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James Kane JR
04-21-2013, 8:38 AM
New member to the forums here, and really just asking if someone can point me to the right place on the forum.

I'm an Army Officer living in a military town with a couple of overpriced shops that do custom engraving and framing for awards, mementos, etc.

Looking to get either an engraver or a CNC machine to make plaques, signs, awards, unit mementos, etc and possibly run things out of my garage.

As a frequent customer of these places I know that there is a demand for these things that far out-strips the supply. The local shops are poorly run, charge exhorbitant prices, and generally give customers the attitude that they will do work when and how they feel like it. People are looking for other options, but in our town there just aren't any.

Want some perspective on what it would take to start a part-time business like this and what kind of equipment I should be looking at. I'm sure the forums here have already covered topics like this, and I would appreciate if someone who's been on here longer could point me to the right places to look.

Thanks,
Jim

Dee Gallo
04-21-2013, 9:26 AM
Welcome to the Creek, James, you are in the right place! My best advice is to spend time reading the posts here starting from #1 - you will see discussions on everything from the tech end to the creative edges to the business side and everything in between.

We have a few members here who deal with the military all the time, so maybe some of them will chime in to give their two cents. There have been posts dealing directly with military-related topics such as where to find logos, challenge coin displays, regulations when dealing with bases, trophy examples, memorials and so on. You can search specific topics using the "advanced search" box on the top right of this page.

cheers, dee

Ross Moshinsky
04-21-2013, 10:55 AM
New member to the forums here, and really just asking if someone can point me to the right place on the forum.

I'm an Army Officer living in a military town with a couple of overpriced shops that do custom engraving and framing for awards, mementos, etc.

Looking to get either an engraver or a CNC machine to make plaques, signs, awards, unit mementos, etc and possibly run things out of my garage.

As a frequent customer of these places I know that there is a demand for these things that far out-strips the supply. The local shops are poorly run, charge exhorbitant prices, and generally give customers the attitude that they will do work when and how they feel like it. People are looking for other options, but in our town there just aren't any.

Want some perspective on what it would take to start a part-time business like this and what kind of equipment I should be looking at. I'm sure the forums here have already covered topics like this, and I would appreciate if someone who's been on here longer could point me to the right places to look.

Thanks,
Jim

FYI: This forum is partially made up of people who run shops and I can tell you, as one of those people, there is always two sides of the coin. My experience with police, fire, and military is they like everything to be customized. Custom costs money.

A quick for example: A month ago we did two large perpetual plaques. Because the job was custom everything, we had to charge about 3-4x what a similar stock off the shelf plaque would have cost. It's no different then if you walk into HD and buy nice kitchen cabinets vs go to a cabinet shop and get custom cabinets. The quality might be similar but because you wanted custom, you're going to pay significantly more. It's just the way it works.

James Kane JR
04-21-2013, 11:03 AM
FYI: This forum is partially made up of people who run shops and I can tell you, as one of those people, there is always two sides of the coin. My experience with police, fire, and military is they like everything to be customized. Custom costs money.

My experience over the past 20 years at various military installations around the world leads me to believe that the businesses in this particular location are not the norm. Not in the same ballpark and not playing in the same league as shops anywhere else that I have been.

Yes, custom items would be what I would expect to sell.

Rodne Gold
04-21-2013, 11:09 AM
Hiya , welcome

I would do some market research as to EXACTLY what your piece of the pie is likely to be. I'm taking empirical realistic numbers. This will tell you whether its worth while investing in around $20-30 000 in equipment and supplies and giving up your free time. Formulate a business plan with cash flow projections etc...
I'm not trying to rain on your parade , but you come with 2 disadvantages , lack of experience in engraving and possibly business and a lack of customers. The proposed advantage of lower cost might not be realised..you might find you can't do it at a substantially lower price and make money.
You could of course compete on service and delivery.
I can tell you that making money out of a business like this is not easy especially in the face of other established competitors, requires a full time commitment.. will your military career allow this?

