Bad Eyes and trying to weed vinyl.

We have all come across this weeding problem at some point, whether it be bad eyesight or working late straining your eyes while you try weeding light colours of sign vinyl. It is never easy seeing the cut lines at the best of times but this job needs to get done regardless. So what do you do?

The following tip should help many of us and it costs only a couple of pounds…

STEP ONE
Buy yourself a bottle of builder’s chalk, I guess any chalk will do, but I just happened to have some in my toolbox. Builder’s chalk comes in powder form and in a bottle as shown. You can buy this from most DIY and hardware shops locally. Typically costs around two pounds and is normally used for filling chalk lines, sometimes called plumb lines.
I would advise buying at least two colours. White or Yellow chalk for dark vinyl and something like Red or Blue for light colours of vinyl.

STEP TWO
Next, take a soft cotton duster. the cheap thin ones work best.
Take the cotton duster and lay it flat out and cut it into four smaller dusters.
Lay one flat on the table and tip some chalk dust into the centre of the duster and then lift the four corners of the duster. The chalk will be elevated and you simply twist the duster trapping the chalk in the middle. now wrap a small elastic band around the twisted duster to hold and trap the chack in the middle.

STEP THREE
Next, take the little sack of chalk, and perforate the button of it with a few pin holes.
Basically, the cotton will hold the chalk and the pin hols will act a bit like a tea bag and release chalk by dabbing it, as and when required.

STEP FOUR
Here we have a piece of cut vinyl ready to weed. But where are the cut lines to guide you while weeding?
If you do not have great eyesight, weeding these cut graphics can cause all sorts of problems.

STEP FIVE
Now for the magical bit. Sprinkle a tiny amount of chalk on the vinyl and then spread it about with a dry soft cloth, the cut lines will stand out very well and are much easier to weed.

You will find this tip particularly helpful when weeding the likes of White, Yellow and even more so weeding Glass etch vinyl.

Cleaning the chalk from the vinyl is very simple, just use a damp cloth.

I hope this short demo is of use to you in the future.

Iain Gordon