Wholesaling ADA signs

[Rich Fennessey]

There are so many different types of signs and other related products so it seems to make sense for sign makers to team together to apply their specialties for meeting varying customer needs. Do many of you here wholesale or team with other sign companies? I was talking to someone tonight who wanted to take a sample ADA corian (when I actually create my first one) and show it to a friend who is in the sign business.

This got me thinking about how I would price a wholesale versus retail sign. I'm brand spanking new at this and I know price would depend on quantity, possibility of future business, etc. Would I be in my right to know what the retail price was going to be just so I understand the quality expected? Is there an average wholesale discount rate? For instance, I expect the signs to retail somewhere from $80 to $150 each, so is 20-30% off of that a normal wholesale discount to another company? Should there be much concern that another company would start replicating your material and technique?

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[Keith Outten]

Rich,

I have sold lots of Corian plaques to laser engravers and some of them were ADA blanks but I have never sold them specifically as wholesale ADA sign products in volume. Anyone who is interested in providing ADA signs who owns a laser engraver could certainly find any number of people here who own CNC Routers that would be glad to provide blanks for large commercial projects. This makes sense when you are just starting up and can't afford one of the two primary machines you need for a particular job. Even if someone needs plaques for a large engraving job or awards project you can easily outsource the CNC work or the laser engraving if you don't own a laser.

Normally I can handle a single commercial sign project by myself if the schedule isn't too tight. When project schedules get shortened or when jobs get a bit to close together I have plans to share my work with others who own small companies in my area. I have already shared all of my templates and designs with a couple companies so they are ready to go when the time comes that I need help. They in turn will reciprocate when their shops are over-run with work. This type of job sharing can be a positive approach or it can be an easy means for someone to take advantage of your designs, templates and possibly take your customers so I suggest that you select the companies you would like to enter into this kind of relationship with carefully. Another advantage for a small company just starting in the business is that they can basically piggy-back on a job that they are not qualified to do yet because their company resume' won't qualify them for large commercial projects.

Working out the costs for sharing jobs is best done based on what each company brings to the table. As long as the price points are acceptable to each party this can be a huge advantage. Some may consider working at a reduced rate per unit in exchange for the help they need to get a foothold in the business.
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[Rich Fennessey]

Speaking of making samples, here is my first prototype using the 1/32" Rowmark adhesive plastic and the clear .062" braille balls that I bought my McMaster-Carr.

I've been working up to the steps necessary to make a complete sign. I don't have any corian yet so I used some 1/2" birch plywood to practice on. It is cheaper than corian anyhow.

This particular piece is not acceptable - it seems I dug in too deep with my engraving/cutting bit (60 deg with .02" tip from 2Linc). You can see the outline around the plastic even though I put an engraving depth of .001". Light colored corian shouldn't show this as much. Also, engraving around the exact edge of the lettering, without an offset, cut away too much of the lettering. I'll have to pick a fatter font to compensate. This is where a laser engraver would be handy, nice narrow cutting kerf. I may consider hiring out some of the letter cutting to someone with a laser engraver and possibly run a light trace cut to assist in laying out the letters.

I used a 1/2" inch 90 deg V-bit for the profile outline and cut the plaque out with a straight 1/4" bit. I didn't run a Roman ogee around the edge which I figure is optional anyhow.

The X3 head is pretty handy, I only had to make one bit change going from the engraving/cutting bit to the braille drill (.060" parallel cutter). So I used a total of 4 bits. Depending on the picture details, some folks use the same .060 bit to both drill the braille and trim the plastic. I also used the laser macro for the first time to zero my work piece since I had to be somewhat precise about laying out my plastic adhesive without using an excessively sized piece.

Like I said this is a practice piece, you can see I had a drop of oil land on this plaque that didn't really clean up.

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[Keith Outten]

Rich,

Looks like you are on your way, nice job on the practice piece.
My take on the contour line around the icons is all or nothing, you either leave a contour line intentionally or adjust your setup to prevent the bit from touching the plaque surface. The contour line could be a nice effect if you use the right bit and depth, I think I will experiment a bit to see what I can come up with because the new specification is supposed to require chamfered edges on tactile text.

You can purchase a rotary engraving cutter with the edge profile for tactile text that provides the angle at the top and a straight edge to cut the bottom. I need to read the new ADAG closely to see if we can cut tactile text with just a Vbit, I think the new spec just requires an angle on the edges. If I switch to the 1/32" thick ADA plastic with an adhesive backing it is so thin I expect the Vbit to be perfect for the job and there won't be any need for the profile cutter.

BTW did you get the WinCNC app installed on your phone yet?
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[Rich Fennessey]

My intention is not to have a contour line at all but I could not use a negative number for the depth of cut and I didn't feel like reorganizing my file to have the adhesive plastic be the top of part till I at least tried this first. I'm doing all of this in BobCAD for the moment. I could see the Aspire inlay functionality being pretty handy for this part of the job. I wouldn't have known about that feature except I heard it at the Aspire camp. Doing this reliably is definitely going to be an exercise in precision - you want to make sure there are no chips under your material and it is completely flat. I'm not exactly sure why mine went too deep but it was my first try - just need to experiment more.

I just filled out my device information on Friday and sent it on to Josh, so haven't heard back, so no, I haven't installed and tried out the WinCNC app on my Itouch yet.

[Keith Outten]

Rich,

I like the contour line around the base of the text. It doesn't interfere at all with the ability to read the letters and it adds another shadow line which is attractive. I need to try one in Corian to see if it looks similar to the one you did in wood.

I need to find a few minutes this morning so i can send my WinCNC information back to Josh, I have been to busy lately to even give it a thought.
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