Scott Shepherd
04-21-2013, 12:05 PM
Welcome Jim! Sounds like you might have an opportunity. A few questions, and then a couple of comments to think about.

1) What's your graphics experience?
2) What graphic software are you proficient using?
3) What would you like, plug and play or are you okay with things that aren't plug and play?

I'd argue the machine is the smallest piece of the puzzle. If you can't use graphics programs and don't understand photos, etc, then your learning curve is going to be steep.

One thing that I have learned over the years is that everyone thinks your work should be near free, while their work, no matter what it is, should command top dollar. I've dealt with so many people over the years that have no problem charging $90 per hour for their services that didn't require a $20,000 piece of machinery to do, but when it comes time to talk about pricing their work, they think engraving should be valued around $20 per hour. One trap that is really really easy to fall into is running this from a home and charging prices like you have no overhead. If I moved all my equipment into my home, I could surely charge less. But at some point, you'd outgrow the home office, you'd have to expand, and you'd end up paying rent, etc. for a larger space. Immediately, all your prices would skyrocket to cover the costs. To me, that means your pricing model wasn't correct. It's my belief, you should price to the market, then when you have to expand, your customers don't abandon you from the sticker shock syndrome when your prices jump with the move.

While things might look expensive, they might be right in line, or, as you say, they might be really high. There's no need to lowball the market, just come in competitive and reap the rewards. Give us some examples of items and pricing and we'll happily tell you if they are normal or high, based on our experiences.

Either way, best of luck!

James Kane JR
04-21-2013, 12:09 PM
.. will your military career allow this?

Ha ha, probably not, but I've never let lack of time stop me in anything else.

I know a couple guys in town who are already doing this (undercutting the long-time established awards and memento shops in town) with picture/award framing and they have all the work they can handle. I guess what I'm really looking for is to research what options are out there so I can do an analysis of time & money that I would have to invest versus what product and profit. Could I make full-time business built around $50,000 worth of machinery, but not have time to run it? or would it be possible for me to buy a single machine that I could work on nights/weekends and be the guy in town that people go to for one specific thing (like the framing guys in my town)?

Anyway, I'm not really asking for answers, just explaining why I'm here on the forums.

Rodne Gold
04-21-2013, 1:06 PM
You really can't leave a laser or CnC router unattended at any time. so you will have to mind the machines all the time.
As an example of a calculation.. you can certainly set up shop for $50k , but you really have to amortise/depreciate this over 3-5 years to make sense. You will be lucky if you NET 25% profit what with amortization and other expenses barring salary- so to pull out $1500 a month - you have to do at least $6000 a month..or $300 a day..and spend at least, imo , 4 hrs to do that.
So essentially , you would work an extra 80 hrs a month to pull $1500 (before tax) , you would thus earn $20 an hour.. $18k a year is not a terrible return on an investment of $50k , but its not wonderful either considering the inroads into your time.
Anyway , you will find most of what you want to know and more by just reading these forums, we a helpful bunch... :)

Scott Shepherd
04-21-2013, 1:21 PM
Also, I think if you ask the question "What would you have done differently?" in regards to the order of equipment purchased, a number of people, myself included, wouldn't put a laser at the top of that list. There are far more profitable methods out there to do the types of things you're talking about (to some degree), and they cost a lot less. Dye Sublimation or Color Laser Toner come to mind. Both are cheap to get into and can have some huge margins. If we had to start over, I'd start with those types of things, use the profits from them to buy things like lasers, rather than the other way around.

I believe starting out with a laser and no customers is a very hard road to travel. It's the one we traveled and if I had to do it over, I'd do it differently.

Just my opinion.

James Kane JR
04-21-2013, 2:43 PM
I have experience with a few different graphics programs, mainly non-professional ones, and I have almost two decades building powerpoint presentations which normally require a fair amount of graphic design. Regardless, I have no fear of computers or any software.

