slice&dice

I'm not sure I exactly understand what you are trying to do --- "after you cut your image, how do you cut that piece out? do you remove the roll and then cut? do you cut it on the plotter?" Scissors seem to work well for smaller areas that are less than the entire width of the roll. To cut off the entire width, I use a envelope-opener razor slicer from the dollar store. Just slide it across WHOOSH!

Couple of quick replies -- 1. That table has a tarp fabric material to cover a rough wooden surface -- I use the table for a "holding" area for substrates/banners or doing weeding, and if I need to cut something, I'll do it on my cutting mat (2'x4'). At some point I'll just buy a 4'x8' mat and cover that entire table with it. 2. The awning was indeed PVC and I used high-performance vinyl. BTW, my ladder is one of those fold-up types, it goes from 4-feet folded (fits into my hatchback car) to a full 16-foot straight ladder. This month brought the following jobs: Hot Dog street vendor (step-stake signs for his location) Day Care (windsign) Playground/SwingSet retailer (banners) Chimney Sweep (job-site h-frames) Masonry Repair (truck magnets) McDonald's franchisee (A-frames) Chiropractor (front windows) Auto Mechanic (updated existing lighted pylon sign faces) and a bunch more, all keeping me jumping. As they say at Mickey-D's -- "I'm lovin' it"

Out of curiosity, did you remove the sign faces from the pylon, or just go climb up there and do the application work right on the sign? BTW, I notice that the oval isn't rounded on the bottom, for some reason.

My cutter is a VINYL-LOVING beast, and with the volume of work I get every week, I'm running through 50-yard rolls like crazy. I just did 2 blue coroplast signs, 4-feet square each, and that chewed-up around 14 running feet of 15" white BASIC vinyl. Then, I knocked-out a few 10' banners (green) with MORE white 15" and before you know it, that white roll is whittled down to nothing and it's time to get another one!!! Like SeeJay mentions, Black & White are used extensively, but so are Red, Yellow, Blue. There is no hard and fast rule about how much vinyl to stock at any given time, which is why having a variety of suppliers who can get it to you Next Day is how this business thrives.

Happy St.Pats' to the Honorary Irishmen (and Women) out there!!! Just wanted to update the thread, so here are BEFORE & AFTER pictures of a restaurant marquee application. They served me a nice corned beef & cabbage dinner after my work for this take-out food place was completed!!! Ahhhh, the perks of the job!!!

Walgreens pharmacy has in-store Large Format Printers that produce signs now, so does Kinko's/FedEx. Soon, WalMart will get machines that print signs. I do thousands of $$$ worth of cutting jobs monthly out of a small Main Street shop that I rent, and purchase from several established local wholesale suppliers that deliver next-day (GRIMCO, FELLERS, HARBOR SUPPLY, etc.) as well as buying from places that ship to me at excellent prices (including US Cutter). I compete with SIGNS-By-Tomorrow, FAST SIGNS, Sign-A-Rama, and many other places that offer sign-making to the public. When I do a banner for $60, is that destroying the market? Hell, no, because banners can be had for that price online (See: Vista Print) -- what do you think, VistaPrint is a huge secret? I offer my production skills, my time, my design abilities, and get all sorts of sign jobs every day from a variety of clients, at prices which are competitive and provide my clients with the feeling that they've been well-served.

That job was priced right, and everyone wins -- you won because it gave you some quick cash (the little angry guy didn't take you 40 hours to produce like you thought, did it?) and the customer got a high-quality sticker at a fair cost. Well done!

I use the basic Roland-compatible blades, get them for a couple bucks each on eBay ($10 for 5-pack, free shipping, several BuyItNow vendors offer them at that price point) Never had a problem with them with my MH871, and I use it for making all sorts of signs in my shop. If you want to research this subject further, do a search on the Forums, there have been several discussions about blades here.

Congratulations. Let us know how much you enjoy it when it arrives, and if everything is what you expected.

Bring your laptop with signblazer loaded, that's the key to being sure everything is fine. Good luck. Let us know how things went after you get back from your little road trip.

Go over to her house with $160 in cash, and get the unit. This isn't rocket science. It's brand new, it will run with signblazer, you can play around with it, make some money, learn a bit, figure out if you want to get a stand later, in the meantime you'll be fine just sitting it onto a counter or desktop until you decide how you intend to configure your cutting studio, including weeding table, taping area, sign-assembly, etc. The main thing a stand offers is a set of feed-rollers to hold the vinyl. You probably could build something with broom handles as rollers, that would sit right behind the cutter on the desk --

Solar lighting is usually Low-wattage -low-intensity LED's. What you are describing is a massive amount of power requirements (4 bulbs rated at probably 70 watts each?) -- and what about the VOLTAGE required for that ballast to fire up the lamps? Doesn't sound reasonable for a customer to change the specs of his sign order, to something not regular electrical-grid-powered, especially since you've ordered all those materials already. Google is your friend, in any case, if you want to go along the route of altering the entire project. http://www.intlsign.com/solarsigns.php

Thanks for the compliment about my set-up, but it's not really very sophisticated, all things considered. Just a vinyl rack on the wall, and the MH cutter (with my home-made catch-basket). Not knowing what level of detail you are attempting to mask and paint, I cannot really answer about those stencil materials. My understanding of what you're attempting to accomplish is to lay down a design on the surface of the RC car body, and airbrush over it, thus leaving the OUTLINE of the design? If that's the case, I would think that you just need a roll of vinyl with REMOVABLE adhesive (ask your US Cutter sales rep to guide you in purchasing that type). Indicate that you want the equivalent of 3M series 50. Also, don't forget to obtain a 3' x 4' self-healing cutting mat (brand name Greenie) And a weeding tool. Go for it.

