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Biggest Mistake...

JCGraphix

JCGraphix

New Member
Right now i am cutting 200 3.5x3.5 decals for mason jars for a wedding couple... i cut 20 at first... started to weed... realized i had the wrong date! Luckily i didn't cut to many!!! haha.

Just wondering what your guys, and gals. Biggest mistakes were on customers orders.....
:signs101:
 
mopar691

mopar691

New Member
250 screened shirts with the wrong year for a High School Wrestling team. :Oops:

That one hurt.

Speaking of which anyone know a good used clothing outlet that buys t-shirts???
 
J

Just Another Sign Guy

New Member
biggest mistakes i've "witnessed":

a russian orthodox church supplies a single slab of 16' long X approx40" X 6" deep piece of wood that a cabinet maker in their parish had in his shop for multi generatiosn for carved/blasted/guilded dimensional sign. they were warned repeatedly that the piece of wood of that size and quality would be unreplaceable in todays market. a character in russian was either upside down or backwards but they had signed off on the proof just as the sign was made.

on a screenprinted banner order 3X8 banners printed 4 color process plus 2 spot colors 10,000 banners into the printing of the 3rd color an error was spotted in the prints of that color. so all 10,000 were scrap but another 10,000 + overage needed to be reprinted all prior colors.
 
grafixemporium

grafixemporium

New Member
Just Another Sign Guy said:
biggest mistakes i've "witnessed":

on a screenprinted banner order 3X8 banners printed 4 color process plus 2 spot colors 10,000 banners into the printing of the 3rd color an error was spotted in the prints of that color. so all 10,000 were scrap but another 10,000 + overage needed to be reprinted all prior colors.
Click to expand...


Were those for Reverend Johnson doing missionary work for a child care center in Africa? Doh!
 
jiarby

jiarby

New Member
oh yeah...

I have posted many stories here and there. i made a bunch of these real estate open house swingers... I did the layout, the guy approved the proof, I printed them, I mounted them, he paid and picked them up...

THEN returned about 2 hrs later and <look at image and you will understand>

I also laser engraved the LCD screen on a $2000 wireless microphone transmitter (put in the laser upside down in the middle of doing dozens of them)

Oh yeah... then there was that thing with my ex-wife. Yep.. THAT was the biggest mistake!
 

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Pat Whatley

Pat Whatley

New Member
Sent some banners off to be printed by a company I didn't deal with a lot but that came highly recommended. They called to explain that the HEM LINE was going to run through the lettering and that they didn't like to do that. I told them it wouldn't matter, the customer was used to that.

Little did I know that unlike every other company I've ever dealt with HEM LINE meant the edge of the banner, not where the actual thread of the hem was. They cut the material right to the edge of the print, then folded over an inch of the print, and hemmed it. Banners were absolutely ridiculous looking.
Customer refused them. Cost me $800 that time....in the big picture it cost me a customer who is now doing about THOUSANDS each month in sign work.

--------------------------------

Got an order for 1200 reflective aluminum signs with a drop dead deadline. Customer had to have them for a major convention and told me before they ordered them that if they didn't have them for the convention they couldn't use them. Checked with all my suppliers, verified I could pull it off, and took the order. I had a two-day cushion in case something went wrong which I thought would be enough. Got a deposit from to cover my costs, got them ordered, thought everything was golden....then the wheels fell off. The printed who normally emailed proofs chose to overnight actual hard copies due to the size of the order. they didn't mention that to me and I wasn't in the shop when FedEx came by so we lost one day there. There were a couple of significant changes to make to the art so we lost our second day waiting on the new art. To their credit they busted ass and got the order out a day early....but the damn freight company they shipped it with accidentally sent them to the wrong hub which meant one day going in the wrong direction, then one day just to get back to square one. It was Wednesday night at 11:00, I had $15,000 worth of signs on a truck heading in the wrong direction, and they were due in Montgomery, Alabama by 7:30 Friday morning. We ended up having to drive 10 hours to St. Louis to meet the damn delivery truck and drive 10 hours back just to keep from losing our ass on them.
 
C

CEGraphics

New Member
I've just started so no really big ones.

was doing some taping of a sign in my garage and needed both hands to carry everything back in the house. leaving me a couple of knives needing a pocket. they had covers on, what could go wrong. got to the house, dropped off the signs and stuff wandered around for abit. needed some keys in my pants pocket....**ouch**. stuck a #1 xacto blade into the end of my pinky.. live and learn. I now have a tool pouch to carry all that stuff in.
 
