cutting unisome hardboard

[rseeley13]

Has anyone out there cut a product called "Unisome Hardboard Sheet Stock (masonite)"? If so what feeds and speeds were you running with what cutter? Might have a job to cut 1500 pcs out of the stuff.

Thanks

[Kyle Stapleton]

Cuts nice 4 ips 12000 rpm with a .25 down cut.
could cut a lot faster but cut a lot of small parts so it would have never got up to speed.

[rseeley13]

Cuts nice 4 ips 12000 rpm with a .25 down cut.
could cut a lot faster but cut a lot of small parts so it would have never got up to speed.

Nice cutout Kyle. The stuff that I'm cutting has a very thin plastic coating on one side. The company uses them for sublinating graphics on them. I'm curious what someone would charge to cut out a shape that is 9"x6", we need to cut about 1500 of them. I don't sublimate at all so don't know where to be price range.

[Brady Watson]

You need to come up with a shop rate. Calculate cutting time & the time it takes to swap out materials. Then charge your hourly rate. Rates vary by locale. You'd be OK in your neck of the woods @ $85-100/hr. With more experience, maybe more. Find out what other shops in the area charge.

Before you cut out 1500 pieces, request material for testing & a sample. You make sure both of you are happy with the quality/work involved and go from there. Only after you have the material in hand can you determine feed rates and things like this. Run several parts at different settings and even with different tools. Dial it in & then commit to a price - not before.

-B

[rseeley13]

You need to come up with a shop rate. Calculate cutting time & the time it takes to swap out materials. Then charge your hourly rate. Rates vary by locale. You'd be OK in your neck of the woods @ $85-100/hr. With more experience, maybe more. Find out what other shops in the area charge.

Before you cut out 1500 pieces, request material for testing & a sample. You make sure both of you are happy with the quality/work involved and go from there. Only after you have the material in hand can you determine feed rates and things like this. Run several parts at different settings and even with different tools. Dial it in & then commit to a price - not before.

-B

Thanks Brady, we have a shop rate and currently calculate our pricing like you stated. What I was worried about is that I heard that sublimating is a cheap process and I just didn't want to be way out of place. I could be wrong also about sublimating things but I just didn't want to charge more than what the final cost would be.

As always Brady thanks for your advice.

[srwtlc]

I cut some of it from time to time. My customer supplies the material and I just cut it out into 9x11 and 11x17 rounded rectangles, so my feed rate stays pretty consistent. I'll run 13000-14000 at 4-6 ips (slower on the smaller ones) with a 0.25" downcut. That might be a little high on the RPM, but it gives me a good edge at those feedrates. It's a bit over 0.125" thick and cuts easily with a downcut bit (plunge point, not an FEM) with the sub side up. The back side edge can get fuzzy and you may have to clean it up with a quick pass of a sanding block, sponge or something. Hold down is key, as it can be a bit slippery. A good vac table or specialized vac jig is a must and possibly some tabs to gang parts together. The sheets of material I get are approximately 24x48 and all that's left is the part and dust, so I put just enough tabs to keep the parts from sliding and grouped (strength in numbers), then the parts are easily separated with a quick bend/pull and what's left of the tab is quickly edge sanded.

As Brady stated, get some material for testing on and work it out from there. It's not the worst stuff to work with, just the smelly brown dust to clean off the spoilboard and make sure it doesn't slip.;)

[genek]

Thanks Brady, we have a shop rate and currently calculate our pricing like you stated. What I was worried about is that I heard that sublimating is a cheap process and I just didn't want to be way out of place. I could be wrong also about sublimating things but I just didn't want to charge more than what the final cost would be.

As always Brady thanks for your advice.
You need to charge what you should be charging. Dropping your price so that your customer can make money hurts you and others with a cnc. If their price is too low they need to bring their price up not you bring your price down.. short cutting prices hurts you now and in the long run as well as other botters . Being too cheap will eventually take you under.

[myxpykalix]

I have cut a fair amount and one issue i had (maybe because of my cutter or feeds and speeds) is that i had shards of the paper face that got left behind on the cut. It wasn't a big deal because i just took a piece of sandpaper and and with one swipe it took it off, however you may want to get feeds/speeds down pat if you are going to do 1500 pieces:eek: