San Francisco Designer Offers Attractive, Laser Cut Record Dividers

Visual designer and vinyl enthusiast Kate Koeppel offers a collection of wooden laser cut alphabetical record dividers available for both 12" and 7" records stored either vertically or horizontally.

The dividers are available in three different styles and can be purchased directly from Ms. Koeppel's website.

COMMENTS
thirtycenturyman's picture

Very cool, but that pricing is a tad steep.  I undrestand that laser cutters aren't cheap, but still.   Material cost for a 26 letter set should be no more than $35 or so.  We'retalking 1/8" baltic birch here!

G.R.Noakes's picture

...works just fine for me:

26 - 11 inch x 14 inch clear plastic panels;

2 Sets of self-adhesive mailbox numbers;

...and about an hour to apply all of the letters (straight) for under US$75.

 

Gary

mraudioguru's picture

Here is what I used:

https://www.bagsunlimited.com/c-298-dividers.aspx

If you scroll down the page a little they have nice, thick plastic ones that are either with or without letters.  I bought the .040" blank ones and used my Brother label maker to make some really nice dividers.

Mister Tim's picture

Guys, the answers to your burning questions are here -- http://shop.katekoeppel.com/faq. If you're blind to the inherent value of great typography and design, so be it. 

To quote the venerable Oscar Wilde, "What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

thirtycenturyman's picture

Being that I've used a few laser cutters whilst in architecture school as well as working professionally, I can say with some confidence that I understand a little about both design and production.  Furthermore, I've got quite a bit of fine woodworking experience.  Anyway, I'm all for great design and I'm all for paying a little more to support a good designer; however, in this case, I feel the price is a little steep.  Nothing wrong with that.  In fact, they could charge double and maybe you would pay for it, but I won't.  I guess that's the beauty of the free market.  Another great quote: "There's a sucker born every minute" P.T. Barnum.

Superfuzz's picture

There are no burning questions here about the pricing... one person above you simply commented that these things are expensive. Which is true. If the artist wants to make luxury products targeted at the kind of people who can afford them, more power to her. Too rich for my blood though.

popluhv's picture

But I will add that there is a great deal of manual labor involved cleaning scorch marks after you laser cut something. So, you're paying for that on top of materials, design and most likely renitng time on the laser cutter. But yes, still $$$$!

D Pully's picture

With all due respect to the Thirty Century Man, artists are entitled to make a living if they can.  Profit is not equal to selling price less cost of materials.  Far more goes into the equation than that.  One-time costs such the time to develop all the patterns and program the laser, the cost of the laser itself and any required tools must be amortized over what is surely a very limited number of sets sold.  Recurring costs include the costs of the facility where this is done, even if in the garage it is still a real cost.  The bottom line is -- and that's what counts when you're trying to make a living -- that hand-crafted items in small quantities are very costly compared to high-volume mass market stuff.

Let's do the math ... even if she made a net profit before taxes of $100 on each set she would have to sell ten sets per week to earn the median income in the U.S.  If that sounds like easy money to you, buy yourself a laser and give her a run for her dividers!

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