Recent content by Ryze Signs

If I were to be a one man show, it would be me and a boom truck. You can command a much higher hourly rate with a truck. When we rented lifts the rental was figured into the price. Now we still charge for the equipment but own it so we make more money.

4x8 solo is easy. Sometimes you can just remove one side retainer and side the old face out and slide the new one in. If it won't slide take the top retainer off. Never remove the bottom retainer. A tow behind articulating lift can usually be rented for around $300. We used to rent them all the...

Sadly net 30 is something we just have to deal with regularly on the back end. We always require a 50% deposit even on small jobs to soften the burden of waiting for the final payment. Oddly enough the most common clients to have net 30 are national sign companies. You'd think they would...

SolidWorks may be able to do this. Its a bit pricey but it can make high quality renderings and animations.

I've done wood tracks before for a menu board. It was just a strip of 1/4 ply with another strip wider than it glued and brad nailed to it. You could do this with metal pretty easily using a router or laser, or buying small bars of different widths and screw through them into the wood.

You can use 3M VHB tape and some dabs of silicone. The silicone might leave some residue, but I can't think of anything else that will adhere well and can be removed cleanly. I would feel safer with a minimum of one tapcon. A few small screw holes in concrete can be easily filled and may do...

How thick? 1. Aluminum with studs welded on the back. 2. Acrylic with studs glued or tapped. 3 ACM with countersunk tapcons. There are many good ways to skin this cat.

The Lightweld is intended to be in its own room with an interlock on the door. We currently have it bypassed. I might see if I can find a better wire feeder for it. Aluminum wire really needs a spool gun or a push pull setup to not birdnest. I might be able to do some autogenous (no filler)...

The router is terrible (Laguna entry level). The parts come out fine for router standards, but the laser parts come out with perfect glass finish edges. The best part is the acrylic doesn't move. I just set it on laser bed and even tiny parts stay put.

We have a Lightweld laser welder and it sucks. The safety always triggers and it shuts off. So far it's a $40k paperweight. I need to spend more time with it and figure it out, but it's hard to find the time. We have an SDS bender and it's awesome. Fast, accurate, good customer support based in...

I laser cut all my letters and use the cabinet face as a template to glue them to the backer. I avoid using the router if possible. It's slow, noisy, messy, can't cut sharp inside corners, and leaves a poor surface finish compared to the laser.

I have yet to have any issues with the acrylic Coming in glued. I always use acrylic for the push through and the backer and acrylic adhesive. I have yet to find anything that glues well to polycarbonate. The glue can leave shadows on clear acrylic which is another reason I prefer the white.

We use square coil and do surveys with pictures then add measurements to the pictures on coreldraw. The production drawings and site drawings are all produced as soon as we receive the deposit. The same paperwork and drawings are submitted for the permits.

I always back my acrylic with acrylic and glue them together as they are all laser cut and not routed. The only thing I cut on a router is ACM and polycarb.

Thank you all for the replies. I'll fire up the lasers tomorrow and make some samples for comparison and post som pictures.