Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

[[quick break before back to packing up]]

You would think, in this day and age, that making a flat panel, painting it black and applying
white lettering is a trivial, not-so-expensive deal.

The trouble is that....errrrr....(trying to be nice)....errrr....the majority of people in this
"business" are, shall we say, not in the top 5% of the high school graduating class.

They make their living one of 2 ways:

a) making a zillion tee shirts for sports teams
b) large volume/large $$$ metalwork

I am on my FOURTH panel supplier. It is easily the most frustration part of the MOTM "business".
You will discover that most metal shops DO NOT paint, because of the OSHA requirements (fume
hoods, etc). 99% of paint shops want to use "power coat" paint, which is arguably not really
paint at all. It is "blown on" using charged electrostatic fields.

I like the Polane polyurethane paint. Smooth, durable, and 'sexy'. Paint shops ∗detest∗ it
because it's a 2-part mixture (paint plus a hardner, like epoxy) and it's "wet" (shudder). Gee,
like PAINT, maybe??!? :)

The MOTM panels are drawn in AutoCAD (industry-default CAD program) because 'real' machine shops
can "punch a tape" for the CNC equipment to automatically mill/stamp/punch the panels.

As Larry will attest, the "ISSUE" is we are considered SMALL POTATOES. The shop I use does ALL
the cases for Dell and Cisco. Gee, compared to that I AM small potatoes. But it's MY POTATOES,
see? They do my panels, as you see they do a great job, but it takes 5-6 weeks. And they charge
me out the nose. Every time I go to pick up an order, I get the sense they are smirking and
laughing their asses off :(

Paul S.