JigSaw puzzle pricing help

[Abdul Baseer Hai]

Hi All

I need to quote a price for cutting a jigsaw puzzle with the following specs. Help in the pricing will be greatly appreciated.

1/8 painted acrylic,14" x 40", 500 pieces (each piece will be 1")

1/8 painted acrylic, 14 x 40", 250 pieces (each piece will be 2")

I will be cutting this on my GCC explorer 50 watt. Suggestions on cutting will also be appreciated.
customer will supply the printed acrylic, I will only do the cutting.
the quote is due tomorrow and there are a total of 10 puzzles to be cut

Thanks

[Shaddy Dedmore]

You're going to have to do some sort of test run to see how long it takes... figure out your bottom line.

I haven't done painted acrylic before, is there a danger of discoloring the paint near the edge, or bubbling it a little so it makes a ridge? Sounds like it might be too late, but maybe you could ask for a scrap sample to perfect your settings.


Do you have to keep the pieces together? or do you have to separate them and put them in a box, might take a lot of time to separate them yourself, just a thought.

That's all I offered was more questions, sorry, I know you were looking for answers.

Shaddy

[Lee DeRaud]

Originally Posted by Shaddy Dedmore

I haven't done painted acrylic before, is there a danger of discoloring the paint near the edge, or bubbling it a little so it makes a ridge? Sounds like it might be too late, but maybe you could ask for a scrap sample to perfect your settings.

Probably going to depend on how well sealed the paint is. I normally use transfer tape during vector cutting (I don't have air assist), but that might be a problem with the paint, not to mention having to peel hundreds of pieces afterwards. (Those snowflakes last Christmas were not fun.)

Also, acrylic cuts sloooooow: the normal settings to leave a nice edge call for very low power at a much-slower-than-expected speed. Example: the 0.2" acrylic shelves for that display unit I built took nearly an hour to cut, for roughly 500 linear inches. My back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that each 500-piece puzzle has at least 2000 linear inches of cutting in it...figure a couple of hours, even allowing for the thinner material.

[Joe Pelonio]

I have a regular customer that I do puzzles for. They are inkjet prints on vinyl (polyester) that I apply to the acrylic. I don't know about paint either but I apply transfer tape before cutting and have no problems with damaging the images. I have cut acrylic painted with Krylon "plastics" paint and no problems or discoloration, but if they are using acrylics artist paint without priming first I'd agree that you should do a test first, because the paint might not still well and the heat could lift it.

Mine are 12"x18" 1/8" 11 pieces and I charge them $60 each, but that includes materials and the prints. What I did for pricing was to run the job at the correct settings with the door open so the laser didn't fire and get the time to cut from the laser's timer. I charge $1/minute. Then you will have to add transfer tape, taping and peeling time. If the paint doesn't stick too well you can make the removal of the transfer tape easier by misting it with water and letting it sit 2-3 minutes. If you have to "draw" the puzzle shapes then you'll have to add that time too, as I did.

[Abdul Baseer Hai]

A professional printer is going to screen print the picture. They want the pieces in a bag and not in a rectangular template.I was planning to cut the acrylic from the back so as not to damage the paint. I have been engraving and cutting black painted acrylic and have not had any problems.
The acrylic idea was mine as the printer is reluctant to screen print on card stock. Any idea on any other medium i should suggest??
abdul

[Joe Pelonio]

Cut the face. You are focused to the top of the acrylic, so that's the a cleaner cut and the bottom is more likely to flash/char/discolor. As for other materials I'd use acrylic if card stock is not an option. Something like posterboard (matte board) would work but won't hold up under a lot of use. Acrylic cuts cleaner and easier than most other rigid materials, unless you want to go to basswood. Light and cuts like butter.

[Frank Corker]

You can always cut the acrylic puzzle pieces first and then paint the picture on afterwards, although the last one I did took me nearly two years!

[Joe Pelonio]

Originally Posted by Frank Corker

You can always cut the acrylic puzzle pieces first and then paint the picture on afterwards, although the last one I did took me nearly two years!

Frank has a good point. If we think it through there are often ways to make our job easier, with just a little more of a burden on the customer. In this case if you apply transfer tape to the back before cutting out all of the pieces, the artist could use spray adhesive to stick them onto cardboard or something so they don't move while he paints them. Unfortunately though, these were screenprinted and so it won't work,
the ink will run into the cracks between the pieces and make a mess.