posted
When maximum profit is the bottom line...the fun of being in this business is gone!
I have been in various businesses and jobs....from boat yards, construction, chemist, aerospace engineer, etc. When a job or profession was no longer fun, I found a new one! I went into the sign biz 35 years ago and have enjoyed it all these year....and will probably die with a brush in my hand!
Am I rich? NO!...BUT if that was my aim in life, I would be a stock broker, or some other job wearing a suit and growing ulcers!
-------------------- Si Allen #562 La Mirada, CA. USA
(714) 521-4810
si.allen on Skype
siallen@dslextreme.com
"SignPainters do It with Longer Strokes!"
Never mess with your profile while in a drunken stupor!!!
Brushasaurus on Chat Posts: 8831 | From: La Mirada, CA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Ken, I'll bet you didn't think this post would get so much PASSIONATE response! Glen thanks for your plug to get me in - it worked! I use more signgold than I do traditional gold for mainly 2 reasons - time & durability. Most of the trucks I do work in abusive conditions and sleep outside. Hand laid leaf will not endure as long as SG unless the customer is EXTREMELY fussy about care and maintaining the clearcoat. The additional tie-up time for the truck is more of a factor for my guys than the additional cost. A simple job I may have for the day in SG is an automatic 1 1/2 days for real gold (I always do second coat of clear the second day)I am most concerned with the durability because I've seen how fast a beautiful hand laid leaf job can be distroyed by neglect or bad washing practices (the dredded POWER WASHER!) It has to be kept up, I want them to be happy and love the look and not be burdened with the maintenance. I have a handful of customers that will have NOTHING but hand laid leaf - the money or time is secondary - the LOOK is most important to them. I try to match the customer with the peramaters of the job they want me to do - and give them what I think will serve them best. They may have to make certain concessions depending the method they choose. I will always LOVE the look of hand laid leaf, but it's not right for every application. I feel there is NO better gold vinyl product than SG available, but that's my narrow opinion. I say it because I believe it and use it extensively - because I know the pitfalls of a poor product. I probably didn't clear much up but that's just my slant. Karen
posted
Well said, Karen. The guys at Rock Ridge Volunteer Fire Department were having the same problem with durability. The nice thing was that I was able to give them something the fit their need and their want.
Admittedly, there is nothing fancy about the job, but the customer is happy and I was well paid.
This job was done last year with Edge-printable SignGold. Then Gerber UV-Guard was cut oversized about an 1/8" all the way around each letter and applied. The entire job was done in about 2 hours (talk to client, set type, prep file, print, apply, cut overlaminate, apply, and make out invoice).
[ March 14, 2002, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: Glenn Taylor ]
posted
OK! Lets clear the air and get back in our corners... Let me say that I LOVE SIGNGOLD! and there is no question that it helps the sign industry produce beautiful work with the look or at least luster of REAL GOLD. Also, Karen's point about durability on trucks is a huge plus for signgold. And believe me I use my share of it (John, you can ask Howard Zimmern my friend and sign supplier how much of the stuff I buy)
So lets back up to the origonal post a 43" x 16' sign you would need 7 yards of SG! thats 3 1/2 truck jobs worth... using Glen's math thats $1925 wourth of truck lettering you could do with that much SG. Using it on a plywood storefront sign that doesn't need to worry about how well is stands up to pressure washers and will never be touched, doesn't even need to be clear coated. Seems like maybe on a job this large it becomes less profitable.
-------------------- Ken McTague, Concept Signs 57 Bridge St. (route 107) Salem MA 01970 1-978-745-5800 conceptsign@yahoo.com http://www.pinheadlounge.com/CaptainKen
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"A wise man once said that, or was it a wise guy?" Posts: 2425 | From: Salem, MA | Registered: Apr 1999
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posted
Karen made some excellent points here. To really compare SG to hand-laid leaf, we have to take the entire job into account.
If there's one very positive thing I've seen, it's that SG has resurrected the practice of gilding on truck doors. If you looked around ten years ago, truck gilding (other than fire trucks) had just about disappeared - too difficult, too expensive/time consuming, and not sufficiently durable unless properly maintained. In my first five years in this trade - including the first two years in Phoenix, in a shop doing a LOT of trucks - I did exactly one gold job. When SignGold came out in the mid-nineties, it started showing up on trucks, and with it, the "look" of gold that never really goes out of style. More clients see gold, want gold, and with that come the options of SG or hand-laid leaf on trucks. So the fact we are having this discussion about truck gilding at all, we owe to the existence of SignGold. It's rare these days that we can point to a new, computer-age product that has actually RAISED the public's perceception of the threshold of quality (and prices) of a certain type of work, but I do believe that is the case here.
What might be a subject for a new thread is coming into mind.
-------------------- "A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle
Cam Bortz Finest Kind Signs Pondside Iron works 256 S. Broad St. Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379 "Award winning Signs since 1988" Posts: 3051 | From: Pawcatuck,Connecticut USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Seeing as this post has had a few twists, I will state that durability on real leaf has never been a problem as of today.
I have never had a problem selling gold jobs, they sell themselves.
I do use a lot of SG as well as traditional leaf.
But with SG I have had the edges delaminate and peel on truck lettering. Now you have to edge seal the SG on trucks, how many seal there edges and how?
How does that effect the overall time spent working with SG.
