uksignboards.com | advice please on weeding very small lettering?

Vinyl

advice please on weeding very small lettering?

Posted by J_J_O on 8 July 2005 at 19:39

Hello,

I am working on my first real car signage and made a big mistake, I have to weed about 100 small logos. Whats wors is that the logo contains text in "Times" capitals at 6mm and 9mm height. The vinyl I use is Avery 800 Metallic Grey. I have 17 ready with application tape put on them but I am wondering if any of you experts out here has some advise on weeding extremely small signage.

And you know what makes it all wors?

… its for a friend, so I’m not earning much on it.

Thanks allot!
Jaap-Jan

Hugh Potter replied 20 years, 3 months ago 7 Members · 8 Replies
8 Replies

Hugh Potter

Member
8 July 2005 at 19:45

i usually get the kids to do it for a few quid !!!!

seriously tho, i do a fair few small signs, in hindsight i found that to use a heavy 7yr vinyl was not so clever,
i now almost exclusively use oracle 651 for small text as it weeds so well,
make lots of weed boxes so you can do one strip of text at a time, or one section at a time, that makes it so much easier

also have a scalpel or something to hand, to hold down and edges that might wanna lift off the backing as you weed,

thats how i do it anyways ! works down to 8mm high lettering
autosign

Member
8 July 2005 at 20:24

I would tell the customer that they can’t be cut that small. The serifs are so thin they won’t have enough glue on them to stay stuck anyway.
Lynn Normington

Member
8 July 2005 at 20:50

9MM high is quite weedable I use a needle to weed with. can’t you convince them to use a more suitable font

Lynn
Nigel Fraser

Member
8 July 2005 at 20:53

I would say from my experience that Avery 800 doesn’t weed all that well but 700PF weeds extremely well so that might be a start. Also could you not print these on clear vinyl instead ?
…and as autosign says, the serifs will lift given the slightest provocation so with all the hard work they might well not last anyway 😕

Sorry to sound a bit negative but ust trying to be realistic.

Nigel
J_J_O

Member
8 July 2005 at 21:37

Wow! Thanks for al the quick replies!

I have already applied one logo to the car a few weeks ago and it is still on it. Printing is not an option as it is DarkMetallic applies to the black op the car (the result will (hopefully) be a watermark.

The customer is happy with everything I do, if I say I cannot make it it would be ine by him … but not by me … I made that design and now I want it driving arround!

I will post a photo in the forum when I have finished it.

In the meantime I am still hoping that someone has that perfect smart solution that does the Trick!

Thanks again!

JJ
Mike Grant

Member
8 July 2005 at 21:59

If we have to weed very small stuff I find it easier to stick the lot down onto the car and weed it ON THE CAR or other substrate (carefully) It’s a lot less frustrating 😮
Shane Drew

Member
9 July 2005 at 04:05

Another tip is to weed what you can, them mask it. Turn it over, exposing the cut material from the glue side. Then weed it off the premask.

It is a useful tip of you have to get the centres out of P & d etc.

Just a thought. I have done it many times.

The best tip tho, is to tell your customer you will not do Times Roman text under 12mm!

cheers
Hugh Potter

Member
9 July 2005 at 18:09

i should have added about the font, suggest something like ariel rounded, smooth corners are a whole lot easier to weed than fonts with sharp edges !