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It seems to me like the trend is going to a "clean", sharp look. I'm noticing more acrylics, metals and stones being used. I still like the sandblasted wood look but we don't seem to be doing as much of it as we used to.
-------------------- Jean Shimp Shimp Sign & Design Co. Jacksonville Beach, Fl Posts: 1287 | From: Jacksonville Beach, Fl. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I have contemplated buying a router, and probably will in the future.
I would want a decent router though both in size and quality, and use Artcam's 3D software, so your talking about alot of money each month, and in our business market we would end up cutting acrylic sheet material, and aluminium etc for other shops to maintain a good level of income.
I bought my sandblast equipment from www.clemcoindustries.com a few yaers back, its professional quality equipment not hobby stuff, its all paid for in the barn at home 5 mins from work here on a nearby industrial estate. Just a matter of connecting the diesel compressor and away you go.
Even though we now have an Edge, and do lots of vinyl, I like signs with life in them, not perfectly reproduced by a machine, sandblasting is very much computer aided in design and in cutting resist, but the final finish is controlled by human hands, and that is a big attraction for me.
Its messy and in a modern shop maybe the way forward is to automate, and turn round work as quickly and effectively as possible, that said if I was into 100% automation I'd work in a Volvo factory!
So we'll stick with sandblasting and in the US you have a huge market for good looking signs however they are produced.
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