Thanksgiving, Black Friday, NEED ADVICE!
Nov. 25th, 2012 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabbiewolfThanksgiving was a success! We brined the turkey this year, using a brine mix I got free from work last year, and it definitely improved the taste of the meat. Thanks to those who gave a thumbs up to the brining method -- even with the free mix, I don't think we would have tried it otherwise! Making a gravy base the night before also vastly improved the gravy, so that's something I highly recommend doing if you're crazy like us and like doing everything from scratch.
Also, as much as I love my family (not being sarcastic there), I do highly appreciate and probably prefer the "Thanksgiving with Friends" thing we've been running for the past two years and it's something I'd like to keep up.
As mentioned, the microwave started sparking on Tuesday. On Black Friday, with help from Frosty and Riismo and Lobst, Spot pulled the microwave down. It was put in…uh…very creatively:
Yes, that's a two-by-four. And yes, it has notches taken out of it so the screws that held up the microwave would fit. And yes, ONE OF THOSE SCREWS WAS MISSING.
The shelving above and next to the microwave appears to have been held on by load-bearing caulk and/or paint. The amount of effort that was put into doing it wrong was probably more than if they'd gotten someone to do it correctly. It was a spectacular failure! Well, not an altogether failure, because I mean the microwave didn't fall down…but dang. It could've.
So currently what's there is this:
Though we took out the vent, because it just lead up into the attic and was clogged with insulation…because it just lead up into the attic. Most microwaves don't really need an exterior vent anyway, and in fact we have acquired a new(er) microwave thanks to Riismo's folks remodeling their kitchen. It's the same model, only newer, so it even fits in the same mounting bracket. So we've got our winter project: rebuilding the shelves around the microwave and putting the new one in.
Speaking of winter projects, the possibility of a much more longterm one has come up.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fenris_lorsrai knows someone who is getting rid of a ginormous printer, and I am seriously pondering the idea of starting my own printing service. More info about the printer can be found here (if you are interested personally, feel free to speak up about it; I can't afford the thing outright). The thing is, I have NO idea how the heck to run a printing service -- generally my idea of running a business is what I do already (please folks by drawing for them in exchange for money; not being a douchebag). Likewise, I have NO idea if it would ever be profitable: the printer would be a major investment, something I'd have to consider getting a small business loan for, and that's a BIG step for someone who has almost no idea what they're doing.
Anyone have any advice on this?tugrik, I'm looking in your direction, since you do printing professionally :) Likewise, anyone else with small business experience! Printing is something I am passionate about (I blame working at a newspaper), and it's definitely something I could see myself doing for awhile…but money is an issue, and I don't really want to be throwing it away if the odds are slim that I will ever make it back.
Also, as much as I love my family (not being sarcastic there), I do highly appreciate and probably prefer the "Thanksgiving with Friends" thing we've been running for the past two years and it's something I'd like to keep up.
As mentioned, the microwave started sparking on Tuesday. On Black Friday, with help from Frosty and Riismo and Lobst, Spot pulled the microwave down. It was put in…uh…very creatively:
Yes, that's a two-by-four. And yes, it has notches taken out of it so the screws that held up the microwave would fit. And yes, ONE OF THOSE SCREWS WAS MISSING.
The shelving above and next to the microwave appears to have been held on by load-bearing caulk and/or paint. The amount of effort that was put into doing it wrong was probably more than if they'd gotten someone to do it correctly. It was a spectacular failure! Well, not an altogether failure, because I mean the microwave didn't fall down…but dang. It could've.
So currently what's there is this:
Though we took out the vent, because it just lead up into the attic and was clogged with insulation…because it just lead up into the attic. Most microwaves don't really need an exterior vent anyway, and in fact we have acquired a new(er) microwave thanks to Riismo's folks remodeling their kitchen. It's the same model, only newer, so it even fits in the same mounting bracket. So we've got our winter project: rebuilding the shelves around the microwave and putting the new one in.
Speaking of winter projects, the possibility of a much more longterm one has come up.
fenris_lorsrai knows someone who is getting rid of a ginormous printer, and I am seriously pondering the idea of starting my own printing service. More info about the printer can be found here (if you are interested personally, feel free to speak up about it; I can't afford the thing outright). The thing is, I have NO idea how the heck to run a printing service -- generally my idea of running a business is what I do already (please folks by drawing for them in exchange for money; not being a douchebag). Likewise, I have NO idea if it would ever be profitable: the printer would be a major investment, something I'd have to consider getting a small business loan for, and that's a BIG step for someone who has almost no idea what they're doing.Anyone have any advice on this?
tugrik, I'm looking in your direction, since you do printing professionally :) Likewise, anyone else with small business experience! Printing is something I am passionate about (I blame working at a newspaper), and it's definitely something I could see myself doing for awhile…but money is an issue, and I don't really want to be throwing it away if the odds are slim that I will ever make it back.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-26 01:50 am (UTC)I shot the person a question about its usage and options to see if they'll respond; that'll help me figure out if it's a good bid.
If you get one: replacement heads are $50. There are six of them. Expect to replace them once a year with multi-fandom-level use. More with pro use. Much, much less with just furry use.
Inks are both amazing and annoying. Amazing: the per-mL price is so much lower than any consumer printer could hope to be; nearly a 5x improvement, sometimes more. But the quantities you buy them in make them spendy. Best price is to get the double-packs on Amazon.com. There are *12* carts. Each double-pack costs $90-120. So that's between $1080-1440 of ink for a 'full reload'. The nice part is that it's very good at sipping ink and only using just what it needs, so you only end up replacing a cart at a time, spaced out over the lifespan of the printer, instead of a huge batch of inks all at once.
Knowing how much ink is left in it and how old those inks are definitely have an effect on the used purchase price -- as you can see how much the ink is worth.
If you actually get it, the best thing you can do is leave it on (and covered) in room-temperature storage 100% of the time. It will sleep and sip power. It'll wake up every day or two and do ink-checks and spit-tests, which keep the heads in best condition. If you do this your head service life will double.
Keep in mind: it is a discontinued model. Service is painful and expensive. It's very hard to fix yourself. If its in good condition, tho, the Z series are tanks. Mine's 5 years old and still trucking. I've only had to replace 2 of the six heads, even! I've had one failure that was covered under warranty. Otherwise it would have been an $800 repair.
Speedwise it's definitely not the fastest. Color wise it's near or at the top of the pack; only the 3200 (its brother) really beats it, and that's only barely. Due to the built in spectro it's by far the easiest printer to color correct of any of the pro line printers. Setup and maintenance of new paper stocks is fire-and-forget. Final tweaking takes me 1/8th the time that it did on any of my prior Epson or Canon gear.
Downside: HP is getting out of that market and it shows. The 3200 should have been rev'd two years ago. It's the end of the line for the Z's, I'm afraid. If I had to buy new, I'd buy Canon's high end gear right now... but wow, would I miss the spectro on the Z.
Costs: Considering at-cost inks and fine-art papers it can be as low as $2/sqFt to as high as $4.50/sqFt. Canvas is more like $5-6. I barely charged more than that as I simply printed for fandom to help people get good prints, and had a teeny bit of margin to help pay for the printer over the years. Everything else I took at a loss. If you were to run it professionally you'd need to charge $8/sqFt and up depending on media, which is getting into the pricing of real print shops. And remember, you also need to buy large format cutting equipment, and figuring out how to ship-- which is the worst part of the biz. Solve the cutting/packing/shipping part, and the rest is dirt easy. And if you're not out for PROFIT but just to make the printer pay for itself, you can undercut most anybody's market and get a lot of work.