midwaste

FWIW, I have pretty much always left my LP at pressure 100 and just adjusted the blade depth.

Sounds like you have a few problems, starting with the blade being too far put. If the blade was set correctly, it should be able to cut over and over without cutting the backer paper. This is also probably why your corners are pulling up. Use the guide in the instruction forum to set it correctly. I would also try copy pasting from freehand rather than exporting and importing.

The rubber wheels work great. Don't bother with rubbing alcohol, get some denatured alcohol and use that instead. I also like the plastic razor blades.

;D

You don't need to cut all the way through the backing paper to sell them individually. Just cut them, weed them and cut them out in squares. This is pretty much the same thing as having the whole number cut out, you don't need app tape to apply them.

Save yourself some time and just Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V right from Illy into SB, resize, cut. Exporting/Importing is sketchy, at best.

I just charged $15 for a 2 color back, 1 color chest print roughly in those dimensions. However, that was to get their business screenprinting a higher qty. I would have charged $20+ if I didn't think there was a good chance they were coming back. You have to take into account the difficulty in weeding, time in cutting, cost of shirt, etc. to get a true idea of what you should charge. The biggest thing to take into account is the qty they are ordering. Anything over 15-20, a screenprinter is probably going to blow your prices out of the water, at least if you are charging appropriately. Long story short, IME, $15-20 for a one off is pretty common, but it depends if design time is needed, complexity, etc.

I think I'd reconsider how long it's going to take to cut, sand, prep and paint the sign before you even get to the vinyl. I doubt I'd even do that part for $250. Having said that, I'd probably charge around $300 for the sign and prep, then around $200/side for the vinyl (more for 751). I'd also urge you to reconsider using the Shinerite. Even if the customer is ok with it, they'll forget all about that when the vinyl is peeling in a year or so and it has to be re-done, and it'll be your fault, even if you explained it. Oracal 651 isn't that much more than Shinerite, but I would use 751 at minimum. Explain to the customer that it's worth the extra cost for durability.

I'm willing to bet that if you put "John 18:36" next to or under it, you'd be ok. At that point, it becomes a quote, not a brand, and you should be fine. I cannot believe that the USPTO allowed a Marked Drawing Code 1 (typed drawing, basically the words alone, with no special logotyping) on the words "not of this world"! However, the trademark only refers to clothing, not signage, etc. I'm not sure if that gives you a leg to stand on or not. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, that's just my 2 cents. Personally, I'd call their bluff.

I did some of the same type of analysis you are talking about, with regard to hunting-based graphics. I am going to set up a table at a neighborhood-wide garage sale with various crap; turkey feet, deer hooves, various hunting shit; to generate a few hundred in short term cash and just to see how it goes. I basically just searched hunting decals/stickers, checked out the auctions that paid for the premium listings (border, top spots, etc), then searched the sellers' history for top-selling items. Without divulging any secrets, is this about what you are doing? I think ebay is a fantastic source of market data, but I still have my doubts about it paying off big, at least without significant time investment. Edit: As of this post, "Cricut Cartridge" is the second most popular search term on eBay pulse, lol.

If my customers ever saw their prices on qty 25, I'd be out of the coroplast business..

mumpowersignsupply.com has the best prices I have seen. 18x24, 1 color, 2 sides, qty 50 = $4.25/each, including stake on either white or yellow coro. Freight paid to your door.

http://www.primeproductsinc.net/ $0.24/each at a full case qty (100) of a single color. By far the best price I have found. However, it still doesn't make it worth the time to print them, IMO. I quoted a job last year, qty 250 @ 0.75 each, I was subbing them out for $0.69 each, making nothing just to get their shirt business. Someone locally quoted them $0.45 each. Not worth the hassle of printing them for that margin. Even with plastisol transfers, unless someone is absolutely set on a many-color design, you aren't going to make sh*t. Easier and cheaper to sub them out to someone set up to press many at a time on an automatic.

They sell heatpress vinyl that is made for printing (eco or solvent). I think Tflex's is called Colorprint.

The grey is the adhesive.

Looks like vinyl that goes by the name of OLD

Great post. I was just looking at my Grimco catalog and wondering why I had never seen the Sihl inkjet banner material before. I'm going to call them and try to get a sample of the 3900 8 mil polypropylene banner material. 3502 and 3960 are two others that are interesting, however, not cheap at all; $1.22ft2 for 12 mil poly banner (3502). My catalog doesnt seem to have the 3539. If it didnt dry overnight, I almost suspect it isn't inkjet friendly. That shit looks like medical tape, lol.

Just because they come out as .eps files does not mean they are true vector or cuttable. I don't see any reason why a newspaper would need to convert jpgs or pdfs to true vectors, just a common .eps format.

What will you do if you need to letter a trailer/vehicle? Is there somewhere close, even a parking lot, that you could use? I like the idea someone posted about renting a stall or use of part of a bigger shop. If not, I would pass, it's going to be a continuous headache. There is a reason the lease is so cheap on this place..

Sounds like a good idea to me. Separate the board into 20 squares and a general header, then sell magnets for the spaces to each booth renters for 75 bucks.

The power supply will have 110v inputs (coming from the wall) and DC outputs on a board or wires from a box. You can test the voltage of these with a multimeter. You aren't going to find any books on fixing cutters alone. Its pretty much the same as fixing any electro-mechanical device, you just need to troubleshoot it starting from the power in to the point where it stops working. If you can get a schematic for the graphtec, that will help you a lot. I wouldn't pay that much to fix it..

That's the point of any boilerplate legal, to transfer liability. A person can walk in the shop with an email printed out from the company stating that use/reproduction of the logo is ok, but what if it was photoshopped? Where do sign shops draw the line? By some people's logic, there is absolutely no safe case for reproduction of logos other than the freaking CEO of the copyright holding company walking in the door, producing identification, notarizing a written statement, while a copyright judge looks on as the whole thing is recorded on video.

You're lucky, the guys in your area spend a lot more time straightening sheet metal than they do in my area... It kills me to try to apply awesome (IMO ) vinyl to a POS beat up hornet/SS.

Does that decal have $200 written on it??? How big is it? I'm going to have to start making "CruiseMaster" decals!

I tend to agree with Tlz on this one. Even a Jaguar dealership is probably going to know they can get a much better price than $2.75. Other shops may or may not be too busy, that depends on many factors. Fact is, they more than likely already have catalogs where they can get printed decals for probably around $0.25 each. What metallic color did they want that requires you to use 951? I'd offer the metallic 651 options right up front for a cost decrease.