In my own little perfect imaginary world I picture designing a graphic for someone (a mascot, a unit crest, a tank, and some nice words about the person's service over the past couple years, etc), and then sending it to a machine or something that transfers that onto wood or metal. One of our places in town creates awards that way on wood in relief and charges $150-200 a go.

For those wondering about whether or not I would undercut prices or not... well I don't know how much I would undercut them, but I certainly would get the work done faster. I also would have advantages in the area of not losing peoples' orders, returning phone calls, and not going on vacation and leaving employees (buddies' girlfriends that I've given jobs to) behind who don't have any idea how to do anything or find the status of overdue orders.

Mark Sipes
04-21-2013, 2:46 PM
James, we are cut of the same fabric (armor - O-5). Start out by contacting DYA and filling the tikes needs for awards. deliver to quarters. Flyers at DYA. Product can be purchased nation wide. Don't go heavy on inventory when you first start out. I would start with sublimation, most versitite. You can do Unit Crest Personalized Mugs and Plaques in color. If you are at a school facility ... classes rotate through every 2-26 weeks. mugs and plaques. Instructors and students. Initial outlay $2,000-3,000 heat press (flat & mug) printer, inks, supplies.. paper.. tape.. mugs.. metal.. boards T-shirts, computer..software CORELDRAW.. look for deals.. E-bay, forums, local shops going under... PM if you wish.... Best of Luck.

Mike Null
04-21-2013, 2:57 PM
I used to do quite a bit of military business--mostly AF but also Army and Coast Guard. I have been moving away from it as the AF and Army can spend billions on weapons that gather dust but they don't want to pay a fair price for awards. It seems that everything is last minute and there is rarely quality art available. (the AF is an exception to that art comment)

I don't know where the gouging takes place but it sure isn't here.

Like Steve, I started with just a laser and woodworking shop. I now have 4 printers, 3 of which enable me to do various awards, name tags, labels etc. I also have a shear, heat press, about $1000 in various corner rounding, notching and hole making dies. I have another engraving machine to do metal and cylindrical items. All of these things were necessary to support military transactions.

James Kane JR
04-21-2013, 3:22 PM
This is precisely what I'm looking for. I was thinking more along the lines of engraved or carved plaques, but this looks a lot more do-able. A layout for equipment of less than $10k also makes this much more palatable as a 'hobby business'.

I am at Sill (O4 - FA), and have plenty of people in the schoolhouse, would just have to be careful not to cross any lines with undue influence. I'll PM you for more info.

James Kane JR
04-21-2013, 3:25 PM
Sounds like you were able to run the full gamut of awards, gifts, nicknacks, etc. That is (probably) out of my realm of possibility at least pre-retirement. If you had to go with just one product/machine for your military clients what would you go with?

Scott Shepherd
04-21-2013, 5:36 PM
James, I don't do a lot of military items, but I will say this- in my opinion, color laser toner transfers on polished brass look amazing. I spoke to Mike Null earlier in the week and he tells me that black laser sublimation does even better. I can't make anything on the laser that compares to the black I do with color laser on polished brass. It's just beautiful. Take that and think along the lines of being able to put full color military patches, etc, on objects and you'll see a nice direction to go. With the laser, you'll have to go a different direction on those products. You don't want to be engraving and color filling all the time on things like that. Those things take time, time is money. With Color laser, or Dye Sublimation, the average press time in the heat press is 60 seconds or so. So you can put as many pieces as you can fit in the press, and 60 seconds later, you have a number of items, in full color, bringing the time per piece into the few seconds range. You wont' do much of anything on the laser in a few seconds.

My recommendation would be to go to a NBM Show and see the options. I don't know where you're located, but it's one in Charlotte, NC in a couple weeks and after that, it's one in Indy. It would be well worth your time.

Roy Nielsen
04-21-2013, 7:09 PM
New member to the forums here, and really just asking if someone can point me to the right place on the forum.

