You might think that all we do is homesteading anymore. That would be nice, but it’s not reality. We actually have “day jobs”, although they are a bit unconventiional, we enjoy them.
I’m a graphic artist and do work for various freelance clients. Jessy has a rock and mineral company and she supplies kits for kids all over the place! And Maggie is slowly developing her own sign company. Working primarily in vinyl and in wood.
She’s building slowly, learning the craft and enjoying the learning process. For many years, as a young woman, I worked in a screen printing shop and I did a lot of signage as well as other things. I always thought the vinyl sign cutting craft was interested and then when Maggie began to show a wonderful aptitude for making signs, I started to tell her about the aspect of vinyl cutting and computer aided design. She loves it!
She now has two very nice cutters, one a smaller format and now, a much larger format cutter. She just got it for her birthday and she couldn’t be happier. It has really opened up a huge area of the business that she was having some trouble with. Large signs!
And race cars!
The first car we did with the smaller cutter and though we got it done, it was a tricky situation. The tallest we could cut was 12 inches. The length could be up to 10 feet, but that 12 inch thing was a little hard to deal with. We had to do a lot of piecing together and that just is hard to do cleanly. Her new cutter is a 25 inch cutter and up to 20 feet and wow! Does that open things up!
We can now cut full numbers and logos for cars. And do pretty big full yard signs and such. One pass. Just nice, a lot easier and more professional. The little cutter is still a workhorse and will be great as a back up and also when we’re very busy, like we were with these two race cars!
We designed two logos for the cars… one a play off the Grizzly smokeless tobacco products and the other a junk yard dog for the friends of our pals at Jerry’s. It was so neat… we used up a ton of vinyl and cut out logos for the hood, trunk, and sides of the cars. We even did the numbers and sponsor decals!
Including one for Maggie!
It is very fascinating to see all that goes into these small rural race track cars. The guys take it all very very seriously, as any passionate hobby, and it’s just amazing to see a car go from pieces to race time check in within a day! The second car was really in parts that final morning when we arrived. We were putting on vinyl as they worked around… I think we were working around them, not the other way around! It would be fun to drive one of these cars, but since they don’t have doors… I’m pretty sure there is no way I would be able to fit into the window gaps! Haha…
Everyone agrees, we have a nack for making them look pretty darn hot. Especially when you see some of the other cars with just spray painted numbers and such on them… our trio of cars are pretty darn nice looking. If I say so myself…
It’s wonderful to be working alongside Maggie and learning with her as well as teaching. I still remember a good deal of how it all goes… and together we are learning the newer technology! She is slowly acquiring equipment, software and the materials needed to do this pretty much full time. We have several orders in the shop we’re working on. We’re not super fast yet, but we’re super reasonable! If you’re willing to wait a bit, we can sure help you and you can help us learn this craft better.
What is kind of sad is that these cars sure do take a beating and it’s possible the first race will be the last race! So the guys don’t always want to spend hundreds and hundreds on decorating the beasts! But they sure do love it when they are sharp looking. And so we try to do that for a fair low price. I think we will have other cars to do sooner than later!
Loading them up for the race track inspection before the evening’s races! Off they go!
George just doesn’t understand what all the fuss is for. He thinks it’s time for a nap!
Pin It
