Gerber 4b

[peewee the pinstriper]

Somebody gave me an old Gerber 4b today.. Wow! Can't believe they used these things! But amazing to thing this is pretty much where it all started..

 

[Tony Teveris]

That is about where the Gerber sign biz started. There were some earlier models but the 4B became the standard. The story goes that management and engineers were looking for a new project and after combing the "yellow pages" they found so many sign maker adds they visited one in Hartford, Connecticut. Gerber being in the X/Y plotter biz and seeing what signmakers were doing the next step became a no brainer.

 

[Fred Weiss]

That is about where the Gerber sign biz started. There were some earlier models but the 4B became the standard. The story goes that management and engineers were looking for a new project and after combing the "yellow pages" they found so many sign maker adds they visited one in Hartford, Connecticut. Gerber being in the X/Y plotter biz and seeing what signmakers were doing the next step became a no brainer.

The story I heard was that management was looking for Shoes in the Yellow Pages but the page was torn out. The next page was Signs and the rest is history.

I started with a SignMaker 3 in 1983. It had no autokerning so you had to draw out each line of text using a pen on plotter paper, correct it, draw it again, correct it again until it was right. The SM 3 did have a tangential tool head as did all subsequent models although the original patent used a thermal hot tip to melt/cut the vinyl.

At one point we had three of them with three operators running all day to get the work out. When we switched to SuperSprints which ran five times faster, we found to our surprise that productivity didn't change very much ... only the workflow. With the slower Signmakers our operators would weed and mask one job while the next one was cutting. With the faster SuperSprints, we ended up adding a separate weeder for each machine and we were able to produce more work but the productivity per person was no better.

As plotters, even these old SignMakers were fine. The real problem in those days was that there was no way to save a job. We had to keep detailed workorders of all the settings, materials, text etc. to be able to handle repeats. Gerber was pushed by competitors like Technoarts to finally put a PC in front of their plotters to setup, save and send the jobs. Once that happened, the industry accepted the technology in a big way.

 

[signguy 55]

I will never, ever forgive Gerber for charging $285.00 for each font!!!!!

I remember the first one I saw running back around '91, it was cutting about 1/2" per second but I thought that was the coolest thing I ever saw. A sign friend of mine in a nearby town had a IVE (he paid $7000 for it), I still remember how he had to pen plot every design and then save the job to a job card. He was "living large" at the time and he knew it.

He amazed me at how many signs he turned out with the 5 fonts Gerber provided and tried to make each one different

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I still have my Gerber 4b and it works. When we bought it back in 83-84 it was 10k with a couple of fonts. A couple of years of having it we bought a differnt knife holder and it cut 6 times faster then the original blade. Still works today but don't use it.

 

[signgirl]

We started out with the 4b also. Had the super sprint too.....thinking back to those days makes me smile! I've seen a couple for sale on eBay recently

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

Well the 4b was nicer then hand lettering at the time.

 

[peewee the pinstriper]

here it is..

 

[signage]

You could have at least cleaned it off before taking the photo!

 

[Jillbeans]

I have a 4B and a 4E, I now use a Graphtec but the only thing I miss about the Gerbers is their excellent pounce pattern making abilities.
Love....Jill

 

[Barber]

I used to program it and let it run all night long next morning it was done and I had a floor full of signs.

 

[peewee the pinstriper]

That's how I got it nice and dirty.. I think I'm gonna mount it on the wall somehow...

 

[Billct2]

Yep, remember the salesman bringing it for a demo at the shop I worked at in Norwalk CT (Morgan) had to be very early 80s. We ordered it immediately. I also remember it being $10k. We were the fisrt ones in the area with it.
Paid for itself in a no time at all. Didn't miss late nights lettering endless lines of helvetica on job site signs.

 

[GoodPeopleFlags]

I'm also a 4B survivor!

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

That 4b you got looks like it was hardly used.

Mine just about all the letters are off the keys, lol