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Glow in the dark or reflective??
I have a customer who wants either glow in the dark or reflective vinyl on his vehicle or possibly both in order to stand out during the dark.
just wondering if anyone has had experiences with either materials to be on a vehicle?
any pros and cons??
also the area to be applied on the vehicle (a small mobile van) has rivets all the way around a flat panel (as seen)
would normal vinyl be okay for this??
thank you 🙂
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5 Replies
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I would bring it inside the rivets or cut them out prior to application, reflective only gives you one shot.
glow in the dark is only of any real use if he’s selling burgers in a cave with no power and has good passing trade!!
reflective is the way to go, it will light up when viewed by people from their cars, torches etc and will catch the sunlight.
explain to the customer that reflective does just that, it reflects light back towards the light source, to anyone else -not stood in the path of the reflected source- it will appear whatever colour it is. ie. if you shine a torch at it at night it will reflect back at you and it will radiate at a certain angle either side of you, to someone stood outside that area of light being bounced back… nothing.
if he’s in a lay-by at night (sorry if i’m wrong in my assumption it’s a snack wagon) then it’s possible it will only reflect at drivers by the time it’s too later or the to stop, he’d be better off with reflective A-boards set 300yrds down the road! –
oooh, just remembered this….. it is a diagram I made for a particularly thick customer (name and application removed) who just couldn’t get it…. why do i ever bother trying to do a favour for a mate of a mate! it came very close to being sent, thankfully he didn’t reply to the email i sent before it, explaining for the umpteenth time! I wouldn’t recommend sending it to your customer but the info is ok!
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Not sure if this correct but I did hear that the Glow in the Dark properties only last a certain time. Reflective is the way to go.
Earl -
Reflective for outdoor, as you know it works when light hit it, but the glow in the dark needs a light to charge it then when the light goes out it will stay bright, but useless for outdoors as your eyes will not be dark enough for it to work correctly, it is designed for really dark places indoors where the light goes out it will be totally dark.
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Reflective it is then!!
What about rivets?? can i get away with going over them with a heat gun and normal vinyl?? Hugh gave good advise on cutting around them but may find this difficult to do before hand and might get the alignment wrong. (not as good as you guys!!)
any tips??
cheers
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Just make sure your customer is aware that reflective with only show up at night if a light source is shone at it and that as Hugh has already pointed out there is a viewing angle which must be taken into account.
As for the rivets you would be able to cover them with a cast vinyl no problem and you will probably also get away with a good quality calendered like 551 but you won’t be able to put reflective over the top of that without the rivet heads causing problems.
You could as Hugh has also said stop short of the rivets and just treat the white area outside the rivets as a border.
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