jpleakis

I'm not 100% sure on this, so you'll probably want a second opinion. If you turn the blade around backwards in the saw (if you can do so without interfering with any safety mechanisms on the saw) you'll be able to make a cut that "Shaves" a smooth cut instead of the rough "Ripping" action a blade normally makes

It is much cheaper to keep an existing customer happy than it is to find a new customer, I think this is pretty well known in most profitable businesses.

this may be a stupid question, but if you had a cutter that didn't have a laser, could you not just tape a laser pointer onto the cutting carriage? I had initially thought before I bought mine that the laser actually "read" something on the vinyl or something. Or if you didn't want to tape a laser on there, just jog the blade until it was on top of the registration mark and set the offset to zero?

At what point does SignCut X2 authenticate your license? when you start the app or when you try and cut? It would be nice to be able to take my laptop and cutter to say a car show or a flea market and make stuff on the fly, but apparently you need an internet connection to verify your software. Could I open the app while I'm at home, sleep the computer, take it somewhere without internet and wake the laptop to make cuts without internet? I understand the need to authenticate the software periodically to prevent pirates from stealing the application, but this requirement I think is a little steep. I'm just a hobbyist and I don't really care to fork over $250 or more for the dongle version, since it doesn't really provide any features that you can't get elsewhere. I'm on a mac, so I don't really have a choice. Does anyone know if other signcutting apps will work Okay using parallels desktop on a mac?

check with your local chamber of commerce. Mine hosts events almost weekly where local business owners meet up and mingle. You could pass out business cards, or if allowed, take a 2' x 2' piece of plexiglass, put some examples of your work on it, and see if they'll let you setup a table showcasing your work. I think the best way to get some new clients would be to do some simple jobs for practically nothing, just charge for materials. The business owner will be happy and provide good word of mouth when people start asking about the signage. I would think that the cost of doing some free labor jobs would net better returns than spending that money on newspaper ads.

I'm a noob, but I would look at it like this: Your vinyl is a fixed cost, you know that if you bought a 24" x 10YD roll for $25.00 (Oracal 641 Shipped to your house (don't forget to include your shipping costs so you're not eating the cost), Every square foot of vinyl cost you about .42 cents. I like to think of vinyl consumption in terms of linear feet, because its probably the quickest calculation (often you can do it in your head) to figure out how much vinyl will be used. In the example above, a linear foot would cost .84 cents. this way, if someone says they need 50 4" x 6" stickers, you can probably print either 4 or 6 across your 24" roll and eat up a little over 4 linear feet which would come out to $3.36. Call it an even $4.00 just to ensure you cover your material cost well enough. Your variable cost comes in when looking at the complexity of the weeding involved. If you're doing a single, large sign or graphic, and it will only take you 10 minutes to weed it out, you may only charge a couple bucks for the "Labor". If you're doing someting like a smaller sticker for a band, and you need to do a couple hundred of them, figure out your takt time to weed, tape and trim down a single sticker. Add 25% of the time it takes to complete a single sticker. Multiply it out by how many stickers you have to do and you'll know exactly how long it will take you to complete the finishing steps. For example, if you had 200 stickers, and each sticker took you 2 minutes to weed, tape and trim down, you're looking at 6.67 hours of labor (8.3 hours if you add 25% to your takt). Figure out how much you want your salary to be for weeding, taping and trimming. If you are willing to work for $10 an hour, you would want to charge about $83 for labor, if you want to make $20 an hour, you'd need to charge $166 for labor. If you see where I'm going, its just basic math and business principles, if you know your costs exactly, you'll be able to give clients an exact quote and feel confident that you're not charging too much or too little. It will also keep you from losing money by charging a "Flat" rate on a process where costs can vary wildly depending on the complexity of the design. I reccomend using a spreadsheet to type in your costs, takt times, labor rates, etc, its always good to factor in 10% extra here, 20% extra here just to make sure any shortfalls are covered. If you're a hobbyist, its a pretty easy calculation, if you're trying to run a small business, you've got other capital expenditures and equiptment/utility/building overhead that needs to be built into what you're charging. I would reccomend keeping your pricing low when you first start out, do some charity work and only ask them to cover your material costs, or maybe pay yourself a couple bucks an hour for labor to bulid a good reputation. Sorry for the long reply. Im in a chatty mood.

Nevermind, I figured it out!

I'm having trouble getting registration marks (and weeding lines for that matter) to print. I place the registration marks (outside of the default weeding box) and activate them, but they don't print. Is there a way to increase the size of the default weeding box to include the registration marks? I'm on an intel mac using a trial of SCX2 with my Laserpoint24, everything else is so far so good.

My LaserPoint arrived today. Here's a look at my first few projects. Baby Bottle Labels for my Daughter... Cat Fud Label for the Cat Fud A cool vector graphic I found online and decided to put on a cutting board (it's adhered on the bottom side of course!) This one took awhile to weed and unfortunately had alot more detail that didn't end up on the end product because some of the little detailed leaves and stuff were just too small to easily weed and transfer on the mask. My weekend is pretty open, so I might have to try something in 2 or 3 color tomorrow. I'm using Oracal 641, it will probably work well for messing around, but it doesn't seem sturdy enough for any long-term use...

Hi, My Name is Jason. I'm anxiously awaiting a Lasercut 24 that is supposed to arrive friday. I'm taking the day off work so I can be here when it arrives and start cutting. I've got a mac, and hope everything will play nice so I don't have to break out my old PC! I've got 5 rolls of Oracal 641 already here and ready to be cut. I've also purchased an Epson RX595 from Toys R Us (Of all places) for $60, hoping to get some printable vinyl and contour cut some decals. During the day, I'm the creative director for Park Seed, Wayside Gardens, and Jackson & Perkins (www.parkseed.com, www.waysidegardens.com and www.jacksonandperkins.com, I manage the print creative department, so I do the catalogs, not the websites) I've been snooping around on the forums for a few days, and it looks like its going to be an excellent resource, and I hope eventually I can give back to the community.

Where did you download the OSX INTEL Drivers? My Lasercut24 is arriving Friday and I'm trying to get everything setup so I can get cutting right away. Does the SignCut X2 Trial expire after a week or is there a bundled license code that comes with the cutter? I didn't get the Serial to USB adapter, I'm assuming I can get it working straight off the USB *Fingers Crossed*