• Vinyl

  First time banner maker requests advice/help please?

  Posted by alangovan on 7 August 2006 at 14:12

  I’ve agreed to use my plotter (usually reserved for t-shirt making) to make a banner for behind the stage at a festival my mates are organising. I’ve been trying to find advice on this as I haven’t used banner vynil before. I intend to cut each letter of the design seperately, and then arrange them on a banner about 10′ by 4′. The biggest letter will be about 3′ high by 2′ wide. Will I need to use application tape for this or is it fairly easy to peel the cut letters off the backing and position them on the vynil?

  Any ither advice would be most gratefully received.

  Alan Govan

  David Feetham replied 19 years, 2 months ago 5 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Andy Gorman

  Member

  7 August 2006 at 14:42

  Use application tape. Why are you only cutting a letter at a time? Also, if you are only using the banner once, you don’t necessarily need to use banner vinyl. Banner vinyl is good if it is going to be rolled up and re-used loads of times, but for short term use a cheaper 3-5 year vinyl should be fine. Mactac 8300, for example, is pretty good for banner use and will take a bit of abuse.

  Welcome to the site, by the way. 🙂

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  Jill Marie Welsh

  Member

  7 August 2006 at 16:19

  Definately use app tape.
  For a short-term banner Oracal 651 is fine.
  love….jill

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  Robert Lambie

  Member

  7 August 2006 at 18:57

  advice above is good, banner vinyl stretches and feels softer and stickier than regular calander vinyls so app tape is a must.
  try clamping your banner to thetable too, they are a pain when they move etc while applying the vinyl.
  those g-cramp type clamps you get in packs of about 10 from b&q are good for pinning the banners down.

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  alangovan

  Member

  8 August 2006 at 09:51

  Thanks you for quick and useful advice. That’s all really helpful. I’ve ordered my vinyl, banner, app tape and a couple of squedgees so fingers crossed…

  I’m cutting one letter at the time so that I can make it as large as possible. My maximum cutting width is about 580 so I’m planning to make this the width of the largest letter, rather than the height, if that makes sense.

  Alan Govan

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  David Feetham

  Member

  8 August 2006 at 18:41

  Hi alan

  another good tip is to fit the vinyl wet to the banner…normal water is fine sprayed on with one of those spray bottles ya use for cleaners and things. it just gives you a little more opportunity to move the lettering to the right place.

  dave

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