Chuck,

I personally get calls all of the time for onesies such as bibles, portfolios, wallets and daytimers. In all of my brief years of business, I have never had an inquiry for a quantity order.

If I had a machine and marketed my services it would more than likely be a totally different picture.

I have been wrestling with the thought of adding that to my services. I may need to take a quick trip down to Wichita to see John in action.

Chuck,

Sales would depend on how hard you market it. I have a manual machine and an automatic machine and mostly do ribbons. Bookmark, Award Ribbons (the kind with the card on the back) and Rosettes. I don't use it daily or even weekly, but it does come in handy. The bookmark ribbons are by far the most profitable because there is a lot less labor in them.

The fact that the machine is 15 years old is not a problem, in fact, most brands are very heavy duty and last for many many years.

The one on E-bay is a Howard JP-80, which is air operated, so if yours is air operated then you would have less arm fatigue.

John

John, the one I am looking into is a JP 80

The biggest problem with foiling is the dies , however ou can do foiling dies on the laser using high temp silicon , same as rubber stamps. you can achieve incredible detial , even better than etching methods used to make dies. Foiling is real cheap and works on many items , if you have a laser , a $200 extra inverstment isnt much money. It's hardly high tech to operate either. Silicon dies work on stuff with less than flat and smooth surfaces , but dont last as long as magnesium , brass or steel dies.
With a laser , you could for example die cut and foil acrylic etc etc - many opportunities present themselves. You can use a foiler for embossing and debossing too. Nice thing about the laser is the die cutting ability , so you can do card , vinyl stickers , papers and so on. Also great for branding cheapy items like plastic pens etc that a laser cant.
Another great application is tipping , like engrave a medallion or a product logo with the letters sticking out and use the hot foiler with a silicon pad to tip the surface with gold etc.
Foils come in a zillion colours , you can actually foil a smooth surface and laser engrave it too , kinda make your own metallic coloured material.
IMHO it's a fantastic addition. Foiling goes hand in hand with pad printing and that too is VERY profitable , espcially since you can make the cliches (the engraved or etched plates that hold the ink) with a laser.