-------------------- Bob Rochon Creative Signworks Millbury, MA 508-865-7330
"Life is Like an Echo, what you put out, comes back to you." Posts: 5149 | From: Millbury, Mass. U.S. | Registered: Nov 1998
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Cam, I think you need to ask the question of why did the gold go away before SG came out in the mid nineties. I think it has a lot to do with people not learning how to do it. Or old timers not passing on the knowledge. I know there are books on it but many don't want to work that hard.I also think no one wanted to take the road less traveled. SG allowed people to easily jump into the gold ring and start lettering doors again. Neither way is right or wrong. I just see many as not wanting to take the time. But that's fine, when someone needs something hand gilded just give them my number. LOL
-------------------- Rob Larkham Rob Larkham Signs & Lettering 21 Middlefield Road Chester, MA. 01011
413-354-0287 Posts: 517 | From: Chester, MA | Registered: May 2001
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This is mostly a rebuttal of Rob L's post about signfolk not wanting to learn guilding, and not meant to start a war.
If I may, a bit of history, and a fair amount of opinionating on the "why" of gold leaf falling out of favor for so many years. Many of you were kids when so much of what follows was going on, so please, bear with me.
Up until the Nixon years,US currency was on the gold standard wherein the price of gold was fixed at $35/ troy ounce. Troy ounce being slightly heavier than the ounce most of us are used to. For reasons not altogether clear to me-- other than inflationary pressures building as a result of LBJ's guns and butter approach to the Vietnam war-- and something in the way of wage/price freezing--Nixon let the price of gold find its own level in the marketplace, in effect letting US currency "float" relative to other currencies.
Along about that same time, oil-dependent nations got hit with the first Arab oil embargo-the one in '73. The upshot was that the price of gold went through the roof, getting if I remember right up towards $1000/troy ounce. Worse yet, the price was volatile/unstable from day to day. End result-- no one could afford gold leafing. The prices of everything else took off too.
Things remained economically unstable all through the '70s, and only got worse when OPEC hit oil-dependent nations with a second embargo in'79. Double-digit inflation, gas lines again, the Middle East in a state of turmoil (as usual) a national funk over the way Vietnam ended, energy prices out of sight, product prices going up as a result of increased manufacturing costs, etc.
By the mid '90s, things had more or less settled down energy-wise, and inflation-wise, Desert Storm notwithstanding. But, for the better part of twenty years, most signfolk, and their customers just plain couldn't afford gold work. Those who knew how to guild didn't, and those who wanted to learn had no opportunity. It wasn't so much a lack of desire to learn guilding, as it was economics, pure and simple. So now, along comes Signgold. Nice product I guess, tho' I have never used it. Two reasons-- the price scares me, and I can just picture my plotter going on a gold binge and eating the stuff. Have also seen a couple of signs locally that I think were lettered with it, but probably not edge-sealed, that have deteriorated badly.
I think at least part of the reason that hand laid gold is coming back is the price of SG, and also the fact that real leaf has pretty much leveled off in price. The other thing is that leaf doen't much care where you put it, recessed, raised, curved, or whatever. SG is limited IMHO to the flat stuff.
Sorry this is so long-winded, but maybe it will add an alternate perspective to the other posts.
-------------------- Bill Preston Fly Creek, N.Y. USA Posts: 943 | From: Fly Creek, N.Y. USA | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I prefer the quick but 4 hours @ $200 no way. I determine price greatly on time. Starting base $200 hr. so a 4 hr. job would be @ least $800 in labor plus the cost of materials. I have a very simple way to pricing, I decide how much I need to make to cover everything & what I want to personally make divide that into a 8 hr. day plus materials..bingo
-------------------- Ronnie Conrad Augusta,Ga Posts: 374 | From: Augusta,Ga. | Registered: Aug 2000
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Let me just say this post is the first one in a long time that has had over 50 posts and was not about some body cry cause he didnt get his way or some arguement about an O.T. so I guess it was a good post. Although it has turned and twisted afew times and may not ever answer the question: 7 yards of SG or 4 books of real gold? I just had to think, that was ME making that sign and it was ME that took 4 hours to gild, image somebody who was quicker and could do it in 2 or 3 hours. Then I see Ronnies post who bills out at 200 bucks an hour (better money then my lawyer makes) and think wow! We never even got into the price of such a sign... Guess its a good thing I didn't mention that , I think thats a question to pose in The Signgold challengeA continuing letterhead adventure I am going over to SG challange part 2
-------------------- Ken McTague, Concept Signs 57 Bridge St. (route 107) Salem MA 01970 1-978-745-5800 conceptsign@yahoo.com http://www.pinheadlounge.com/CaptainKen
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"A wise man once said that, or was it a wise guy?" Posts: 2425 | From: Salem, MA | Registered: Apr 1999
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Ken, you are right. This has been a great post. No name calling. No heated tempers. Just passion on both sides of the fence. Neither being wrong or right. This is what this site should be all about. I learned some economic history and found maybe I shouldn't fight the SG so much. Cheers to all!
[ March 16, 2002, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: Rob Larkham ]
-------------------- Rob Larkham Rob Larkham Signs & Lettering 21 Middlefield Road Chester, MA. 01011
413-354-0287 Posts: 517 | From: Chester, MA | Registered: May 2001
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I agree. This was a refreshing discussion. I'll bet that our Mayor and the First Lady are smiling.
-------------------- Jon Aston MARKETING PARTNERS "Strategy, Marketing and Business Development" Tel 705-719-9209 Posts: 1724 | From: Barrie, ON, CANADA | Registered: Sep 2000
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