I'm an Army Officer living in a military town with a couple of overpriced shops that do custom engraving and framing for awards, mementos, etc.
...
Thanks,
Jim

James,

Make sure you talk to your military Legal Office. You may have legal issues while you're still on active duty selling directly to military units, especially if it is paid by DoD money. Not sure if you could accept money from fund raisers.

I also sent a PM to you.

Roy

Mark Sipes
04-21-2013, 7:56 PM
Married ?? I mean do you have a spousal business partner??

Martin Boekers
04-22-2013, 9:43 AM
James, Where are you located? (you may want to add this info to your Sig Block as it helps us help you)

I do mainly Military, you will have to establish a business and get a Tax ID to buy from most suppliers.
If you want to do awards you will have to be able to run credit cards (see Square as this is a reasonable way to go)
Gov Cards aren't taxed so you will have to work out a way to handle that.

Do you PCS much? If so take that into consideration when buying equipment.

There are many perephrials that will be needed, basic office suplies as well as metal shears, printers etc so take that into consideration
when figuring out cost of start up. (They do add up)

Make sure, if you plan on doing mostly Military that you have an understanding of what Sequestration means to available Gov funds.
This market is very fluid right now as no on knows haw the future will pan out. Basic framing you probably can do, but to really compete
you will need a computerized mat cutter such as a Wizard.

Don't forget insurance...... if you damage a piece you want to be covered...


As Dee said the best education you can get is to read every post here, as most everything has been covered from one time or another.



Good luck, keep us posted as you progress..

Bert Kemp
04-22-2013, 10:33 AM
First and foremost Thank you for your service, and welcome to the forum. I also have been a customer in Military towns so I know what you mean. Its like tourist towns were everything you can buy is tourist orientated and priced 5 to 10 times more than what you could buy it for anywhere else. Your on the right track asking and getting help here. Good Luck

James Kane JR
04-22-2013, 2:17 PM
James, I don't do a lot of military items, but I will say this- in my opinion, color laser toner transfers on polished brass look amazing. I spoke to Mike Null earlier in the week and he tells me that black laser sublimation does even better. I can't make anything on the laser that compares to the black I do with color laser on polished brass. It's just beautiful. Take that and think along the lines of being able to put full color military patches, etc, on objects and you'll see a nice direction to go. With the laser, you'll have to go a different direction on those products. You don't want to be engraving and color filling all the time on things like that. Those things take time, time is money. With Color laser, or Dye Sublimation, the average press time in the heat press is 60 seconds or so. So you can put as many pieces as you can fit in the press, and 60 seconds later, you have a number of items, in full color, bringing the time per piece into the few seconds range. You wont' do much of anything on the laser in a few seconds.
My recommendation would be to go to a NBM Show and see the options. I don't know where you're located, but it's one in Charlotte, NC in a couple weeks and after that, it's one in Indy. It would be well worth your time.

Scott, my current location is in the desert outside Kuwait City, so no NBM shows for me at least until I return from deployment :)

You lost me a little going back and forth between "laser printing", "laser engraving", "black laser sublimation", and sublimation. Are you saying that I can do dye sublimation (graphic printed from a laser printer) and sublimate that onto brass? Do you have any pics or examples of this that I could see online?

James Kane JR
04-22-2013, 2:20 PM
James,

Make sure you talk to your military Legal Office. You may have legal issues while you're still on active duty selling directly to military units, especially if it is paid by DoD money. Not sure if you could accept money from fund raisers.

I also sent a PM to you.

Roy

Tracking. Our brigade SJA shares a CHU with me, so I'll make sure I know my limits.

James Kane JR
04-22-2013, 2:23 PM
Married ?? I mean do you have a spousal business partner??

Yes, I'm "shaping the battlefield" currently so she doesn't flip out when I convert one of the stalls of our garage into a small workshop.

James Kane JR
04-22-2013, 2:31 PM
I'm in Lawton, OK (have been a little leery of posting my location on here in case the businesses I'm complaining about hang out on this forum).

I've had an employer Tax ID before, so I know how to apply and get that. The credit card reader is a great point, I think I can probably handle that with an app for one of our iPads.

