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Bubbles ! Driving me crazy
Hi All
I know that this subject has been covered many times before but after going through past posts I’m still getting the little blitters. As can be seen in the attached pic I am applying the blue text dry and then the green backing wet. I squeegee the hell out it but come the morning after the bubbles have appeared and the green vinyl is pulling away from around the blue text. The material it is going onto is acrylic and have cleaned it with overlay before to minimise static.
Any tips / suggestions to overcome this would be most welcome
Many thanks
Russell
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17 Replies
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Is this Avery material Russell?
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Hi Shane
Thanks for the speedy reply.
Its actually an Aslan standard series vinyl from Dorotape. Should I be looking for a particular type of vinyl for applying to acylic?
Thanks
Russ
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Looks like it is a water based adhesive to me. That is why I asked about avery because some of the cheaper avery has a waterbased adhesive, and it goes white when wet. It will go clear after a few days, maybe 4 or 5 depending on the weather. Doro may be the same.
Personally I only use cast on this style of signage. Nearly all the casts have solvent based adhseives. Oracal and 3M are typical examples. Cast will go over the tape with less ‘tenting’ because it is thinner. This tape looks like a cal material?
To rid yourself of the bubbles easier, you may need to ad a bit more soap to your application spray.
Use a felt squeegee for the best results.
Hope that helps
Shane
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I’d apply the green backing on the inside (wet) first,
then stick the blue text on the outside last!
Is that possible?
Love….Jill -
Russell,
I think what Shane was leading too (excuse me for jumping in Shane) is that Avery vinyls have a water based adhesive on them which can look milky when applied wet & viewed from the adhesive side. This shouldn’t explain the bubbles in them though if you have squeegeed out adequately
Are you using Overlay to stick the green or a water / soap mix?
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too late
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quote glenn:too late
they say great minds think alike glenn 😉
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quote Jill Marie Welsh:I’d apply the green backing on the inside (wet) first,
then stick the blue text on the outside last!
Is that possible?
Love….JillA good suggestion there too Jill. Certainly one way would be to cut the text out of the green, and lay that down then ‘fill’ the cut out with an oversized blue letters.
The problem with doing the green wet, then laying the blue is that you’d have to wait for the green to dry off a bit, because when you laid the blue down dry, the application tape would run the risk of pulling the green back when you try and remove it.
It is a good option, but I’d do that dry for both, or dry for green, and wet for blue in that instance.
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quote :Looks like it is a water based adhesive to me. That is why I asked about avery because some of the cheaper avery has a waterbased adhesive, and it goes white when wet. It will go clear after a few days, maybe 4 or 5 depending on the weather. Doro may be the same.
Personally I only use cast on this style of signage. Nearly all the casts have solvent based adhseives. Oracal and 3M are typical examples. Cast will go over the tape with less ‘tenting’ because it is thinner. This tape looks like a cal material?
To rid yourself of the bubbles easier, you may need to ad a bit more soap to your application spray.
Right got it – cast vinyl would be a better option for this because its thinner and solvent based.
Jill – I would do it this way but I think that it wouldn’t look quite as good with the blue on the front – would lose the appeal of a acrylic stand off sign if you know what I mean -i’ll give it a go though and see how it looks with the oversized blue text.
Glen – I was using overlay to apply the green and then using a felt squeegee – it looked ok the begin with but they appeared the morning after.
I would do it dry but being newish to this i’m bound to get it wonky. Bit tricky to do any hinged method cause of the small size of the acrylic.
Many thanks to all of you for your help.
Russ
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Personally I prefer to use a harder squeegee when doing anything wet – I think the felt ones are ok to a point but you get far more moisture out with a harder edge.
You may want to consider where it was stored to dry – is it cold & damp.
It seems to me though that because yo are getting bubbles, rather than just the milky residue that you are not getting enough of the moisture out even though you think you are
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Having read the thread, I would suggest that the bubbles are in fact where the glue has been desolved by the Ovalay application fluid (the air is just the pocket left where the glue one was) only way of really checking this is to remove green vinyl from one of your panels to if the glue is missing.
I’m sure you’ll let us know the results – good luck
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quote CABROWN:desolved
should read “dissolve”, never could spell, that’s why I got into the sign game :lol1:
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Dump the Overlay liquid. Waste of money.
Use baby shampoo (instead of soap) in water.Dump the felt squeegee. Wrong tool for the job.
Use a medium to hard plastic one that will drag and not slip over the surface.Squeegee hard with overlapping strokes.
Give it time to settle before removing app tape.
Peter
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OK, i maybe gonna through a spanner in the works here but… 😕
i would say that the main problem for the bother is the fact that, due to the vinyl letters being under the vinyl you cannot rid the water properly from below the green panel. that’s why you see the large halo around the text where contact is not being made. the water is pocketing in the centre of the letters also. causing it to look this white/light colour. i would recon that if you pushed your finger against the vinyl where its whitening it will darken down on contact with the glass. if not, then it maybe the whitening caused by the adhesive as has been said, but wouldn’t happen if the water was expelled properly.
i understand that your new and complete dry application is maybe a no go area for you. this being the case i would cut the letters out of the panel. apply the panel first then apply the letters once into the green panel. (hope that made sense)
cutting the letters from the green will allow you to rid the water from below the panel far easier.practice practice practice then chuck the wet app method 😉
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Wouldn’t argue with you on your recommendation Rob, but Russell did say the bubbles appeared after the panels had been left over night and the original Avery 600 was well know for having issues with the water based acrylic adhesive (Not sure what adhesive is used on Aslan film though!)
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Just want to thanks for all the advice on this one – I think it may be the water baser adheisive as after peeling back the green a white muck (pictured) could be seen around where the letters were – this started to disappear or evaporate after a few mins.
Will try all of you ideas ie dry application, cutting out space for the letters etc as really need to get this sorted before I unleash them on the public.
Again thanks for the advice.
Russ
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no problem craig,
from the new picture its obviously water based adhesive looking milky, but all the rest of the vinyl is fine & that “was” still applied in same way. its the water being trapped between the letters and the backing panel that prevents tack, causing pocketing of the water at any ridge. over night the water mixing with the adhesive results in the milky effect. i dont use this vinyl so i cant give proper solutions other than to cut the letters out the panel, apply panel, ten text and that should sort it.
down side of this is, any shrinkage of the vinyl will result in a small gap appearing around the letter, its fine outside but from inside with daylight shining it is more visable but still acceptable.russ, please let us know how you get on mate and which route you took to sort this & thanks for posting the pictures.
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