bmw156
Part of things
Posts: 796
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Nov 20, 2012 22:22:11 GMT
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Hi guys, So I know some of you on here already cut vinyl and its not ground breaking, but I want to learn it, and make a bit of extra money. So far this is my story. So for a while, I have been researching this idea to set up my own business and start making signs etc. Taking inspiration from the fat jacks tash wax, I thought why not! So I started looking into costs of the cutters etc and vinyls, and the profits you can make are good on paper. Researching into the setup of a cutter etc and it seems like a nightmare. Looking around on ebay, people sell complete setup's with a pc and cutter and some graphics etc, and are willing to show you how to use it for a few hours, but they want £600-£1000 for the pleasure. I was thinking about this route, but didnt have the money lol. After more reading, I'm aware of cheaper Chinese models which are on the market and everyone slates them, saying to go for a roland as they are the dog's. So I'm not really thinking about it much, have a scout on ebay for cutters. See one ending in about 20 mins, for about £100, really poor description, Chinese make, and about 3 hours away. Well I would be stupid not to bid on it? 20 mins later I'm on the phone to the guy, arranging collection. small sum of £137 for the cutter. (on a side note, the other thing I had picked up, was to get a fair sized cutter, small ones seem fine, but if I want to do van sides, I would need a 610mm wide one, the one I bought was also that. 610mm cutting area, winning). So it has one curse word picture, a poor small description, and I take a gamble. Drive 3 hours, turn up, its turned on, shown to move and I'm off again in 10 mins. get home, SWMBO moans about the size of it, yawn. Get it set up, plug it in, and it finds a driver, winning. I download a trial for some software and it just does not want to play ball, the settings are a PITA. Two more sets of software later and I have found one which works, with only some small issues, which need to be resolved. So I now have a vinyl cutter, a couple of colours and can almost cut. I'm happy. I'm never going to be a millionaire out of it, but it should raise a few extra pennies. Objectives for the future are to grow my colour range, get my cutter cutting perfectly, and then sell. Here are some pics from my journey so far: The cutter Some festive cuts, the are not perfect, because the cutter wasnt cutting right My first cut. I suspect if I do start a business it will have a vulture somewhere in the title or logo. Some Practices I was doing, getting it to the right size. Cut this just last night, the weeding process was a pain but got there in the end and to finish up, my two favourite cuts so far. These cut perfect thankfully Please do give me tips, advice and other info you can think of. I'm very much learning on this and I'm still in the infant stages. Thanks
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Last Edit: Jan 14, 2013 16:15:58 GMT by bmw156
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awoo
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,503
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Nov 20, 2012 22:55:51 GMT
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all i can say is don't use comic sans!
so what are you looking to charge for the odd sticker? say some text 30x10cm for instance?
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Nov 20, 2012 23:05:38 GMT
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1) Buy yourself some decent transfer film in a few different widths. 2) Buy a small range of popular colours in gloss 7year exterior vinyl (white, black, read, silver). 3) Get yourself an A2 cutting matt, long stainless cutting edge, a good knife and lots of spare blades. 4) Make sure you get some good graphics software...it might be great to have freebie software, but having something decent to create good designs is worth its weight in gold. Corel Draw is very good. 5) Be realistic with your timings...designing something nice takes time. Cutting it is the easy bit, but weeding out, transfer film and cutting everything into individual stickers all takes more time than you'd think. 6) People will want you to make 'one offs' but won't be prepared to pay for the time it takes. Batches of designs are much easier because once you've designed it you can cut out as many as you want with little extra effort. 7) Where possible, AVOID the use of Comic Sans. 8) Just like you, there are many, many people who have picked up cheap vinyl cutters thinking it'll make them a fortune. You're competing with all these people. 9) When laying out multiple cuts of the same design, put a cut line or box around each one so that you can weed them out individually. If you've got a complex design (i.e. lots of text) then do the same around certain parts so that you can weed it bit at a time. 10) Make your designs as 'clean' as possible. So many people create nasty logos with poor line definition because it's quick. You'll probably not get any repeat custom this way. Clean and neat stickers will always sell and get return custom. I bought my vinyl cutter about 10 years ago. I bought a Roland servo cutter because I wanted quality, reliability and not have to mess around finding the 'right' drivers like you tend to have to do with most of the Chinese ones (as you've found out!) It's done 10 years of loyal service with no problems or issues. From day one I decided not to try and compete with those with cheap cutters. I just use it to make my own designs and designs for friends...and word of mouth. I focus on quality and not quantity yet the machine has paid for itself numerous times because people have come back for more. Quality does sell..... Probably the most important thing: design. You need to be able to design to make the most of a vinyl cutter. Just typing words in and changing the font WON'T make very sellable stickers. Get creative and be original and you'll do well. Being able to cut a sticker and use the machine well won't mean much if what you're cutting isn't nicely designed. Quality quality quality Best of luck with it...there's loads more I could say, but that should be a few pointers for now.
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Nov 20, 2012 23:06:49 GMT
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all I can say is don't use comic sans! Haha! You beat me to it.
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OVY871
Part of things
Owner of Austin A35 Saloon
Posts: 321
Club RR Member Number: 66
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Nov 20, 2012 23:45:40 GMT
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all I can say is don't use comic sans! Haha! You beat me to it. So what happens if you use comic sans??? :S
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Nov 20, 2012 23:59:10 GMT
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Haha! You beat me to it. So what happens if you use comic sans??? :S You don't sell many stickers.
