Jeff Rodier
SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Just a reminder to take the time to do it regularly. I had planned for maintenance on all equipment in February but got slammed with work and it has just gotten busier as time passed.
My v-nailer had a slight leak in the regulator and I planned to install a new one. I was too busy so I let it go until it went completely. New regulator was $42 but I had to have it shipped over night to the tune of $40 shipping. I saved the box to show customers why rush orders have rush charges. This is a 4"x4"x4" box and it was an extra $35 to get it just one day early.
My Wizard was having some issues but I was cutting thousands of mats for a local business and 2 colleges so I did not take the time for tech support. It was getting worse but I couldn't stop so I was wasting quite a bit of mat board. Finally got time to make the call and it takes a good bit of time to make the adjustments. It went back to having issues so more mat board was wasted until I had time to make the tech support call again (actually Wizard read on the G I had a problems and Ken called me). It drifted back to the same issue and more mat board was wasted but I couldn't stop since I was cutting 1,200 11x14 mat board blanks for the college students. More mat board was wasted until I had time to call and Bryan sent out a new head. Problem solved but a few hundred dollars of waste occurred during this time.
My Epson 9800 needed a nozzle check and ultimately a power cleaning. I was printing over 100 large posters for the college students graphics and photography courses and ended up scrapping several 5 foot long graphics posters. Not a big deal to toss a few small prints but these were huge.
My Fletcher FSC needed some adjustments and maintenance but too busy to deal with it. As soon as the Wizard was repaired the FSC cutting head got stuck to where I could not cut anything with it. Of course it was first thing Saturday so it was down until I could contact Fletcher on Monday. Got it fixed and back up in a couple of hours but lost the weekend for working with it.
Today I went in a couple of hours early to get caught up on some more work and went to fire up the Pistorius and only one motor came on. Hit the reset button and tried again but no go. Hit the reset button again and tried to fire it up once more and still no power on one motor. Fortunately I have a Frame Square saw so the few frames that were must have were able to get done but lost the chance to cut and join another dozen or so frames. I have a customer/friend who is an electrician 3 blocks away and gave him a call but he was out on a job.
Half a day later he was able to get over to fix the saw which was only a build up of saw dust in the reset button so no big deal. While the electrician was there I told him to check out everything with power to it and he could fix anything that needed repairs. He will be back tomorrow to change 6 ballasts in the light fixtures and change out 10 bulbs.
Another local framer is coming by tomorrow to have some metallic photo paper prints mounted and I have him bringing the grease gun. He will lube my saw bearings while I am mounting his photos for him. I don't need any bearings going out on me next.
I even contacted the Epson dealer and got contact info for service providers so I can get my 4800 running again. I need to get it running again so I can bring it home to print in the evenings since there are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done.
So the moral of the story is don't put off maintenance and end up like me. I've wasted between $500-$1,000 in materials and lost many dozens of hours of productivity in the last 3 months.
My v-nailer had a slight leak in the regulator and I planned to install a new one. I was too busy so I let it go until it went completely. New regulator was $42 but I had to have it shipped over night to the tune of $40 shipping. I saved the box to show customers why rush orders have rush charges. This is a 4"x4"x4" box and it was an extra $35 to get it just one day early.
My Wizard was having some issues but I was cutting thousands of mats for a local business and 2 colleges so I did not take the time for tech support. It was getting worse but I couldn't stop so I was wasting quite a bit of mat board. Finally got time to make the call and it takes a good bit of time to make the adjustments. It went back to having issues so more mat board was wasted until I had time to make the tech support call again (actually Wizard read on the G I had a problems and Ken called me). It drifted back to the same issue and more mat board was wasted but I couldn't stop since I was cutting 1,200 11x14 mat board blanks for the college students. More mat board was wasted until I had time to call and Bryan sent out a new head. Problem solved but a few hundred dollars of waste occurred during this time.
My Epson 9800 needed a nozzle check and ultimately a power cleaning. I was printing over 100 large posters for the college students graphics and photography courses and ended up scrapping several 5 foot long graphics posters. Not a big deal to toss a few small prints but these were huge.
My Fletcher FSC needed some adjustments and maintenance but too busy to deal with it. As soon as the Wizard was repaired the FSC cutting head got stuck to where I could not cut anything with it. Of course it was first thing Saturday so it was down until I could contact Fletcher on Monday. Got it fixed and back up in a couple of hours but lost the weekend for working with it.
Today I went in a couple of hours early to get caught up on some more work and went to fire up the Pistorius and only one motor came on. Hit the reset button and tried again but no go. Hit the reset button again and tried to fire it up once more and still no power on one motor. Fortunately I have a Frame Square saw so the few frames that were must have were able to get done but lost the chance to cut and join another dozen or so frames. I have a customer/friend who is an electrician 3 blocks away and gave him a call but he was out on a job.
Half a day later he was able to get over to fix the saw which was only a build up of saw dust in the reset button so no big deal. While the electrician was there I told him to check out everything with power to it and he could fix anything that needed repairs. He will be back tomorrow to change 6 ballasts in the light fixtures and change out 10 bulbs.
Another local framer is coming by tomorrow to have some metallic photo paper prints mounted and I have him bringing the grease gun. He will lube my saw bearings while I am mounting his photos for him. I don't need any bearings going out on me next.
I even contacted the Epson dealer and got contact info for service providers so I can get my 4800 running again. I need to get it running again so I can bring it home to print in the evenings since there are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done.
So the moral of the story is don't put off maintenance and end up like me. I've wasted between $500-$1,000 in materials and lost many dozens of hours of productivity in the last 3 months.
