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NewToSigns

Making Signs Screen Printing vs Vinyl

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I have been using vinyl to make 18"x24" Corrugated signs, I do 15 at a time for 3 local companies. I am charging between $10-$15 per sign, double sided, for these jobs. I am using 4'x24" worth of vinyl and the same in transfer tape.

I figured it out tonight Product costs me $5.72 per sign. The problem is they are time consuming, 10 signs is like a 5 hour project for me. Pretty much from sending to cutter, to wiping it clean when done I can get about 2 per hour.(Still new at this)

My question is from everyone elses experience, am I crazy or am I doing good?

How much would screen printing these cost me?

I have a constant cost of $1.62 for the 18x24 corr. sign and stake. So that leaves me $4.10 per sign on vinyl and tape.  Can I get the signs screen printed for around that price.  From a business side of things profiting an average of $14.00/hour, thats not that good.

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Unless  you are ordering larger quantities of the same design printed, it's not cost effective, IMO.

Shopping around for good quality vinyl, for a better price, will help save the cost of you making the signs as well!

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Guest round2racing

to lower your vinyl cost, therefore raising your profit margin, try using a vinyl like Shinerite instead of Oracal.

You can get a great vinyl at my supplier.  His website is www.signdesignsupplies.com.

His vinyl is all I ever use and I have NEVER (knock on wood) had a complaint from any customer.

That will help with the profit margin. 

Unfortunately, you will have to wait for your speed to improve with experience in order to see the profit margin increase on the construction of the signs.

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You are getting your coroplast and stakes cheaper than I pay locally.  I never tried the shinerite vinyl - but worth a shot I see lots of posts from people who like it.  My suggestion is to help with your speed on application.  I'm no speed demon, but I made a squeegee which lays down the transfer tape and makes the lamination onto the sign go quickly.

Here is a video of a commercially made one.  You should be able to do a lot more than 2 per hour using something like this.  This guy is not rushing and he masked and mounted one side of a sign in a couple of minutes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2935020210886593967#

You can buy the yard sign tool for mid $20 to $30 if you don't want to make one.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2697762707120782464&q=source%3A014886664015221440466&hl=en#

I bought some wide heavy duty velcro at Walmart 2" wide - enough for several squeegees - used the fuzzy piece only.

I got several pieces of scrap plastic from my vinyl supplier.  What I got was smooth on one side and pebble texture on the other.  Mine is brown color 1/4" thick and 25" x 9" just because that's what size the scrap was (I wanted it long enough to do 24" corplast the wide way)  I ran the edge through my jointer (woodworking) to make it smooth and square.   Attached the velcro as straight as I could along the edge and centered so it wrapped around and about 1" overlap is on the top and bottom of the squeegee.

I took some pictures and will try to attach them.  This velcro works OK.  I'm thinking about making another one using the hook part of the velcro and putting strip of felt or fleece over that - might be smoother - and it would be replaceable.

I think a lighter weight velcro might work OK too and something narrower should be fine.  I have used mine a lot and the material seems to have shrunk in length - you can dee where the adhesive is exposed at the ends on the pics.  No problem with how it works.

-Mike

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Thats awesome, i would just be worried when applying the vinyl to the plastic with that tool, that a letter would not peel off the paper all the way. every couple signs I get a letter that doesn't let up with the transfer tape like it should. Or should i not even worry about that?  I work part time at a stereo shop, so I am going to make one of those tomorrow! That was great how he used that squeegee like that!

Thank You

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Are you using paper app tape?? If so look into using some Application Fluid. You can buy Rapid-Tac or make your own. If you do a search here on the forum there is a recipe. I think it was posted by BannerJohn.

That will make the tape peeling off alot easier. You can spray one and let it soak while you are applying the vinyl to another. One the tape bubbles you can peal it off alot easier than without the application fluid.

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Go over the transfer tape wel with a squeegee to make sure you have good contact - you can go slow when you are applying until you get confident - if you watch the back side of the transfer tape you can see if any part is not releasing.  You may screw up a few in the beginning -

-Mike

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Sounds like the biggest thing to decrease your time is going to be practice.  I did 10 18x24 signs in less than an hour last week (not including cutting time), and I don't really have that much practice. 

As others said, use cheap vinyl. 

It helps to get a system or process down and crank away.  I put some small nails in my tabletop to keep the coro from sliding, and then just dry-hinge each side.  I wouldn't recommend wet app, as this is going to slow down the process significantly.

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