" I was in the printing
business in 1985, and I heard of a lady who was putting vinyl lettering and logos
on the sides of boats," Momany relates. "Gerber had just released a
15-inch vinyl text cutter, but she was doing graphics and logos in addition to
letters. The idea was to somehow cut the vinyl by melting it. We started out with
a soldering iron attached to an X-Y plotter." After working through many
"thermal issues," midway through 1986 Momany, in partnership with another
company introduced a 36-inch thermal cutter to the sign industry, coined the "Hot
Tip".
The following year, "back
when 286s were the hot computers," Momany reminisces, he and colleagues at
GrafikEdge helped to develop Amiable Technologies sign-cutting software, and came
very close to perfecting a swivel knife cutter of the sort that's now widely used
in the cutting business. "I didn't trust the software engineers," he
recalls this near-hit ruefully.
In the late '80s, Momany
began teaching himself about lasers, and in 1990 sold GrafikEdge and started EdgeWISE
Tools to design, develop, and manufacture cutting tools and systems. Mr. Momany
debuted a roll feed laser (RFL) system at the International Sign Association show
in 1992, and received a US patent in November of 1993.
"I started focusing
on designing and developing other laser tools, and was invited by an industrial machine manufacturer, to exhibit in their booth at the 1997 Industrial
Fabrics Association show in Nashville. That's where I met Raven Industries' Ron
Stevens, who was heading up the manufacturing end of NASA's Ultra Long Duration
Balloon Project," relates Momany.
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