JBV
New Member
Hello all,
After thinking about it for far too long, I am finally taking the plunge into starting my own small graphics company. I have been working as a freelance designer for the last few years, and worked in a small sign shop in Colorado before that. Ever since leaving the sign shop, I have missed having access to a plotter for several reasons.
Seems that everywhere I go, I encounter potential projects that call for some type of lettering.
I enjoy working with wood, and I want the ability to cut sand-blast masks. That means I need downforce and thick media capability.
I do a lot of hand designed, hand-cut stencil work. I am tired of hand-cutting stencils that only last for 5-10 applications, and not being able to easily create an exact replacement. They can be designed as vectors, so cutting them with a plotter is sort of a no-brainer.
I have access to a friend's screen-print shop where I can have high-quality, heavy-duty, full color, silk-screened prints made for near cost if I do the cutting myself. He has also expressed interest in contracting certain cutting jobs once I am set up - would require optical registration capability for contour cutting. Some of the media he prints onto are very thick, like the reflective destructible vinyl, again requiring downforce and thick media capability.
I know at my old shop we did a fair amount of temporary promotional signs for new construction on 4x8 MDO. I think (and this is a point of hesitation) that I would like the ability to cut a full size 4x8 single-color design in one pass using a 48" roll.
I am not trying to get into wide-format printing at the moment, although I have considered picking up a used gerber edge for id-tag and bar-code runs.
My experience is with an older Ioline smartrac i/s130, which was able to handle nice thick sandblast media, and could cut a 48" roll of vinyl edge to edge. It was a slow machine, older, and certainly had limitations, but it WORKED all day every day. They do not seem to make anything that wide anymore, so I am looking at the Graphtec lines of plotters, which seem to be my best bet in terms of the features and power that I want... although reading the forums about Graphtec vs. Roland vs. Summa feels like reading a chevy/ford/dodge debate on a truck forum: if you have one, you tend to defend it, and if you have all three, you love/hate facets of each.
I feel like the ce6000-120 is a good choice for my wants/needs, except in terms of thick sandblast and reflective media, although it looks like it could do some amount of that with a red-top blade holder and a 1.5 60* blade
The 8600 series has a much higher media-thickness rating and downforce, and seems to be built quite solid. I think I could get away with the 42"-wide version (8600-100), as it will fit a 48" roll. Am i right about that? Is there anyone using an 8600-100 for 4x8 banner or mdo that wishes they had gotten the 54" version? Anyone with a 8600-130 who feels like they went too big? Anyone want to tell me that I should just save the $ and get a 30" plotter and take the time to layout and line up multi-section designs?
Thanks for reading, it is helpful even to just lay out these questions in writing.
-jbv
After thinking about it for far too long, I am finally taking the plunge into starting my own small graphics company. I have been working as a freelance designer for the last few years, and worked in a small sign shop in Colorado before that. Ever since leaving the sign shop, I have missed having access to a plotter for several reasons.
Seems that everywhere I go, I encounter potential projects that call for some type of lettering.
I enjoy working with wood, and I want the ability to cut sand-blast masks. That means I need downforce and thick media capability.
I do a lot of hand designed, hand-cut stencil work. I am tired of hand-cutting stencils that only last for 5-10 applications, and not being able to easily create an exact replacement. They can be designed as vectors, so cutting them with a plotter is sort of a no-brainer.
I have access to a friend's screen-print shop where I can have high-quality, heavy-duty, full color, silk-screened prints made for near cost if I do the cutting myself. He has also expressed interest in contracting certain cutting jobs once I am set up - would require optical registration capability for contour cutting. Some of the media he prints onto are very thick, like the reflective destructible vinyl, again requiring downforce and thick media capability.
I know at my old shop we did a fair amount of temporary promotional signs for new construction on 4x8 MDO. I think (and this is a point of hesitation) that I would like the ability to cut a full size 4x8 single-color design in one pass using a 48" roll.
I am not trying to get into wide-format printing at the moment, although I have considered picking up a used gerber edge for id-tag and bar-code runs.
My experience is with an older Ioline smartrac i/s130, which was able to handle nice thick sandblast media, and could cut a 48" roll of vinyl edge to edge. It was a slow machine, older, and certainly had limitations, but it WORKED all day every day. They do not seem to make anything that wide anymore, so I am looking at the Graphtec lines of plotters, which seem to be my best bet in terms of the features and power that I want... although reading the forums about Graphtec vs. Roland vs. Summa feels like reading a chevy/ford/dodge debate on a truck forum: if you have one, you tend to defend it, and if you have all three, you love/hate facets of each.
I feel like the ce6000-120 is a good choice for my wants/needs, except in terms of thick sandblast and reflective media, although it looks like it could do some amount of that with a red-top blade holder and a 1.5 60* blade
The 8600 series has a much higher media-thickness rating and downforce, and seems to be built quite solid. I think I could get away with the 42"-wide version (8600-100), as it will fit a 48" roll. Am i right about that? Is there anyone using an 8600-100 for 4x8 banner or mdo that wishes they had gotten the 54" version? Anyone with a 8600-130 who feels like they went too big? Anyone want to tell me that I should just save the $ and get a 30" plotter and take the time to layout and line up multi-section designs?
Thanks for reading, it is helpful even to just lay out these questions in writing.
-jbv
, me too! We are looking at the same Graphtec right now in 64" to supplement our 24" and 42". Hoping to find a decent deal soon.