I know this one has been mentioned a few times before, but it really hit me hard yesterday. I just completed doing the graphics and lettering on two race cars in vinyl. I filled up one of those large curside garbage cans ( the kind the services use ) with the garbage these two jobs produced! Of course when I got to the garage where these cars are housed and did the applications, we dang near filed up another one What a waste! I've probably hand lettered around 1500 cars in my day. I doubt the garbage from all those cars put together would amount to what those two cars yesterday produced!!!!
I did a few more comparisons too.
Material: I had around $130 in these two cars if done in paint it would have been $15 tops.
Time: The time it took to layout, cut, weed and premask was longer than it would have taken to hand letter.
Screwups: with vinyl a screwup requires a complete redo, with paint a simple wipe with a rag.
Fun factor: hand lettering one is still a lot of fun, vinyl application is a job.
last minute substitutions: you know like when you run out of a certain color: vinyl, drive to the supplier, with paint it's a matter of a little crative mixing.
looks: this should be equal although it's hard to get rid of the "machine" look
durability; early on the vinyl holds up better, by mid year it's about even.
touch ups: easy with paint , damn hard with vinyl
price: I'm not even going there, around here the percieved value is in the toilet.
I'm not griping, just making some observations. The only reason I did these cars was a favor, these are friends. Friends who owna body shop. I plan on painting my truck in a few months
The advantages to vinyl, you're not at the jobsite as long.............oh yea, you can't spill vinyl.
The garbage though...whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by KARYN BUSH (Member # 1948) on :
yeah but when the car goes boom..ya just puke out another copy and slap it on..can't imagine painting would be faster...but then again i'm a vinyl queen not a talented letterer!
Posted by timi NC (Member # 576) on :
I wholeheartedly agree with you George! Comparing paint to vinyl you would have to pour out at least half of every container of paint you would use to get a comparable waste volume. I just did 8 retaining wall signs at the track this past week and had the same large amt. of refuse.The only reason I used vinyl was the time factor and the fact that it could be applied by unskilled help. Lets face it, vinyl application is not exactly a rocket science.Given the correct measurements it's not much more complicated than wallpaper application and somewhat faster. I also noticed the material cost factor,....ten times what it would normally be,due to the fact that the material necessary to apply the lettering costs more than 10 times the amount of paint I would have used to paint directly on the wall.A normal 3'x8' wall sign uses a little over a quart of paint to complete and the sheet of aluminum used cost me about 10 times the cost of that quart,...before I cut any vinyl and premasked it. Then to add insult to injury I had to throw away well over half of the vinyl I cut to do the job.
[ April 03, 2003, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: timi NC ]
Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
I always thought a plotter was for making masks, little did I know its called a vinyl cutter.
Did you know that N.J.'s Glen Weisgerber freehands a racecar with lettering and airbrushing in less then 2 hours from a design in both the owners and Glen's head?
Did you also know that not all racecars go boom and if they did go boom, how would the base color be applied, sprayed or wrapped?
Enough questions for the day, lets work.
Posted by Mike Languein (Member # 319) on :
Posted by cheryl nordby (Member # 1100) on :
Aint it the truth tho Georgie??? I have stomped.....jumped on....and tried rolling my vinyl waste into a big huge ball......doesn't work. You do get lots of garbage. Most every week our garbage cans are overflowing....tsk tsk.....someday all the landfills will be one big vinyl pit with all the new signmakers popping up around the world. Posted by bronzeo (Member # 1408) on :
George, This isn't a fix for what ails you, but if you will stack those damn backings in a pile and then stick them in the can, you can get about 20 times more of the damn things in there. Posted by roger bailey (Member # 556) on :
Hey George, are you using the Rapid Products ?
Well, if so, spray a little a that application fluid in the air and then take a big sniff.
Now, ain't that better ? Roger Posted by ScooterX (Member # 2023) on :
i'm with you on this one... i hate cutting 12" letters out of 14" vinyl... and tossing out 2" plus all the weeded stuff...
i'm probably a little closer to the beginning of the learning curve than most of you guys though, and so I use vinyl when I need something to look "perfect". it takes a long time to learn how to do a car "in two hours".
i also know that paint scares new people. its messy until you learn how to use it. two years ago when i opened a can of paint, i'd worry about getting spills all over the place. now i can paint a whole sign and use one third of one rag to clean up with. the only trouble i have now is opening a fresh can of paint... i still seem to create more of a mess with the top 1/32" of paint in a can than with the remaining total amount.
there's lots of little tricks you need to know to use paint. like, now i line my paint roller tray with transfer tape. after roll out the paint, the tape is wadded up and there's no mess. i used to waste ten rags trying to clean a roller tray. ifs its a small job, i'll just put a piece of tape on the table (about 12" x 12") and pour the paint right onto that, and not even use the tray. (it doesn't seem to work as well to pour the paint onto the board -- i cant seem to get the puddle to work out evenly across the board that way).
Posted by Stephen Deveau (Member # 1305) on :
Hey Karyn (Vinyl Queen)
1 ounce of Paint equal to 1 ounce on Vinyl goes well beyond the cost factor!
I can reuse my applicator (Brush) But with Vinyl I can only use my applicator once (transfer tape) and have to throw it in the garbage with everything else... Damn if those 20 year old Applicators (BRUSHES) haven't served me well! Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :
Scooter....why go thru the trouble of wiping down a paint tray? the thin film of paint, left on the tray will dry out overnite. Then you can reuse it. I know...eventually the buildup gets real thick, and the tray will weigh a ton! BUT...considering the cost of the tray is about the same as a roller cover, just toss it in the trash when it gets beat up and gives you a hernia when you try to use it!
