Ok, Ken,
Now that I understand what you are going for, I took my shop rate of $65.00 an hour, divided it by the number of badges I could do in an hour, ( I ran a blank run on a mock up in my laser to determine this time), and that gave me a price per tag.
The material cost was determined by dividing the cost of the material by how many tags I could get out of a sheet, then I multiplied that by 3. That gave me a figure of $2.13 per tag. I rounded that up to $2.25 for a little extra bonus to cover freight.
Because of the school fees, I did not make as much money on this job as I will the next time, BUT I did make money.
I hope I have helped you some.

Joe,
Do you mean that you are rationing your tips? If I use one I get another? And if I don't, you keep them to yourself? Sheesh ...(insert laugh here)

I did try adjusting my power. I'm using a 25 watt laser and I figured that if I had to make two passes with power at 100 and speed at 50, I could just do one pass at 100 with speed at 25. Didn't work.

What I have done to reduce the time of both passes is to, increase the speed to 60 which helps. I'd still love to be able to do this in one pass though.

With the IPI plastics that are NOT textured on pass does it and the clean up time is WAYYYYY shorter. However, I went with the Rowmark textures because of what I perceived to be a product that would last longer in the element..... sun, salt air, tourists etc.... Do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanks again for the tip. :-)

"I hope I have helped you some."

Always, along with a lot of others on this forum.
I've never had a problem with school fees, but I still appreciate it when someone else is paying. (I'm trying to contribute for others too.)

Chuck,

Your choice of a textured plastic for this job was a wise one, in spite of the extra work required. As you deduced, this material will offer you some extended wear and help hide scratches that would have been visible very quickly with the satin or matt platics.

The only way you get them all at once would be a Vulcan (sp) mind melt. :)
Or you could just hire me to come to the island for about a month or two and
I might be able to pass along a tip or two per day. :o)

As far as the number of passes - I use a 75 watt so I was not
sure what power laser you had - as I said you would have to test for
your laser - it may not work with every laser.

As David said for the project you described the textured
material sounded like the best solution. We use texture
for produceing a dash panel for a ski boat attachment .

What do I get for room and board? :-)

So how many passes do you need to make with a 75W? I have a 25W.

Another lesson learned. Buy more watts than you need. You'll need it.

Maybe a tip or two a day - depends on how well I am treated - I need my
rest time :)

It is a one pass with my laser. There are times I wish for even a more powerful
laser

There is only one time I wish for a more powerful laser. That ALL the time