Should I . . . .

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ERIC

ERIC

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Dec 31, 2001
Posts
1,851
Loc
New York's Hudson River Valley
Business
Newburgh Mercantile
. . . . send 15 posters out for plaque mounting with the painted sides? (if so, where?)

Or, should I drymount/laminate them on masonite myself and then add a cheap frame? (if so, what should I watch out for?)

This is new territory for me, but I do have a VacuSeal 4468H press waiting to learn something new!

Which would you do?
 
Plak-it!

Do you have a local distributor?? Our supply distributor "Quadrant" picks up our plak-it orders and a company from Cananda picks up/drops off 2-3 times a week. Our plak-it orders are picked up on Wednesdays and delivered back to us the following Wednesday. Its that easy. We just fill out a form, put everything in a tube or plastic flat sleeve and off it goes. It works out great for our customers and it looks good. There are several options of plak-it to choose from also.

my 2 cents

plak-it saves quite a few orders where they don't want and probably shouldn't be spending on custom
 
I don’t think anyone here can answer whether you should frame or have them laminated.

But, if you wish to have some things mounted onto laminated plaques with a painted 1-1/2” border, you might try http://www.plastiplak.com/. I have been a dealer for nearly 15 years and they do a very good job and are fairly inexpensive.
 
Eric

In almost all cases you earn more bucks the more you do 'in house'.

You need to first experiment on an item for yourself.

Use Fusion 4000 to mount to MDF and Beinfang Finish Guard on the front. Route the edges and paint with acrylic paint.

Once you get the hang of it there is nothing to it. You can crank these out in less than 5 min each.

The profit you will make off of 15 would pay for a router and bench top router table.
 
This may be a dumb question... BUT, how do you make more bucks expending all of that labor when all you do with plak-it is fill out a piece of paper put it in tube and it goes out and comes back AND it has a typical retail markup? No inventory, no work and only 1 minute to fill out the form.
shrug.gif
 
Not a dumb question at all Elaine.

Can I answer your question with a question?

Why not just order all your frames cut and joined? Why should we spend the time joining chops are even further, cutting moulding and then joining?

I think the answer is because we make more money.

If you are operating at capacity, send it out. If you not operating at capacity you have time to put the extra money in your pocket.
 
It is really a matter of pereference. Personally I am with Elaine, my time is worth too much. When I do have the extra time there are so many other aspects of the business I can be concentrating on. I find it to be a rather profitable way to go, and as Elaine mentioned its the perfect place to go when the customer wants a reasonable, simple job.

You do have some good points Jerry, again I think it is just personal preference.
 
I don't think it is just a matter of personal "preference." It should be a matter of business analysis.

Jerry says, "profit you will make off of 15 would pay for a router and bench top router."

Let's assume his numbers are correct ...

In four years I have sold a little more than a dozen plaks. To acquire the equipment, and skill (practice) relative to my potential return is cost prohibitive.

If on the other hand, I was doing say 10 a month, then it would be silly not to infest in an in-house solution of some kind. (There are many, Jerry's suggestion being one.)

The real answer to Elaine's question has to do with volume and ROI calculations which each operator must do on their own.
 
It might also depend upon one's facilities. We don't have a dedicated "dirty room" space, so I would never think of routing MDF in our shop. The microfine dust would be infesting fitups for months.
:eek: Rick
 
All good points. But, from an efficiency standpoint, even if you are not at capacity, it seems as though it would be more cost effective to outsource that type of work and dedicate your time and space to taking in more of what you are really good at - Custom Framing. The tools we use make us more efficient so that we can make more money. Without increasing efficiencies, there's money left on the table every day.

I view the plak-it process as a sales tool and an efficiency tool that gives me revenues when a customer is determined NOT to spend a lot of money in placing the item in a form to hang on the wall. They normally would have walked away and gone to their local crap (craft) store and found something to plunk it into.

my 2 cents :D
 
I guess you folks don't do your own canvas transfers either?

What about canvas wrapped liners?

This could really go on and on about what we as framers should do in house and what to out source.

If you take in one a month, why bother learning how to do something. If they are coming in the door 15 at a time...
 
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