Potential new SB owner - questions

[SueA]

I'm seriously considering purchasing the 24" SB for creating wedding invitations. I would like to determine what the machine costs are per hour. Can anyone tell me what kind of life expectancy this machine has? How many machine hours can I expect before I need to replace or upgrade or refurbish the machine?

Also, I’m trying to determine if I can rearrange my current home office space to fit this in, or if I will need to set up a space in another part of the house. I would like to be able to cut large sheets of cover stock (abt. 20x30). Does anyone have any recommendations as to the space requirements for being able to prep the mats, cut & weed this size of material? I understand that I'll need space both in front of and behind the cutter -- I'm just trying to see what has worked for other users.

Thanks for any advice you can give!

[Gigi]

If you have not talked with Sherri already - you should You can reach her at sherri@silverbulletcutters.com or call her directly.

These machines are built to be workhorses. There are only a few parts to replace if they fail - the motherboard, power supply and LED panel. I just replaced my LED panel as the buttons were hard to press all of a sudden and now it's good as new. These machines need very little maintenance and many don't have to ever replace a thing. My machine is going on six years old. We can't give you a time frame for your machine. Many are using them almost 24/7 and other than replacing consumables, have not had to replace a thing. You don't have to worry about it failing you - it is a rarity.

Sherri does recommend that if you are running a business with a lot of cutting and a lot of deadlines, that at some point you might want to add a second hand machine just so you have something to fall back on if you do have to replace a part (again you can see on the sales page just how few parts there are to replace) so you dont have any down time. That is up to you. But again, these machine are meant to go on and on and on.

As for space, I don't cut 20x30, but if you clear a space to handle the mat that you are using - that will be enough. Let's say you are using the 24x48 mat - in that area you would prep the mat with your card stock to brayer it, and then when it cuts you use the same space to remove the design and start again. I have a long work counter and I use the far left edge that is closest to my machine (which is on a rolling cart - I have the 18" machine) so I can easily move it on to the machine and then off to remove my design and start over. After you use it for a while, you will find what works best for you. I would suggest you play with the machine for a while and try different work space configurations and see what works best for you. You might be surprised at how little room you really need -and you can always use a smaller mat to reduce the work space needed and make it more mananageable too. You could use the 27.75 x 30" mat to accommodate your card stock (the multi use mat, but if you are cutting the full 30", that could make it difficult. I would probably cut landscape if using that mat....

We are all very different in what we need to prepare our cutting and you will find what works best for you. I just gave you kind of a generic overview. Hope that helps. And definitely talk with Sherri if you haven't already.