Brand New Family Member

[joewino]

Yesterday I put a check in the mail for a new ShopBot- PRTalpha 96 and can hardly wait to start playing the my new "tool/toy".

I am a signman in Temple, Texas and have been in the business for over 40 years. My son, Mike, and I do a wide range of signwork, but concentrate on dimensional stuff. As our business has grown it became evident that we would not be able to keep up our present pace of doing everything by hand. After reviewing the market we chose ShopBot.

It will take us awhile to get the ShopBot in, setup and becoming familiar with it, but we look forward to "showing off" what we can do before very long.

Certainly, I will be appearing here often with questions about how to do something. In time I hope to be able to return the favor and offer assistance to others.

For the past few months I have been lurking around this forum and have been impressed with the family attitude that exists here. You all seem to be a very sharing group. I look forward to being a part of the "family".

[gerald_d]

I suppose if this is a family, then I am one of the godfathers


Welcome Raymond and Mike!

Tell us a little of your, and Mike's, computer skills - and if you are planning to learn anything new for the ShopBot. It will help us to try and answer questions at the right level.

[mikejohn]

I told you he was the RSA branch of the Soprano family!!

[gerald_d]

Mike is a Bohemian Brit - he is going to wait to be introduced before he actually welcomes some new blood. Comeon Mike, consider them introduced, now pass them a drink!

(RSA = Republic of South Africa)

[joe]

Congratulations, Congratulations & Congratulations

I confident you'll be very happy with the Alpha. It makes me feel good knowing how much easier, and more effecient it will make your fine work.

As I have mentioned earlier, this will open creative doors you didn't know existed.

Let us know when it gets in, and your steps in getting it going. That would be of interest to most botters. Did you notice how I just jumped right in and gave you an assignment. Sure glad we're friends.

You've joined a great community and we are all better off for it.

J

I bet Dan S. has a knitted brow at this news.

[tuck]

Good luck with it Raymond. The learning curve can be challengeing but fun. Save scrap materials for practice cuts.

[joewino]

Gerald - thank you for the nice welcome.

Computer skills? Well, I'm an old guy trying to learn new tricks. Back in the mid 80's automation was changing the sign industry and I jumped on board with a Gerber IVB Signmaker, which was as automated as you could get back then. It was a basic plotter to cut vinyl lettering but had no monitor or PC.

In 1991 I moved up to a PC, running Graphic Advantage design software (still Gerber equipment) and a few years later added Corel Draw.

Since that time I have upgraded a few times and now have a Dell Dimension 8300 with Windows XP on which I operate Adobe Creative Suite 2 (Illustrator and Photoshop) and CorelDraw Graphics Suite X3.

A Dell Dimension 4100 with Windows 98SE operates Gerber Omega 2.1 - a sign design software.

Also, I have a Dell Laptop which is used for Power Point presentations in the workshops that I do for National Business Media and Letterhead gatherings.

Our designs are sent out to a Graphtec plotter (24") for cutting vinyl and doing shop paper patterns. A HP Deskjet 1220C handles our printing of design sketches.

This is my first flat bed router, so I hope to learn a ton of new things. My son, Mike, is the production end of the duo and has been doing all the routing, sandblasting and construction work. He will now be operating the ShopBot, along with me.

Our main focus is dimensional signs, and hope to take our work to a new level with more design details and easier (and faster) production. Many of the things we would like to do now are just impractical to be done by hand. Although we do a fair amount of hand carving, the ShopBot will allow us to do much more 3D work.

Since our main strength has always been design, it is not our intention to mass produce signs but rather add more detail and special effects to our designs. To imagine all that we can produce with a ShopBot is very exciting. Mike and I can hardly wait to get it up and running. Especially Mike, since he will not have to do so much of the hand work any more.

[tuck]

Raymond, I use to run one of those old Gerber Signmakers. It was so slow, it couldn't get out of it's own way. As I recall, fonts were about $250.00 ea.! Wow, how times have changed!

Curious,...why did you order a PRT and not an Alpha?

[supertigre]

Ray;

Are you planning on joining the "Router Wars" in Letterville?

Guy

[joewino]

Guy - check in on Letterville and follow the action...the first shot was fired last night.

Mark - check the first post...it is a PRTalpha - 4' x 8'. Has a 3HP Colombo spindle and ArtCam Pro software.

Even though those old Gerbers were slow they were bullet proof. Mine is still running and has had no repairs in twenty years. Yep...those fonts were expensive.

[tuck]

"Mark - check the first post...it is a PRTalpha - 4' x 8'."

Ooops! My bad! Congrats!

What thread (title) in Letterville is about "Router Wars"? I can't seem to find it...

Edit: Nevermind,..I found it.

[bob_lofthouse]

Can't wait!!! my second alpha is shipped next week...

Welcome to the forum mike

[bob_lofthouse]

Or should I say Raymond and Son...

[joe]

Please allow me to do a belated follow-up, introduction of my good friend.

Ray's a contirubting editor to SignCraft Magazine, and Sign Business Magazine, who flies him around the country each month to do design seminars. Ray also owns and operates Cahapman Sign in Temple TX. Can't figure how he get it all done. More important than all of this, he's a dedicated family man and Christian.

Way back in the 80's I watched Ray do layouts and lettering techniques at Letterhead events. We'd watch, mesmurized, and slack jawed at his skills. Those were the days when each of us was growing, learning every design and lay skill we could. That's my first impression of Ray. He's still very active in Letterhead events, so you may catch up with him there.

Ray is a Heavy Hitter and can take a design out of the ball park at any time. He's wone more design and sign awards than there's closet space.

Welcome Ray,

[tuck]

Joe, that was a great post, but it left me wonedering one little thing..."Is it possible to be a good sign man and yet not a "family man" and a "Christian"? I'm just curious about that. Because if that's the case, I'm dooomed. :-(

[bob_lofthouse]

Catholic or Church of England?...... :-(

[tuck]

Agmostic?

[mikejohn]

Dangerous ground?

[donchapman]

I know you were considering other CNC routers, Ray, and no one could possibly be happier than I am that you have chosen ShopBot. I've been learning from you since the 1980's through Sign Craft magazine and it was good to finally meet you in person at Wayne Locke's Austin Camp ShopBot in February. My vote is for you to replace me as the speaker about signmaking at any future ShopBot camps in Austin. I and everyone else will learn a lot more from you, expecially since you will have a new Alpha with a spindle instead of my 6 year old PR96. You'll be flying! Besides that, you are a true sign artist with much to teach me and every other sign maker. Welcome aboard!

[joewino]

Thanks very much for the extra nice words. No, I didn't pay those guys, but I really appreciate what they had to say. Now, I have to go to work to try to live up to all that hype.

It's going to be fun learning some new processes and what can be done with my ShopBot.

Now, if I could just find a way to put some hours in the day...too much to do in so little time.