For $160, you will be OK on this purchase, assuming the unit performs (which it probably should, considering it's "Brand New" and you'll be able to confirm that in a few seconds right there with her) --- bring along a downloaded installer file of SignBlazer on a thumbnail drive, and put that onto her computer (or have it on your laptop that you bring along) and attempt to run that Eco from SignBlazer before money changes hands. Download for full trial version (free, non-expiring) with many cutter drivers. Otherwise, you'll have to figure out what software to use to run it.

I use the MH871 (34") for a full-time retail operation. I run SignBlazer Elements as my primary cutting program. Every day I'm cutting signs, banners, decals (RTA), and the one thing that I added (a catch-basket) is a huge benefit. Making your own is a snap. Search the forum for assembly/build instructions. For what you are suggesting, get vinyl that is easily REMOVABLE.

Yes, really, the entire job was finished in somewhat under 2 hours (layout, cutting, weeding, and taping, no packaging, and "billing" was writing up the sales invoice) They were very simple decals, yes, not much involved (as I said, the "R" registered symbol was very tiny, so it took some attention to detail), and I used basic vinyl from Fellers' (ShineRite intermediate). Assuming the $0.07 I have seen quoted here on the forums as a proper charge per square inch of vinyl work, my customer should have paid $126. (4 decals across, 4 decals down = 16 decals per square foot, or $10.80 '''''' 200 decals/16 = 12.5 linear feet x 10.80 = 126) Again, YOUR Mileage May Vary, but I've tried to answer this thread to the best of my ability.

Here's a quick and easy method --- If you go into FedEx Kinkos, they offer RTA letters. Their pricing is 50% in dollars of the height. So, a 6" letter will cost $3.00 4" is $2.00 10" is $5.00 That is for Ready-to-Apply vinyl ordered over the counter at any of their locations.

You said "she just kept it stored in her closet because she got a smaller one." (i.e. - this lady is using another cutter) That means she should have some vinyl, right?

Welcome to the vinyl world. When you order the machine (whatever one you get) please ask for a weeding tool to be added to the sale. US Cutter sells "the Nerd" retractable pocketable vinyl pick which appears to be very nice.

I just finished a job producing 200 simple 3"X4" decals for a local historical society, the entire project took less than 2 hours. Doing double that quantity probably would have added an hour, maybe. The hardest part was a "registered" R in a circle that was 3/8" tiny, and I nearly went blind popping out the center of 200 miniature R's and I had the little damn dots trying to escape from me as I went along. I charged $100 for the whole thing. After my materials cost (less than $20) I ended up profiting over $40 an hour for this 2-hours of work. Anyway, that's just me. YMMV.

Absolutely not saying that the CHARGE to the client should be $20. --- Not at all. I am merely providing a calculation of the costs, and bringing to your attention that $1000 is UNREASONABLE. OK, you are using slightly more expensive vinyl, so the 400 decals will require 45 feet (say 50') that's $20 total and OK, you'll use up $10 worth of transfer tape (if that). You have to base your rates to the client with the calculation that you've only consumed $30 of materials. I can't tell you what to charge, but wouldn't you think that maybe $200 is about right for 400? What kind of decals are these? Something really complicated and highly specialized?

You would be charging $640. for $20. worth of materials? REALLY?

Let's take a look at this logically --- first of all, using 15" basic vinyl, you can fit three 4x4 across in each row, and then three rows running in a linear foot. That's 9 per linear foot of the 4x4's The cost of 150' (50 yards) is around $45. or 30 cents a linear foot. 9 into 30 is 3-something. So far, we have each 4x4 decal costing under 4 cents, just for the vinyl material. Next, we factor in the application tape. Not a huge deal, but say a penny more per decal. 5 cents x 400 = $20. (your raw material cost) Do the math for the 5x5's and you can easily see that you're nowhere near $1000. Does that help?

WHEW !!!! What a crazy week, my little cutter is screaming like a banshee, churning out products. ### Coroplast bandit signs, with a custom-cut-out template (makes it look like Stairs) ### McDonald's franchisee gets a windsign to attract new workers ### Local historical society Harriet Tubman Day welcome sign ### Transport van, all set to go And THAT'S why we bought a US Cutter cutter, it's just keeps on rolling...

Just want to add my $0.02 regarding the MH721. I am using that cutter in my retail studio, providing signs for walk-in clients at my Custom-Sign-Store. The software I run is SignBlazer, and it hasn't let me down. Here is one thing to remember ----- if you have the cutter appear to be doing something wrong with a cut, the very first thing is to quickly PRESS THE RED BUTTON on it. (RESET)