Sticky Signs

Sticky Signs

New Member
Showed up in the morning to do a big install for a parade float and realized I didn't have any of the prints with me. Oooops. Let's just say that I probably would have been thrown in jail for excessive speeding.
 
showcase 66

showcase 66

New Member
Packed up my truck in the evening to head out first thing in the morning to do a job on 10 Semi truck doors about an hour and half from me. Get up early and head out. About 2 miles away from the job site, I realized I am driving my wifes car. I was going to be about an hour earlier getting there than I originally said but still had to call my wife, have my MIL come over to watch the kids (no car seats in my truck) and have her meet me half way. I ended up only being about a half hour late but still sucked so bad.
 
showcase 66

showcase 66

New Member
JCGraphix said:
Right now i am cutting 200 3.5x3.5 decals for mason jars for a wedding couple... i cut 20 at first... started to weed... realized i had the wrong date! Luckily i didn't cut to many!!! haha.

Just wondering what your guys, and gals. Biggest mistakes were on customers orders.....
:signs101:
Click to expand...

I didnt do this, but a buddy of mine about 10 years ago was doing this for his best friends wedding. They decided to do it 2 days before the wedding. Cut all the decals placed them on the candle stuff the night before the wedding staying up til 3 or 4 in the morning. While setting up the reception area before the wedding the brother of the bride asked who Janet was. Wondering what he was talking about he showed us the candle holders. My buddy put his best friends ex-wifes name on the candle holders. Chris and Janet instead of Chris and Julia. We laughed our a$$es off. The brother of the bride wasnt as amused as we were.
 
cdiesel

cdiesel

New Member
I shared a couple weeks ago how Versaworks decided not to print overlaps.. on both sides of a 53' trailer. That sucked, but it wasn't our fault.
Our biggest F-up that was our fault was probably a few weeks ago. We were doing a contract install for one of our larger clients. Big windows, 75'x22', full coverage translucent vinyl off a boom, at night. My guys started at 10pm. I was fast asleep at about 3am when I got a phone call. Seems the GC for the site had removed the silicon off the windows like he was supposed to, but there was still a thin film of silicon that was invisible. The vinyl wasn't sticking where the silicon was. No biggie, right? Wrong. Problem was that my guys decided to install half the vinyl before calling me. I coulda killed them that night.
 
deegrafix

deegrafix

New Member
Maybe the biggest screw-up in truck lettering history....

I painted and airbrushed a 102" round logo on 3 sides of a brand new satellite truck for a TV station in Las Vegas. It turned out just perfect! The deal was that I would get it on there, and the company's painter would clear coat it the next day. He did, and my paint just ran down the sides. I had under-estimated the importance of hardener in the automotive single stage paint and it was the first time using it. (Didn't know about base coat/clear coat way back then either.)

While removing all that paint, my partner, (EX-husband now) allowed lacquer thinner to sit in the seams and edges of compartment doors, causing the fresh paint job on the vehicle to lift and melt off, exposing primer and making a heck of a mess. He also used a DA with too much muscle, making bigger problems. I then attempted body work, thought it was good and re-painted the logos but the job was rejected again due to the bondo work not being smooth enough. At that point I had to hire my client's painter at his shop rate, and the 3rd time it was finally right.

I had been against the clock and working day and night since this big satellite truck was to be the coach builder's centerpeice at a huge trade show and had to be perfect. On the 3rd day of 2-3 hrs sleep a night I walked off the edge of a tall saw horse and landed on my knee on concete from 4' up. X-ray said no broken bones and the doctor said no walking but not finishing the job was not an option, ladders and all. I ended up having surgery after limping for a year or so.

Oh if I had only known then what I know now!
 
Marlene

Marlene

New Member
I have to convert feet and inches so I can draw things out in my 'puter. had to re-face an existing sign cabinet that measured 5' 1 and 1/2" (61.5") x 7' 2" (86") when I looked at the 7'2", I saw it as 72" and that made the custom new faces 14" too short...errrr
 
G

GypsyGraphics

New Member
printed 5,000 brochures with large interesting typography on the front (not supplied by the client)

proofed by a gazillion people... and approved for print.... with MY typo
"beginings" instead of "beginnings"

OUCH... that was a pricey little boo boo
 
Mosh

Mosh

New Member
On 50 t-shirts I put "where every hours in happy hours" I guess after happy hour I probly say it like this anyway...
 
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