Posted by Dave Cox - That Sign Guy (Member # 3517) on :
yep, vinyl sucks... blah blah blah... that must be why so many sign supply stores carry so much of the darn stuff...
Posted by GARY CULY (Member # 3130) on :
big 10-4 george. well said.when i hand lettered cars id make a lot of loot.use there lights there air, there racing gas for thinner.almost zero overhead.....oh get to to drink there beer too!!ha-ha...hip
Posted by AdrienneMorgan (Member # 1046) on :
George...ya know this is gonna start another war......(vinyl vs. paint)
... but....I agree...even though I only do a minimum amount of vinyl lettering, I too hate all the waste.
I try to fold or stack the backings (save bigger pieces for paint pallets) I even thought of starting the northwest's largest vinyl ball....
But...(and I know this is off your original thread) bottom line (for ME) is,I don't feel the satisfaction of doing a vinyl sign like I do handpainted work.
But....while I'm learning to handletter.......
A:)
Posted by Luke Scanlan (Member # 2481) on :
George you are so right. The waste with using vinyl is shameful. Fact is, it's not going away anytime soon. I'm not an Anti Vinyl Nazi. I'll continue to do my best in keeping the hand lettering going, as long as I'm physically able to anyway. I miss the days when you could tell who lettered something, just by looking at it. Keep it wet!
Posted by James Donahue (Member # 3624) on :
It's not either/or, it's both. I bought the machine to do secondary copy, (addresses, ph#).That's how I'm still using it. Even the most loyal paint people know what i mean, when's the last time anybody ever did any 2" single-stroke helvetica? First lettering I ever practiced. Man was that difficult. See-ya, Jim.
Posted by Craig Shaw (Member # 1036) on :
You can recycle the backing paper and transfer tape just like newspaper. What gets me is throwing away weeded scraps from Signgold. Does any one have any great ideas as to what to do with this?
Posted by Robb Lowe (Member # 2121) on :
Two words - paper shredder.
We have a 12" wide paper shredder in the shipping dept. You fold the backing paper in half long-ways so the silicone side is inside, and feed it in. Makes TONS of useful packaging material for free.
Now if anyone has a good way of getting rid of the leftover sticky stuff after weeding, I'm all ears. I usually end up with a large wad of vinyl resembling a clown-barf covered christmas tree. It's never easy to deal with, since it sticks to everything. Trashbags are a complete waste of time unless you waste app fluid on the sticky stuff to toss it.
Posted by roger bailey (Member # 556) on :
Maybe we can design a cheap "vinyl oven" that heats the scraps just enough to shrink it up real small !
Yeah, we can line it with teflon or something!
Roger Posted by James Donahue (Member # 3624) on :
Sometimes I roll up stuff like that in the protective liner that comes on a sheet of aluminum. Jim.
Posted by Ryan E Young (Member # 2325) on :
I just roll my vinyl in a ball and give it to my 1.5 year old son He will play with the STICKY BALL for as long as it sticks to him. Then he is ready for a new one. Cheapest toy out there.
Posted by Peter Schuttinga (Member # 2821) on :
The backing paper goes into a stack, and eventually it will get rolled up real tight and disposed of. The sticky vinyl ball is great for picking up dog hair, just roll it around the carpet for a while a viola, cheap carpet cleaner. A kind of vinyl swiffer/pickitupper.And with all that fur on the ball you can finally put it into a garbage bag. Kind of like re-cycling/re-using.
I wonder if a trash compactor can handle vinyl, and make multi coloured sticky bricks?
Posted by DONALD THOMPSON (Member # 3726) on :
Craig, Save the scraps for putting on panels, then pinstriping around them. We had a panel party last weekend. Ryan Young and Joe Buck did an awesome panel for me using scraps. I trim close to lettering or cut a weeding border to save all I can. Yes, I am a vinyl guy. I could never find anyone around here that would help me learn to letter or pinstripe. I never really knew the concept until last weekend and my first panel party with Art Schilling in Sept. I never have found a good use for scrap vinyl. I wish we had a recycling center here. It can be recycled if you have a center near you.
Posted by AdrienneMorgan (Member # 1046) on :
pieces too small to put through the plotter but bigger than a few inches go into a box. When it's full I give it to a grade school or Sunday school teacher for classroom projects. They are always happy to get them. A:)
Posted by Monte Jumper (Member # 1106) on :
Anyone that turns this into an "us and them" post isn't paying attention.
We have the same trash parade here and to hear the supplier tell it vinyl is less per square inch than paint (he's never hand lettered).
The thing I've been waiting for...is how long before it dawns on someone that vinyl won't break down in land-fills and they start charging us for special tariff for disposing of "trash vinyl".
One way we cut back on the waste is not to use vinyl on anything over an 8" letter (we mask cut and roll from there up)under normal circumstances...now if we're "under the gun" that rule has been discarded from time to time.
I admit I love vinyl when it comes to those "dead sea scoll" jobs with 3/4" copy and loath it when it comes to letters that are 14" tall.
All this having been said... reality is... vinyl is hear to stay, but so is paint (until they outlaw it altogether) at which point I suspect we will be looking for the old Paint recipes from the past but after all thats what Letterheads has always been about. (Learning the old ways and freely passing them along to others.)
RENAISSANCE!
[ April 05, 2003, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: Monte Jumper ]
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What a waste! I've probably hand lettered around 1500 cars in my day. I doubt the garbage from all those cars put together would amount to what those two cars yesterday produced!!!!![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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