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Which brand for coloured cast in terms of colour range
Hi guys, I have tried several companies that supply vinyl and have come to a stumbling block. A lot of the brands I thought would do a wider range of coloured cast vinyls dont seems to have much of a range at all.
So my question is to all the helpful guys; Which brand does a decent range of colours in cast material and is such brand recommended amongst many.
I have an Avery 900 swatch on the way to me in the post however other brands i have checked such as KPMF, Riwrap, Grafiwrap, havent got much of a range at all.
Robert Horne are yet to get back in touch regarding 3M.
I have also heard people mention Arlon, is this something many are using?
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my post.
Any help and direction would be appreciated.
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17 Replies
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I’ve never really done much on the wrapping front but after doing the Hexis course I was pretty impressed with their range and quality. Plus they have their swatches and details on their web site, hexis.co.uk
Don’t take their price list as final, worth seeing the rep if you want to work with them.
Kevin
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Don’t think the poster is looking for a wrap vinyl Kevin, although you can use a cast vinyl for wrapping a lot of the films are very time consuming to fit as opposed to a dedicated wrap film mainly because they are thinner & have a full face acrylic adhesive that isn’t very forgiving.
If you have the toolmakers toolbar downloaded & installed you will find lots of suppliers but as well as those you have mentioned you could also try Oracal, mactac, metamark & hexis as Kevin mentioned. -
Yeah sorry still had the post before freshin my head and added the wrapping in, oh well I meant cast even if I didnt say it lol
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Kevin and Martin thank you very much for your replies guys.
I was under the impression cast vinyl is for wrapping? i guess not (feels embarrased now)
Nonetheless im after a range of coloured vinyls to wrap cars and vans i.e. colour changes.
Cheers
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Your not wrong in thinking that a cast vinyl can be used to colour change a car BUT it’s not quite as straight forward as that, to be able to wrap a full car with a normal cast vinyl you would need to be a very experienced fitter & even then the time taken to complete the job would be far in excess of the time taken using a wrap vinyl.
The adhesive used on a normal cast vinyl has a very high initial grab making it more difficult to place & to snap away from substrate as the application progresses, they are also generally very thin & easy to overstretch which causes white marks in the vinyl.
The adhesive on wrap vinyl has a lower initial grab although you still need to watch certain brands & the film is thicker than a cast vinyl & stretches much better without marking. Some ranges like the avery supreme have almost no initial grab & are completely re positionable making them much easier to use, the price is obviously higher but the job can take half the time.
If your looking to start doing colour changes then the first thing you really should do is look at courses available & seriously consider doing one of them.
Pretty much the same brands as mentioned though as most manufacturers do at least one range of wrap vinyl plus Isee2 which is distrubited by William Smith. -
Hi Martin, Ive done my course with Grafityp under James Deacon.
The course was good in the tips you learn such as where to heat the vinyl in order to maintain full tack in recesses etc
However the grafywrap stuff we didnt really get to use. We only used a digital cast and some polymeric vinyl which I were a little dissapointed with as I did want to have some hands on experience using some proper air release vehicle wrap.
Btw is the isee2 something you would recommend?
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To be honest I haven’t used a lot of the isee2 vinyl, some matt black & the cast carbon fibre. Didn’t have any real problems with either film but not really got enough experience with it to actually recommend it.
Was it a proper wrap course you did or just an introduction? Reason I ask is that I have done both & they are very different. Introduction was just one day with some but not very much hands on & the other was the 2 day course Robert runs which was very good with lots of hands on covering a variety of different shaped panels. -
Hi Martin it was a 2 day course with Grafityp. There was plenty of hands on experience however not much exposure to proper coloured wrap vinyl however we did get plenty of experience using digitally print cast.
Decent course it was.
What wrap vinyl would you recommend based on your personal experience Martin. In terms of variety of colours, ease of application and final finish.
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Adil just to set you straight regarding the vinyl used on the wrap course, our wrap vinyl is a two part film, cast vinyl and cast laminate, so whether you used a printed cast vinyl or just a coloured cast vinyl then both films would have been laminated at 90c temp prior to use, hence we didn’t just use a coloured cast vinyl that hadn’t been laminated as it is not strictly referred to as a wrap film these days.
I will pass on your remarks to James, it could be worthwhile showing the differences regarding initial tack between a cast film and a wrap film.
Regards
Nigel -
Adil, it’s a bit like any other sort of vinyl in that different people will have different preferences. My advice would be to collect all the swatches which should give you a reasonable range of colours, buy a few metres of different brands & try it for yourself, probably not a good idea to tie yourself completely to one brand as someone is bound to want something from a different manufacturers range lol.
Just make sure you have the application guides for each brand because although they are generally all the same there are some small differences.From what Nigel has just said then you have already used the graphiwrap film so if you were happy with that then add that to the list of colours you can offer. Don’t know him personally but have read that James is a top guy so if he has trained you then your off to a good start.
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Laminated at 90c ?
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Hi guys again thanks for the replies.
Nigel I cant remember the exact reason why we didnt use the coloured cast however the digitally print cast was nice to work with. The whole Grafityp experience was an excellent one however since you have given a reason as to why the coloured cast was not used, it would have been a little beneficial if mentioned on the course but not a biggie as im not complaining.
Martin, James Deacon was top. Answered questions really well, delivered the course brilliantly and offered some personal tips that have helped greatly in general vinyl application too.
I was hoping to use the Grafiwrap stuff but sadly dont have the colour I require. 😥
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Adil, I spoke to James yesterday and learnt a little myself, our normal cast range of vinyl you would laminate prior to wrap but the new colour change wrap material range is roughly the same thickness as laminated cast vinyl and so you wouldn’t need to laminate.
I appreciate your feedback as it all helps us provide the best service possible, so good or bad feel free to let me know.
Regards
Adil -
Adil, I spoke to James yesterday and learnt a little myself, our normal cast range of vinyl you would laminate prior to wrap but the new colour change wrap material range is roughly the same thickness as laminated cast vinyl and so you wouldn’t need to laminate.
I appreciate your feedback as it all helps us provide the best service possible, so good or bad feel free to let me know.
Regards
Adil -
Have you changed your name Nigel ???
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Hahaha was just going to say that
Generally speaking though, the course was brill, defo would recommend to others out there.
Nigel I dont know much about the processes behind manufacturing vinyl but a slightly bigger range of colours in the coloured cast would be great however of course it needs to be feasible for your guys
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Lol just shows how good I am at multitaking 🙂
Nigel aka Adil
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