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Vidmar cabinets- Alternative to drawer pull labels ?

Milacron

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Called Stanley Vidmar to get prices on the paper and vinyl strips that slide into each drawer pull for labeling the drawers. 98 cents per set....doesn't sound too bad except I have 100 drawers ! Hundred bucks a bit painful for just some strips of paper and clear vinyl, so wondering if I could get a print shop to just shear off 100 1.5" x 22" strips of coated paper (i.e. so I wouldn't need the clear vinyl part) alot cheaper...or ?

(and the first person to suggest taking a label maker and sticking the label on the drawer front gets a dope slap ! ;) )
 
Here's where you need a artis wannabe 14yr old daughter...some clear satin finish vinyl shelf liner and notecards. Heck, mine would even print them in the 57 fonts she's designed and 93 colors, no extra charge (might be a bit girly, though).

I'll bet it would be expensive going cold into a print shop, but a backdoor deal would hook you right up.

Had the same sort of problem looking for little plastic bins for my nut and bolt cabinet. About a buck each...but I wanted around 5 or 6 HUNDRED... Wound up using ice cube trays, frozen orange juice and lemonade containers, international brand instant coffee containers and diaper wipe boxes!

Tools
 
I think that's a workable approach.

I recall that one of my customers back in the days of punched N/C tapes made his drawer labels from mylar tape and punched out the letters/words somehow (on a freiden flexwriter, I guess???)

Mike
 
I am ducking ...
I have done this with my 1 inch Seiko lable printer, leaving the backing on and slipping behind acetate film, nice looking and no problem removing. My P touch looks better but is slooooow. Anyways, go to an art store and buy a few sheets of heavy acetate, some store have paper cutters they will let you use, if not go to kinkos and use theirs to cut the strips, 10 minuets will cut 100 strips no problem.
 
(and the first person to suggest taking a label maker and sticking the label on the drawer front gets a dope slap ! )
Ouch!

How will you be lettering the paper strips - by hand?

Not having a Vidmar (yet) I'm guessing that you are talking about labels that slide into the cabinet wide drawer pulls. For something that wide, I'd be inclined to print out the labels on standard paper with my inkjet plotter, cut them out and slide them in. Maybe hand slit some Mylar ($$) or polycarbonate (cheap) film to protect the paper labels. The film would be a mostly one time expense and new paper labels would be easy to generate whenever the system is re-organised.

Does that make any sense?

Mike
 
How will you be lettering the paper strips - by hand?
Some perhaps, thermal label maker on some. Re the dope slap, note I said drawer front, not drawer pulls. Vidmars, unlike Bott and Lista, uses an "open at the front" extrustion for the pulls, such that they really need a label strip to keep the grime out of the inside of the pulls, even if you don't need to label your drawers.

Bott and Lista on the other hand, had the good sense to design their pulls "solid" on the front, such that you have the option of leaving as is, or sliding in paper and mylar. On a Bott or Lista pull just stick thermal labels right on the pull and it looks ok.

But these are Vidmars, and so kinda need some label strips.. :rolleyes:
 
Re memorize contents....I'm pretty good at that, but when you get to 100 drawers with each one containing a variety of items, it's gets tough sometimes. Maybe I could hire an Idiot Savant memorize the whole shebang for me "definitely in that drawer, definitely..."
 
Memorizing contents, I figure with two drawers, I have a 100% chance of being wrong.
 
I think the trick would be to shear the strip parallel which is highly desirable in that particutlar situation.

Possibly if the Kinkos has a "travelling blade" shear (this for lack of proper term...chrome plated rod with little sharp nib that you slide back and forth). Those seem to stand a chance of cutting parallel. However, the 2 Kinkos I am familiar with only have the small version of such for 11" paper. Some Kinkos appear to have a fawning D-size paper area for printing large blueprints, etc, and if they have a 22" shear I would say that's the best chance.

The old guillotine hinged pivot shears tend to look intimidating and make impressive noises but I've yet to get one to shear straight....they twist and pull as the blade swings.

I dunno.....it seems like the possibility of savings is there but I'd surely blow twice the original figure trying to DIY. Part of the problem may be that I actually have a dog named Murphy. ;)

-Matt
 
Matt:

Where have you been? Modern paper cutters cut straight and true.

Don, your idea is all right, now just see if you can con a printer into cutting some nice paper into small strips for you.

Take your measurement carefully, Mr. Cutter man will take a slight cut, then move the back gauge by entering your dinemsion into his CNC box and El Slice-o!

The printer might have some nice heavy weight coated-one-side cover stock lying around.

But

You might have to

(gasp!)

Pay for it.
 
Don, just get an HP design jet printer and load the thing with photo paper sideways. Print yourself a line at 1.5" spaces and you have a guide to cut by. An 8.5*11 sheet will do 2 1/2 drawers.
HP designjet 30 printer $700
50 sheets of photo paper $50
Printing & cutting $200

Not having to give Lista $100 - priceless!
JR
 
This may or may not be of interest; I don't have Lista. I find paper labels in the label slots of drawers have a way of working loose and disappearing. What I use is magnetic sheet material from the art store, which I cut to size and letter with a pen. Works to my satisfaction. Adhesive labels adhere to this stuff, too, and that allows painless changes in labelling.
 
Don't use a scissors....too slow and uneven .
Do your cutting like I do when cutting Wet or Dry sandpaper. I cut on the back side, into strips with a steel straightedge, and one of my wifes' old rotary cutter. She is a quilter and uses these to cut cloth. They look like a Pizza cutter, only very sharp, and are sold by fabric stores. Follow the straight edge and have a wood ,plastic or hardboard surface under the work being cut, to preserve the blade
 
I picked up a cheap 12" paper trimmer somewere that works pretty well. It's basically a 12" rule with an aluminum T-slotted extrusion along one edge that holds a sliding cutter and uses those little snap-off knife blades. Mine is made by DAFA and was probably $20 or less from a long fogotten source, but here's a link to a 24" cutter of similar design made by Fiskars:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?ref=froogle&pfp=froogle&product_code=51422979&cm_ven=froogle&cm_cat=&cm_pla=&cm_ite=feed

The DAF works fine on 1/16" rubber sheet and the Fiskars would probably work just as well for cutting out the longer Vidmar labels.

Mike
 
Re the dope slap, note I said drawer front, not drawer pulls.
The "Ouch!" referred to my (unwritten) first thought to put the labels on the front.

That thermal label paper will run you quite a bit, if it's Brother P-touch stuff. What is that - $25 for a 1.5"x26' roll? That comes out to nearly $2 each for a 22" long label.

For the price of postage I'll print out a set of 100 or so 24" long labels for you on a Designjet printer, providing you can supply the labels in a format that can be imported into Word. The printer has an automatic paper cutter and might be able to cut them off to whatever width you want. You'd have to trim off the extra 2" yourself ;)

If you want to spring for transparency film, I'll run some blank cover strips through the printer for you (to cut them to width).

Mike
 
That comes out to nearly $2 each for a 22" long label.
Why would I need a 22 inch long label ? I would be using the P Touch just to create small labels that stick on the coated paper strips.
 
Why would I need a 22 inch long label ? I would be using the P Touch just to create small labels that stick on the coated paper strips.
It seemed like that was what you wanted from the original post. Seemed kind of odd that you'd need that much room for the label text and I see now that you don't.

Mike
 








 
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