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How do you Cost you Gerber Work?

stitchup

New Member
Hi guys

I have a Gerber Edge FX, GS15plus cutter and Omega software. It's taken me about a month to get my head round the way it all works and I've started producing some signsm just basic Health & Safety signage for the workplace. These consist of qhite vinyl and 2 spot colours - red & black.

How do you guys cost/price your work? Do you charge by the metre + number of colours? What about metalics & CMYK proces work?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

John
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
I price by the linear inch and setup jobs to best utilize the image height available. I use a multiple of the selling price of the vinyl plus the selling price of each color used. I differentiate between calendared vinyl, cast vinyl and specialty vinyls such as metallics, transluscents, reflectives etc. I charge the same for process or standard spot colors, 1.5 times for metallics and double for medals.

I am not willing to post actual pricing in the open forums and, if you so desire and choose to take out a subscription, will be happy to provide them in the premium subscription Sales, Marketing and Pricing forum.
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
That sounds about right Fred. How much do you guys get foils for over there!? I'm at about 1.6 times for metallics(almost the same as you) but about 3.2 times for medal!!
Just curious if they are much cheaper in the states....

It's about the same here as to the difference in the cost of metallics and medals. Where we've been very pleased and able to achieve a significant savings has been in shifting to Apex/Duracoat foils for our process colors and most of our common spot colors. We buy 100 yard refills which lowers our costs by about 53% as compared to Gerber prices. We also negotiate a discount percentage with our supplier.
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
If you go into Duracoat refills, I would avoid the Duracoat cartridges and instead use your spent Gerber cartridges. I have adapted a couple of dozen to the task and they are much easier to use once adapted. If you want a more detailed explanation, PM me.
 

gabagoo

New Member
When I first got my edge I was so confused on how to price it out. I then came up with this. I figured out exactly how much I was paying for vinyl by the inch and how much I was paying for the foils by the inch then multiplied it by the useage in the job and then multiplied by 5. I figured that would cover the time to cut weed and quick set up. If it was a difficult file, and you know if you have an Edge about those, then I had to charge for set up on top. I still use that formula today although my foils and vinyl are now cheaper I still use those original prices to figure it out and if it is a short run I bump it up and if it is a very long run I knock it down a bit. You will find your way. I have found that the cost of running large format for doing small decals is about equivilent to running a one colour Edge job, although I really do not know what the ink is costing on any particular job, it has to be a little cheaper I believe.
 

WhiskeyDreamer

Professional Snow Ninja
i have an estimator program designed for edge printing...i just need to input the size i'm printing and how many colors i'm printing...and how many of course, and i get a retail, wholesale and material cost......

in regards to the duracoat/apex/09 foils.....anyone have issues using them....i've started getting some in and have found that (mainly when i'm edge positive..of course!) i'm forced to clean the print head cause of the "junk" build up....
 

stitchup

New Member
I posted my first message late last night and I wake up this morning to some great advice. Many thanks to all :)

Interested to read about GraphixCalcXL, my only concern being that I'm based in the UK. GraphixCalc uses $ not £, uses ft. & ins. not metres & cms. and page output will be set for letter not A4. So I basically need to know if this is customisable by the end user.

Again, thanks.

John

PS. How does one edit a previous post - my spelling/typo errors are embarrassing!
 

signage

New Member
John you only have so much time to edit. About Graphixcalc customization I would contact him he is a member here or maybe he will chime in! Good luck!
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
I was actually going to ask if anyone had any problems/complaints about Zero9.... you beat me to it!:glasses: I'm seriously thinking of trying them out but if the foils stick to the print head.....maybe not so much! How is the print quality in your opinion Fenris? (or anyone else who has used them)
Pat

I can't speak to Zeronine's current foils because I discontinued all of them a few years ago in favor of Duracoat. I made this decision after

1. Running comparison prints of Gerber, Duracoat and Zeronine process foils.
2. Experiencing foil failures with Zeronine's Frogskin and receiving incompetent support from Zeronine along with an inadequate resolution of the problem and financial loss.

