else like door or rear window stickers also.. Just my opinion anyway..

Ursula, Do you have any work you could post pictures of so we could possibly see what your actually doing wong? What exactly is it that you are not understanding about vinyl work? Is it the software, etc.. What software are you using? You will find everyone on here is usually more than helpful. What type of "artsy" stuff did you have in mind doing or can you elaborate on that a bit more? What type of cutter do you have?

Do you or did you like your sign craft pricing guide? Was it at all acurate? Did or does it give you any type of modifiers that will make the guide useful over time once pricing of materials go up or is it gonna out date it self due to inflation and changing of times. I mean is it gonna be useful over time or a year from now are the prices still gonna be accurate?

The way i price all of mine is according to customer and time and difficulty, and type of vinyl and or material, Layered sitckers that are triple layered are like 5 bucks for a 2" x 10", Obviously Charter Cable pays more than the average consumer, I usually triple my cost of vinyl per foot and thats what i charge per letter, I pay .29 cents a foot so my letters come out between .70 and .90 cents ea. In my opinion it takes about the same amount of vinyl to do 2," 3" and 4" letters by the time you calculate waste and excess and the occassional re-cut, give or take a inch or two, or a few cents either way. Always remember when pricing you can always drop your price but it's very difficult to ask for more cause you didnt bid enough. My banners are 10.50 a foot as long as they are between 2 and 3 feet in height and are single color. There's really no rhyme or reason to my pricing other than i just take each job on a case by case basis. Just like obviously i wouldnt charge 21 bucks for a 2 x 2 banner, small orders and jobs are sometimes as much as big ones.

I have the same problem with the fellers catalog, i finally found it and viewed it once but have never found where i went to view it since then. But they are the "know all" for vehicle wraps. I think it's gonna kinda be like the spray in bed liners, real expensive at first but then it's gonna be everywhere just like the spray ins. To do spray ins at first was like 30k to get in to, now i think it's like 12k. I just cant see spending 45 or 50 thousand on a machine to cut or print vinyl, maybe i am just cheap..

Now thats a cool idea, Thats simple and looks like it's gonna work great, makes mine look to complicated. May change my design after seeing that..

"cutme" What type of cutter do you have? Did you finally do a blade change? JR

Does anyone know what the FDC equivalent of this would be for interior work ??;D

Terry, Who do you get your FDC off ebay from? Would like to buy it off there but leary of buying off ebay....

I just did a 12' banner and it did the same thing on only some letters, i pulled the blade and it was covered in adhesive, i cleaned the blade and slowed the speed down and havent had a problem since, yet again "knock on wood".

I would take a copy, i store mine to a flash drive i have so i can take it from computer to computer and edit it where ever i am at or save files from which ever computer i am on, i also have a 500gb external harddrive i save all my work to, i have had xp fail 3 times. So i agree save everything to a external harddrive.