Don't do it. It takes way too much labor and when you get an order for 100 double sided, do you know how long that will take to print and apply? Nearly a week, you would be so backed up, not to mention errors/reprinting. But the cost of materials is higher. You would get backed up and start telling people you are 3 weeks behind.
Not too much of a back up if you work smart.
We do sets of 50 double sided 20"x12" on 3mil coroplast every month or two.
16 copies will gang on a single sheet of 4x8 coro.
We print the first side with the 0 spacing between the images using a .5pt white outline around each copy for cut marks.
Mount the print using our manual hand cranked laminator - flip it over and mount a second set of 16 prints on the back - again 0 spacing between images but no white outline.
With no spacing between images we only have to make single long cuts to separate them quickly using the 1pt white outline guides on the front side. Registration between front and back can be off a bit and still not show with no cut lines on the back. (These are popped into frames so the edges don't matter anyway).
We only have to do three of these to get 48 double sided prints mounted n cut in an hour or so (not including the printing time) with 1 or 2 guys - depending on who shows up for work.
Most times we have to add an additional 100 count 24x16 single sided poster (on coro) for the same promo. Takes more material (11 full 4x8s) but they go really fast without having to deal with double sided registration.
If I could afford a flatbed I'm not sure I would get one with the nearest techs a plane ride away in Hawaii.
I can still make money on short turn around projects with my roll to roll if I need to.
wayne k
guam usa
No doubt about it, you can make money applying vinyl prints to Cor-X, but when the OP compares it to outrunning a flatbed..... then one needs to understand or realize the tools one is working with to what capacity they can perform.
As for ams way..... I can't imagine 100 18" x 24" double-sided signs taking a week to produce. That is insane. Just about any printer will print those in a day or less. Mounting them with a Big Squeegee [plug] or a laminator should have them all mounted within a few hours and cutting 11 sheets down, maybe an hour or two. There he goes again with all those errors and things going wrong. How does anyone stay in business, when each and every job goes wrong as he's been telling us.
The thing to remember is simple. Even on the slowest of flatbeds, you have the cost of the substrate, much less cost of inks, cut time and you're done. 100 signs are completed within 5 to 6 hours in our shop. Some can have them finished in 2 or 3 hours, depending on their speed.
The vinyl applique method is cost of vinyl, regardless how cheap it is, lotsa monkey time applying, wrestling with some of them, cutting them out and the much higher cost of the inks. You'll probably have 2 days in it, plus all of your monkey time spent on cheap signs, instead of something worth while.
Why spend hours/days on producing itty-bitty signs worth about $5 or so, when you could be focusing on larger signs and in the same timeframe, producing far better results.....
and money ??
