Window painting clown

[Extremo]

Hello my name is Scot but my friends and fans call me Extremo. I am a commercial and fine artist. My main business is window splashes. If you go to fastsplash.com you can see my work. Recently I purchased a Roland SP-540V. In addtion to other digital signwork I plan on printing on magnetic sheeting. Before I purchased the printer/cutter I was told it could print directly on magnetic material. Well after the fact I have discovered it's not as simple as I was told. It works wonders on other material like vinyl but with magnetic sheeting I am having to try many settings and alternative products to get it to work properly. I talked to Roland and they told me they don't recommend it, but they know people use it for that. So far I have made adjustments to the cutting strength, the calibration settings and a few other settings. It doesn't actually cut through the magnetic sheeting but it scores it wonderfully, when it does work. I discovered quickly that it cannot handle too large of a piece of magnetic sheeting. The material I started with is called Signmag. I finally got a good print on it. But the printer/cutter shuts down sometimes when it has a large piece in the machine like 24 x 24. It says motor error, turn off machine, or something to that effect. I decided to try another magnetic material called Razormag. It worked great and the machine didn't freak out even with a larger piece of material. It's thin and lightweight. It scored it great too. The only thing is the Razormag seems a bit flimsy and I am not sure it will hold up over the years on a car like the Signmag probably would. I did discover if I run a piece of Signmag through the machine that is 16" x 24" it seems to handle that fine. But with a 16" piece I have only about a 14" wide printing area. I want to print large magnets up to 18" x 24" on the heavier magnet stock. I want to have the printer score my designs because they are irregular shapes, for simple geometric shapes like squares , circles and triangular designs I can just cut out the large ones by hand I suppose. I have thought of also printing on vinyl then sticking that to the magnetic stock, again though for the more irregular shaped designs it could be a hassle cutting them out by hand. I keep trying different things. Anyone out there with suggestions on printing magnetic sheeting?

Thanks!

 

[iSign]

If you do a search, you will most likely find several similar discussions, all resulting in a vast majority of contributors to the discussion being satisfied with NEVER printing on magnetic sheeting. We all print on vinyl & apply that to magnetic material. I don't think too many people worry too much about contour cutting magnetic sheeting. If someone wants us to work that hard to hide the stick-on square look of most magnets, we usually sell them on a higher end vinyl graphics application on their vehicle. It's just not worth risking damage to $30 - $40K worth of equipment, so if I can't cut the desired shape by hand, then I don't sell it.

 

[Shovelhead]

Do we have a match?????

We'll find out in..2 and 2!!!!!!

 

[Marlene]

wow, shovelhead found your evil twin!

 

[Brendan]

I avoid the magnet prints as much as possible... I print on vinyl and apply to mag like everyone else here..
Aside from that.... you do nice work!

 

[skyhigh]

Nice stuff Scot.

 

[THATgirl]

Sorry don't have an answer to your question, just wanted to say, you do some really nice work!!

 

[Gino]

Welcome from PA and ya have some nice work there…........

I wouldn’t run magnetic on that machine routinely or you’ll probably ruin it. When a roll of material or anything gets stuck or jammed…. you’ll get those motor feed errors. That’s a cute way of your machine telling you, there’s an excessive amount of strain on the rollers and inner motors and I would imagine you’ll burn those parts out…. and it won’t be covered under any warranty.

As for using .010 or .020 mag material for anything other than refrigerator doors and things around the shop or office….. they’re no good for vehicles. Vehicles need a certain amount of pull per square inch or foot to hold up to wind while driving. The .030 is best. The thinner the material the less pull. However, if you go to .060 thickness, you might have too much thickness and literally it catches the wind and will blow off due to the extra thickness vs. the extra pull power. Stay with .030, print to vinyl, adhere to your substrate, clear or laminate if you so desire and then take the money.

 

[TheSnowman]

I never even attempted printing onto the magnetic, cause I didn't want to wreck the machine. I'd say just keep going right to vinyl, and add that extra step to save your equipment. But yeah, you do great work. I'm totally impressed. Not too many painters can pull off that stuff. Even OP would prob. tell ya that.

 

[Flame]

Omw.....

Dude, are you the guy around here that paints the window splashes in a clown suit!?!?!?

hahahaha. DUDE! Welcome to 101! This is awesome, you're going to be so fun to tease.



:Oops::Welcome:

 

[TheSnowman]

What do you think OP's gonna think Flame?

 

[MrKoob]

I've seen your DVD series. It's great! If I'm not mistaken, you "don't even own a tie". (Inside joke)

 

[Extremo]

Thanks for all the great feedback on my work, I really appreciate that coming from fellow artist and designers. I love painting windows even after 30 years. I think I have probably painted over 40,000 panes by now. I really do enjoy it, even with the Northwest Winter weather. To answer Flame Master's question, Yes I am Extremo the Clown, the wackjob that drives around in the crazy cars and paints windows. If you google my name "extremo the clown" you will find some other interesting tibbits about Extremo. I am also on myspace too. As far as printing directly onto magnetic, I am convinced it's a risky proposition. Thanks Gino and everyone for the great advice on that and also the advice on the magnet thickness, I am using 0.30 and will STICK with that...no pun intended, ha ha ha! Well what the hell? I am a freakin' clown too y'know. Thanks again for the tips!!

 

[Samm]

Awesome work - welcome!

 

[Flame]

Thanks for all the great feedback on my work, I really appreciate that coming from fellow artist and designers. I love painting windows even after 30 years. I think I have probably painted over 40,000 panes by now. I really do enjoy it, even with the Northwest Winter weather. To answer Flame Master's question, Yes I am Extremo the Clown, the wackjob that drives around in the crazy cars and paints windows. If you google my name "extremo the clown" you will find some other interesting tibbits about Extremo. I am also on myspace too. As far as printing directly onto magnetic, I am convinced it's a risky proposition. Thanks Gino and everyone for the great advice on that and also the advice on the magnet thickness, I am using 0.30 and will STICK with that...no pun intended, ha ha ha! Well what the hell? I am a freakin' clown too y'know. Thanks again for the tips!!

Ah man, found out you ain't the one I see around here. Did you know there's another clown around here?More Washington based.... but he's a clown!!!

LOL. Maybe I've seen you both, who knows? Welcome aboard and have fun with the site.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Welcome to a outstanding forum and people

wow nice art work, window splashes, and ya look like you been having fun all thes years
I also do window slpash and really like the lively work

fonts live to be lettered

 

[The Big Squeegee]

Welcome from OK.
It was a hard read. would be much easier if you could put in a blank line every now and then. Nice work!

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

a blast from the past. Man Reading this brings back memories from home. YOu guys have got to see pictures of Extremo's car.

 

[weaselboogie]

Ah man, found out you ain't the one I see around here. Did you know there's another clown around here?More Washington based.... but he's a clown!!!

LOL. Maybe I've seen you both, who knows? Welcome aboard and have fun with the site.

Are you freakin' kidding me??? There are two sign people in the same area that dress up as clowns to paint windows?

How's the money? I can't imagine that people take you seriously to command a righteous dollar. Maybe this sort of thing works completely opposite on this spectrum. Its a service and a performance piece!!

 

[resqfiremedic]

Wow, really nice worl there Scot!! Like others have mentioned.... I pesonally would not risk wrecking an expensive machine such as that for cheap magnetics!! I only have a 30" model roland but have already spent 1k on one head replacement out of the two on mine, which you can easily damage by head strikes. Im sure the motors & gears catch a lot of unneccessary strain from magnetic material!!