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bmw156
Part of things
Posts: 796
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Thanks for the great words. I'm currently using winpcsign for design and cut. I have heard good things about coraldraw. And lmao fair comment on the comic sans font. Point taken lol.
I think at the moment my mindset is similar to yours Bruce, make a few vinyls here and there for friends. I still work a full time job, so not sure how much free time I would have for high volume/low cost selling.
Thanks again.
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Alternative (paid for) sofware packages are Freehand or Flexisign, a lightbox makes lining up multilayers much easier. Hexis white vinyl comes on blue backing paper and makes weeding/ alignment much better. DO NOT be tempted to sign up transits for £50 or £100!!! VAG rounded font is nice and easy to weed if you end up doing chip shop menus etc Take your time into account when pricing a job and remember to put your name/ company name onto any previews you give people, it discourages them from having them copied by a mate with a cheap chinese cutter,,,,
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ruffgeezer
Posted a lot
Attracts french tat.
Posts: 1,252
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Nov 21, 2012 21:11:33 GMT
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Yeah I echo what most of the bods above have said, also I got almost all of my vinyl as "roll end" packages from places like dorotape, it is pretty much all the offcut ends of the massive uncut rolls that they had at the time, it cost me about £60 but I got probably 15 assorted rolls with plenty of length for next to nowt.
I've taken a break on the sticker making at the moment, but did a great trade on down n out stickers, I wouldn't say I got rich doing it as it was very time intensive.
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Nov 21, 2012 21:31:28 GMT
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Just remembered the best image to vector conversion i've seen was done using and add on for Illustrator, I design in Freehand and cut from Flexisign
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Nov 21, 2012 22:22:35 GMT
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Fancy giving me a price on 250+ units of cut vinyl stickers? All identical, so you can churn them out... PM me and we'll see if we can work something out
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awoo
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,503
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Nov 21, 2012 22:55:14 GMT
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incase anyone is still pondering the jive with comic sans -
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Colin
Part of things
Posts: 239
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Nov 22, 2012 10:08:27 GMT
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Nov 22, 2012 10:42:15 GMT
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Comic Sans Criminal is, in itself, a testament to poor design IMHO. Basically a huge dose of hypocrisy from someone who should know better. A few weeks back I sent them an email, "Hi there,
I've just been browsing your website www.comicsanscriminal.com and I have to say, I love the sentiment behind it, I too have a personal hatred of people who use fonts inappropriately and Comic Sans has got to be up there as one of the most misused.
I do, however, feel that you're being fairly hypocritical pointing the finger at those people who may wrongly use it when you're decision to lay out pretty much all of your text in caps is also a very glaring faux pas in the typography world.
Using all caps certainly has its place, but to base your whole website around chastising people for misuse of a font whilst writing everything in caps is more than just a little contradictory if you ask me? Especially when you pitch yourself as someone who obviously knows better and is trying to rid the world of such typographical 'wrong doings'. It's a bit like an alcoholic telling someone off for smoking.
I could go on, but I am sure you are aware that beyond a title/heading, or maybe a few lines on a poster perhaps (if ever called for), using all caps is probably as bad as the use of Comic Sans. Especially as it's used so extensively and also by someone who really should know better?
All that said, I do like the website and would certainly consider sending the pledge off to people who misuse the Comic Sans font, but wouldn't want to make myself appear to be a hypocrite, even if the recipient didn't understand the glaring typographical error in the pledge themselves.
Kind regards"Funnily enough I didn't get a response.
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nofrills
Posted a lot
my wings are made of Steeeeeeeel!!!
Posts: 1,243
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Nov 22, 2012 10:52:17 GMT
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I use illustrator for creating my stuff, but i rarely get stuff cut i just enjoy drawing stuff up.
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bmw156
Part of things
Posts: 796
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Nov 22, 2012 11:13:58 GMT
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thats cool no frills, if you ever want stuff cut, just shout. Bruce. Brilliant email. No surprise you didn't get a response.
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Last Edit: Nov 22, 2012 11:14:41 GMT by bmw156
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GaSmOnKeY
Part of things
I like Rusty old Fords...
Posts: 125
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Nov 29, 2012 12:09:16 GMT
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Funny enough i was looking into getting a cheap cutting machine, for SWMBO to make stuff up to flog on for a bit of extra income. That said, we are buying a machine and setting up a number plate company, and she is gonna do markets etc... i have been looking for the software to make the personalised plates ( like the ones kids have on there bedroom doors - foot ball teams, princess etc etc) but cant seem to find any ? any how, sorry for the hi jack, and i will be subscribing to this and following
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1983 Escort rs1600i Van 1984 Sierra 3dr soon to be 24v 1989 2.9 XR4x4 1992 2.9 v6 transit flatbed 1988 Range Rover 3.5 2005 ford Ranger - dead 2003 Mk1 Focus RS 2003 Mk1 Focus RS #2 and a...... Renault trafic sl27 tdci 100 Daily hack.
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bmw156
Part of things
Posts: 796
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So we have a small bit of progress, The cutter was cutting unwanted lines. went through various things and sorted it out in the end, was some small setting about overrun I think, set it to 0 and it now cuts great.
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Brilliant stuff! Now show us some of your cool stickers.... Rubbish photos I know, but I've been using mine to do more and more clothing recently. Nothing like having your own custom printed wardrobe!
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bmw156
Part of things
Posts: 796
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Awesome work. No pics yet. Need to sit down and make some lol
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