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Glue separation from vinyl when removing – digital print
Hey folks,
This is a bit of a silly and not really a end of the world need an answer question.
But we have twice removed some digital print recently from 2 jobs. Both polymeric as on for a while and no shrink.
Regardless of what we do each letter/part just leaves all the glue on the surface. There is not a drop of glue on the vinyl we have just removed. Not even sticky.Is this what happens when you don’t let something gas out properly or at all? Or is it just a certain brand of vinyl or glue mix? We stick to Avery products most of the time and any time we have had to change a number or email it’s very little to no glue.
Will settle a debate in my head.
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7 Replies
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Would love to get an answer to this as well. Removed the graphics from a 45ft trailer for a Superbike racing team and every letter left the glue behind. Removing it was a massive, messy, time consuming job!
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Something tells me it’s to do with gasing out.
Last year I was staying in the same hotel with some of the red bull f1 team top brass and I was speaking to the guy who is head of logistics. They sort of own a print company next to there factory. It was 2pm on Thursday and he said he could order a whole next garage kit there and then and they would it produced and flown out to monza in time for Friday morning. Of course could be latex machines but I explained why we could do that with ours and he said things get re-done a lot. So maybe your super bike team where similar.
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I have noticed that whether the glue stays with the vinyl or stays on the car seems to depend on the exact temperature it is at when it is actually being peeled off.
Each make is different, as well as the time since it was applied, and a few other factors, so there is no point giving a definitive guide to how much heat to use. And there are only a few degrees between perfect removal and messy removal.
As you go you can experiment to see what works with that particular removal, and adjust the heat gun to match. -
It’s not just digital print that causes this – it also happens with ordinary vinyls so I’m inclined to think it’s nothing to do with outgassing. I tend to agree with Simon that it’s to do with temperature. If you can heat the background more than the vinyl the glue will tend to stay with the vinyl rather than stay on the vehicle. Easier said than done but I find with a wall paper stripper the entire panel ends up getting hot rather than just the vinyl so perhaps this explains why wall paper strippers are so much more successful in stripping off vinyl than hot air guns?
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It does sound like a material fault in the OP’s case, that or some sort of paint issue..
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Don’t think it was paint as on a skybond sheet.
Totally hear what everyone is saying about heat but having played around with that for years and got it pretty well down to a T bar these two jobs I mentioned I wondered what else it could be and if it’s not gasing out just just be down to the media. Should of taken a photo. Hopefully I won’t have to update this thread as wont come across it again.
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Out of interest what brand was this ? You mention you normally use Avery with no problem …. was this a different brand ?
It’s possibly due to the particular brand and the manufacturing construction. When SAV is manufactured and goes through the manufacturing process in the plant there are a number of stages to this. With many of the higher grade brands and in particular higher performance products a primer coat is added between adhesive and face film – This is designed to allow clean removal in the future and most high end cast wrap products will include this process – There is a cost to this so lower end brands or lower grade products will not have this process to reduce cost …. however the penalty to this can be delamination of the adhesive from the face film.
The primer coat should create a greater bond between face film and adhesive than adhesive to substrate …. That’s the theory :smiles: and therefore removes cleanly (relatively) from the sign/vehicle etc
Even with a primer coat if a digital print has a heavy solvent load i.e. v dark cols or 200% + ink coverage and isn’t correctly outgassed the solvents can internally attack the SAV and potentially weaken the bond between primer coat and face film.
As others have already said heating the film and softening the adhesive can help the removal process but if there is no primer coat or the primer coat bond has been weakened through solvents then clean removal will be difficult. 🙁
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