I wouldn't discourage you from doing what you want to do, but I'll say this, I came from a trade as well, not
sign related. It can help a great deal in many situations.
Having said that, do you remember going through your apprenticeship? Remember the guys down the hall going through their apprenticeship for printing? It's a trade in itself and not one that can be discounted, in my opinion.
I've got 5 years or so in this trade now, and we don't have a printer, but I work with people almost daily that do, whether it's us doing work for them, or us subbing print work to them, and having been around the printing world for several good years now, I can tell you that printing scares the crap out of me. It's about 1000 times more complex than I ever thought it would be.
Common perceptions I found to be wrong about printing, and some other general notes :
1) It's easy.
2) Anyone can do it.
3) You create the graphic and hit print.
4) Laminators are required for most things.
5) You can do a great job on printing that rush job and then screw it up on the laminate.
6) The math they use to sell them, "X" sq.ft. per hour x $15 per sq.ft is a myth.
7) Some colors aren't possible to replicate.
8) You'll use your software for years before you realize you didn't have the color settings right, which will screw up every file you ever saved if you change it.
9) People that buy media on price will give you a different result every time they switch to a new brand because every media holds ink different.
10) Print heads go bad more often than you'd think and they aren't cheap.
11) You'll have to buy $1200 worth of ink to do a $25 job at some point.
12) The guy down the road will do it for 20% less.
13) You'll have to buy a $600 roll of material to do a $25 job at some point.
14) You'll spend every waking hour trying to hit a color for a job that doesn't matter.
15) Some materials don't play well together and you won't know that until you bought $1200 in materials and used some of it, and installed it for the customer.
16) It costs about the same price as the printer to have all the other things you need to use a printer. In the end, the printer will be the cheap part.
That's my uneducated thoughts on printers and printing.
If I were in your shoes, I'd look at something else in the
sign business, other than printing to get started. There are plenty of other ways to get started without jumping into the deep end.
Just my opinion.