It looks like everything here is steering me towards starting with dye sublimation, especially given the portability of the equipment and my future PCS moves.

I understand what sequestration means better than most. If units were paying for the kind of things that I'm looking to sell (unit mugs) with appropriated funds, then they deserved a visit from the IG.

I need to give more attention to possibilities for framing & matting equipment. It sounds like a computerized mat cutter might be a better second-step instead of a big laser engraver or something.

Joe Hillmann
04-22-2013, 3:07 PM
New member to the forums here, and really just asking if someone can point me to the right place on the forum.

I'm an Army Officer living in a military town with a couple of overpriced shops that do custom engraving and framing for awards, mementos, etc.

Looking to get either an engraver or a CNC machine to make plaques, signs, awards, unit mementos, etc and possibly run things out of my garage.

As a frequent customer of these places I know that there is a demand for these things that far out-strips the supply. The local shops are poorly run, charge exhorbitant prices, and generally give customers the attitude that they will do work when and how they feel like it. People are looking for other options, but in our town there just aren't any.

Want some perspective on what it would take to start a part-time business like this and what kind of equipment I should be looking at. I'm sure the forums here have already covered topics like this, and I would appreciate if someone who's been on here longer could point me to the right places to look.

Thanks,
Jim

I don't think you should plan on getting customers by under selling the competition. You may find out that they aren't charging "exorbitant" prices at all but just charging what they must. You plan to run your business from home so you may be able to charge less but not that much less.

I would concentrate more on quality service and quick turn around time.

You may also find that people come in asking for you to do something that your machine can do but requires a different set up, you haven't had good luck with it in the past, you don't want to order the material you need for only one job, or any other number of reasons that the customer may feel like "you will do work when and how you feel"



I think you need to have pretty specific idea of what products and services you want to offer before deciding on equipment. I presonally use the laser to do a lot of wood working but that is only because I already own a laser. Using a band saw and router I could do much of the same work but with a much smaller investment.

Martin Boekers
04-22-2013, 3:10 PM
I'm in Lawton, OK (have been a little leery of posting my location on here in case the businesses I'm complaining about hang out on this forum).

I've had an employer Tax ID before, so I know how to apply and get that. The credit card reader is a great point, I think I can probably handle that with an app for one of our iPads.

It looks like everything here is steering me towards starting with dye sublimation, especially given the portability of the equipment and my future PCS moves.

I understand what sequestration means better than most. If units were paying for the kind of things that I'm looking to sell (unit mugs) with appropriated funds, then they deserved a visit from the IG.

I need to give more attention to possibilities for framing & matting equipment. It sounds like a computerized mat cutter might be a better second-step instead of a big laser engraver or something.

James, I am at Scott AFB so if you ever are in that neck of the woods stop on in. Scott is a decent size base so I do quite a bit of awards , signage and special projects. These (at leastright now) fit under AP $$ for Moral & Welfare. Many items can not use AP funds, personal, going aways, retirement etc.

Laser Printing is like using a copier with out the scanner. See Magic Touch USA for transfer sheets and more info on this process

Laser engraving requires a laser.

Dye sublimation is a bit more expensive and requires a dedicated printer and a specialized ink set (Inks are expensive,) but you can do quite a bit
with it. This process also needs coated products or things that have a very high 90-100% polyester base for nice transfers.

The Square was invented by Jack Dorsey (Invented Twitter) many use this as it is relatively cheap as far accepting charges go. It links up to an Ipad or Iphone
so you can use it most anywher there is an internet signal.

If you are really considering mugs I would skip a mug press and get the wraps and a toaster oven set up as you can do many more at one time. My mug press takes about 4min
to press each.

There are many good people on this forum and I'm sure will benifit greatly from participation here.

Good luck and stay safe! :)

James Kane JR
04-22-2013, 3:22 PM
Okay, so 'Laser Printing' looks just like printing from a normal laser printer onto transfer paper and then heat-pressing it onto an item. Is that correct?

