Don Dingwall

My post was in direct response to your disparaging remarks against both our product and our mutual customer base. I don’t need coaxing to defend my company, my products or my customers. While it is sometimes understandable that an irate customer would bash a vendor in a public forum – it is totally inexcusable for one vendor to bash another vendor in the same industry. It’s even more unseemly that a vendor would denigrate their potential customer base as you clearly did. No amount of qualification minimizes or excuses labeling your prospective customer base "uneducated”. Public forums are meant to share experiences, educate and learn – not for bashing competitors or customers. As far as I am concerned, this interaction is over. I will continue to defend my company, products and customers when necessary. I do not disparage your products during discussions with customers and I will never denigrate my customers.

There is no justification for calling a company, or it’s owner “uneducated”. Just because a sign company cannot afford expensive equipment for their shop does not make them any less professional or qualifies them as “uneducated”. It simply means they are waiting for the right equipment to come along that meets their business and budgetary needs. When we pioneered/invented automated channel letter bending 20 years ago, we naturally targeted larger sign companies. Now some, who have used our machines for 20 years, are augmenting their production with specialty machines including machines built outside the of the U.S. However, in most cases, they are still running their Accu-Bend machine(s) because Accu-Bend channel letter benders are built to last. Perhaps James at SDS should show some respect for those who don’t have the business volume yet, are just entering the channel letter business, are frustrated with the time it takes to bend letters by hand or are simply tired of the cost of wholesale channel letters. Referring to them as “uneducated” is rude and is not a good marketing approach. Steve, you purchased your machine before we offered our two latest models. Your machine can be field upgraded for a small charge to take advantage of these new capabilities. The small arm option allows you to make tighter bends and, instead of swapping out hardware on the Red machine, you can change the flange width between a ½” to ¼” with a simple click of a mouse. The scriber option cuts a slight groove in the coil to make sharper angles. You can drill a lot of weep holes with the $30,000 you’ll save by upgrading your current machine and buying a new green machine versus buying ONE of the foreign-made machines.