Signfarm decorates a political candidate’s RV.
More customers now seem to ask for American-flag designs for their vehicles. Maybe it’s because people are becoming more patriotic due to concerns about the government. Or, maybe it’s simply because my shop is located approximately 30 minutes from Washington, DC.
Red, white and blue always provide an easy color scheme. White and blue never pose a problem, but red sometimes provides an issue during the digital-printing process.
To print a vivid, bright red requires 100% magenta and 100% yellow inks – however, this combination produces a tomatoish orange-red. Print out a color chart, and use this as a color-matching guide; don’t just rely on your monitor’s color palette.
I use aftermarket Lyson 1300 Series ink with my Mimaki JV3-160SP printers. I’ve tried many ink vendors; I’ve even ordered ink directly form China and Hong Kong. I’ve learned cutting corners on ink quality is a bad idea. Meeting customer demand requires quality inks.
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Riding out the storm
My latest patriotically themed project arrived two days after the largest snowstorm in 100 years hit northern Virginia. It dropped 30 in. of snow on my shop and left us without power for five days. This was a major problem. Living conditions resembled camping. We used flashlights for light, cooked on a wood stove and melted snow for water. It got old very fast!
Because my printers had no power, I was concerned about the heads drying and clogging. I put cleaning solution in the printhead caps to make sure they didn’t dry up. I also flipped our electric breaker box to “off” so, when the power returned, a surge didn’t burn up the printers’ circuitboards. For two days, I removed snow using my shop’s Skid-Steer, multi-purpose, lifting and moving vehicle. It also proves handy when taking large objects, such as digital printers, off trucks. I mainly use it for moving large trailers in and out of my shop to wrap.
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