I had read somewhere that using the wraps and toaster oven setup doesn't always give a consistent result. What is the benefit of the press otherwise?

Scott Shepherd
04-22-2013, 3:38 PM
Okay, so 'Laser Printing' looks just like printing from a normal laser printer onto transfer paper and then heat-pressing it onto an item. Is that correct?

I had read somewhere that using the wraps and toaster oven setup doesn't always give a consistent result. What is the benefit of the press otherwise?

Yes, that's correct. With dye sublimation, you have to have a special coating on products to receive the image (or it needs to be polyester). The secret is in the ink and in the coating on the products. With Color Laser Toner Transfers (CLTT), the secret is in the paper. So you can apply it to a lot more products. However, it basically sits "on" the surface, where as dye sublimation is "in" the surface. You cannot scrape off dye sub, it's in the material. If I were making mugs that would be washed, I'd personally make them with dye sub. If I were making color awards, I'd use CLTT.

The mug wraps do a decent job. They are just a pain to work with. The benefits are that a mug press can take 3-6 minutes per mug, depending on the mugs you get (some sublimate faster than others), so you can end up with 1 mug every 5 minutes. If you use wraps, you can wrap 5 mugs, pop them in the oven and in 5 minutes, you get 5 mugs, so it's "quicker" when doing multiples.

James Kane JR
04-22-2013, 4:02 PM
The mug wraps do a decent job. They are just a pain to work with. The benefits are that a mug press can take 3-6 minutes per mug, depending on the mugs you get (some sublimate faster than others), so you can end up with 1 mug every 5 minutes. If you use wraps, you can wrap 5 mugs, pop them in the oven and in 5 minutes, you get 5 mugs, so it's "quicker" when doing multiples.

Okay, so no special ink with laser printing? I can just use my regular old printer that I already have?

Is there a time saving with the mug press in that you don't fiddle with the wrap? I understand that the actual heating process is faster in an oven, but do you lose all that time getting the wraps on?

Ross Moshinsky
04-22-2013, 4:13 PM
If you want to do awards you need four main tools.

1. A high quality shear.
2. A sublimation printer of some sort: Magic Touch, laser sub, or dye sub. I don't have experience with Magic Touch but I'd pick dye sub over laser sub.
3. Heat press.
4. A laser engraver/cutter.

After that, it's mostly about hand tools and normal wood working tools.

Also there are benefits of both engraving and sublimation. I prefer to laser more than sublimate. Although the laser is more expensive machine and takes more time, I prefer to load it and let it run while I do something else in the same area. Sublimation production only occurs while you're actively involved. I wouldn't call either labor intensive but a laser is about a 1 on the labor intensive scale while sublimation is probably a 5. If you're a one man shop, a laser will be much more efficient at times even though you may find run times being significantly longer.

Martin Boekers
04-22-2013, 4:28 PM
Okay, so no special ink with laser printing? I can just use my regular old printer that I already have?

Is there a time saving with the mug press in that you don't fiddle with the wrap? I understand that the actual heating process is faster in an oven, but do you lose all that time getting the wraps on?

I takes me 4 minutes, one issue with my mug press (Geo Knight) is that when you clamp in position it sometimes pull the transfer and double images so you have to be careful.

I am considering getting an oven with 2 full sets of wraps, that way will one set is "cooking" I'll be wrapping the second set. I am going to try promoting fundraising products on base this summer
with 25 minimuns, I can only do this for mugs if I cut down press time. So I plan to start doing quantities, which we don't do too much of now.

So in effect, If I can do 5 every 10 minutes that's 30 and hour, if I make $3 per mug profit that's $90 an hour.
If I do one every 5 minutes thats 12 an hour, thats $36 an hour profit.

To make some of these products work you got to be effiecient as you can.


Check with the companies that make the transfer paper as some older printers or oil fusers may require a different paper.
The toner is plastic so it will melt to the substrate and releases from the transfer paper. Make sure you use the right settings
and recommended paper or you may damage your printer.