The comparison prints, IMO, demonstrated that, of the three, Duracoat was the best looking print, Gerber a close second and Zeronine a poor third. Subsequent observation of durability in Florida sunlight confirms our original observation that there is a need for overprinting with UV/Abrasion foil for outdoor prints using anybody's foils ... none live up to their 3 to 5 year ratings. Duracoat's UV/Abrasion Guard foil has worked extremely well and Zeronine's did not at the time of testing. Gerber, at the time, did not offer a UV solution in the form of a foil.

Both Duracoat and Zeronine offer refills and Gerber does not. Between the two refill approaches, Zeronine is superior but not without problems. The main deficiency of the Duracoat approach is their insistence on using a rather strange cartridge with rounded ends but which is designed for refilling. We normally stack our foils on end in an ordered row on a table top when we are printing. The rounded ends prevent us from doing this. In addition, Duracoat using a different arrangement for the refill core ends which require some modification to the core end inserts if you want to use Gerber cartridges to hold your refills.

In summary, Duracoat is an excellent product that is superior or equal to Gerber foils for less than half the price. To use their refills, you will have to accept a poorly thought out Duracoat cartridge or adapt your spent Gerber cartridges to handle the Duracoat refills.

Zeronine is an innovative company with an excellent selection of foils and attractive prices. Their approach to refills is superior to Duracoat. OTOH, the impressions made with their foils at the time of our testing was inferior and their tendency to field test on their customers and not stand behind their products was a major problem for us.
 

ChiknNutz

New Member
I posted my first message late last night and I wake up this morning to some great advice. Many thanks to all :)

Interested to read about GraphixCalcXL, my only concern being that I'm based in the UK. GraphixCalc uses $ not £, uses ft. & ins. not metres & cms. and page output will be set for letter not A4. So I basically need to know if this is customisable by the end user.

Again, thanks.

John

PS. How does one edit a previous post - my spelling/typo errors are embarrassing!

it is merely a fancy Excel spreadsheet. So, if you feel comfortable working in Excel, then you can modify it to suit your needs. It might take some effort, since the formulas use inches and feet for many conversion factors. The currency would be the easiest to convert since it is just one conversion at the end from dollars to whatever.
 

WhiskeyDreamer

Professional Snow Ninja
Hey Fenris,
Whats that program called.
Thanks MB

E$stimate...don't ask me where to find it...cause i don't know....it's from an old floppy disk...i just copy the folder to a new computer when i need to

and in regards to the 09 foils, they print fine...i only use them for temp signs.....i just find that i need to clean the print head a lot more often
 

signage

New Member
E$stimate...don't ask me where to find it...cause i don't know....it's from an old floppy disk...i just copy the folder to a new computer when i need to

and in regards to the 09 foils, they print fine...i only use them for temp signs.....i just find that i need to clean the print head a lot more often

This software is available from GMS :thumb:
 

stitchup

New Member
Just an upate.

Firstly, thanks to all for your help and the additional info on foils is most welcome.

I'm not sure if the alternative foil brands referred to are available in the UK. I've stocked up with Renown foils about 1/2 the price of Gerber but of course everything here in the UK is double the price you guys in the US enjoy!

As for pricing, I did purchase Graphixcalc excel and it works just fine. With the great support of the authors, I've managed to make most of the changes needed to suit me, just a few more to go and a bit of fine tuning.

All I need to do now, is learn to use the FX /:

John
 

stitchup

New Member
Thanks for the reply Mike.

I've been purchasing my Gerber FX foils from PrintOne. Up til now, I've been buying spot foils. Each time we order more foils from PrintOne, we always purchase the foil caddies from Spandex as I don't want the hastle of having to keep swapping things around - I like plug-and-play :)

The foils come packed in clear plastic containers and have plastic ends on the rolls.

Re-usableFoils-1.jpg


We just received our first set of process foils. These were packaged differently and when opened, no plastic ends or bridge piece. Is this normal?

I can't use the foils without the ends & bridge piece, a bit annoying as I planned to spend this weekend printing decals :(

I'm not sure if the ends are easily removed from my other spot foils, perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Cheers

John
 
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