how do i apply vinyl lines without going squint?

[Peter Normington]

I do a bit of pin stiping, First of all are you using app tape? if not you should be. tape one end of the stripe and then remove the backing. Lower the other end to the position needed and sqeegee. With stripes there no need for wetness, if it goes slightly off line just lift it and reposition. Hope this makes sense.
Peter

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Yup, “Hyphens”
Use single-stripe ¼” pinstriping tape, available at any auto parts store or
go to http://www.restylerschoice.com
It comes in black and several colors, and other widths too.
I measure a mark at the edges and one or two towards the center,
line up the striping, and lay it from end to end.
Squeegee, then remove the clear liner and re-squeegee.
I always apply these dry and trim the ends when everything is stuck.
Love….Jill

[cabriofx]

Agree with Jill and Peter, and with pin-stripes they are so easy to play around. I normally get bulk from places like Halfords when they sell them of cheap. On a good day you probably can pick them up for 50p at 15m lengths.

Ive always stuck on one end peeled away slightly, held on with tape and then run along the rest in line and taped the end with still the backing on. Once in line, gone back to the start and peeled away the backing. For guidance ive used chalk lines for straight edges and paper template for anything curvy…
Good Luck

[Robert Lambie]

.

if you are laying up a 20inches, cut the line 23inches.

mark out at intervals of about 5 inches. so in this instance 4 marks over the 20 inches. (use very little marks, almost dots)

now go to start and end. bypass your start mark an inch & bypass your end mark an inch… at least anyway.

if you have individual cut stripes with the backing paper fine, if not you will have to choose how much you want to remove from lining paper.
if not very long i take the lot off and lay it face up, you have to be careful though, if it tacks to your top or unclean desk its wasted with dust & fibres.

go to your first “bypass mark” tack one end as straight as you can by eye.

if your right handed, hold the line at about a 90 degree angle, resting your forefinger gently on the line hovering your first interval mark. lowering the vinyl very gently taught, tack onto your interval mark.

now lift your left forefinger off the vinyl and move “back about 1 inch and rest your forefinger on the vinyl. while finger in place. gently tug back on the line with your right hand and it will cause the tacked vinyl at the first interval to lift… but, because you have your finger rested 1 inch back on the vinyl it will only lift this far.

now go back to the 90 degree angle with your finger resting/hovering the second interval mark. again, gently tack down with pressing forefinger on mark.
now move back an inch & repeat the above stage.

do this all the way along till you get to the end, but… make sure your last interval is the bypass one. right on the end.

now go back to the start and check your very first tack is straight?..
if its not gently lift the line a few inches and lay back down.

please note: i have not actually pressed any of the line down in place. just tacked it at the interval points.

now, standing at one side looking along the line, are you happy with the straightness?
if the answer is yes….

take a felt squeegee, or your finger with a cotton rag wrapped round it and gently run it… (gently i said :o) from the centre out towards each side. giving hardly any pressure at all. (if you apply pressure, the vinyl will start to pucker/curl up, causing a crease) once you have rubbed gently along it, go back over it a little more firm, then firmer again. still using the felt squeegee or often wrapped finger.

now go back to your start & end marks and trim the line, peeling off the bypass bits of vinyl.

the reason you use the bypass bits is because, if you try laying 20 inch of vinyl exactly, you don’t have anything to hold onto, the heat of your hand stretches it slightly and shows bottle necks in the vinyl.
also start and ending in a line tend to go off to one side if you have the exact Lentgh of vinyl… so again. give yourself a few inches extra to hold.

hope this help some….

p.s. this sounds long winded, but is actually very quick after you do it a few times.

.

[Peter Normington]

bl**dy ‘el rob, never realised laying a stripe staight was so complex 😉

its abit like asking a centipede how it walks, if it has to think about it , it cant do it

Peter

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Robert Lambie:

. are you happy with the straightness?
if the answer is yes….
.

i have always done my lines free hand without any application tape… 😀 😉

Nik

[Robert Lambie]

i dont use app tape either nik. 😀

[Nicola McIntosh]

i better explain why i don’t use application tape!! 😀

i don’t like it because i cannot see anything i’m laying on to , and to get the job done quicker, i use my eyes!! 😉 😉

Nik

[Ramj]

neither do I,

Great help Rob, I love detailed walkthroughs,

I’m just slowly one by one defeating all my worst aspects of my work via this site, I even taught my workmate (who’s been doing it for about 7 years now) some tricks she didn’t know 😀

[Peter Normington]

Eye eye
Thats the best way to do it, but by using app tape I find it much quicker.
if the app tape is cut parralel to the stripe i then work of the edge of the tape. There is also less chance of stretching and for a long length there is no need to mark every few inches just once or twicee, if you eye along the tape/ vinyl you can do it no prob, I have done 15 meter trailers this way, but everone to his own methods
Peter

[Robert Lambie]

hi peter…
if i am applying stripes any wider than say 2 inches, ill use an application tape. we dont carry any thinner than 2 inch tape so even if i wanted too i couldnt :lol1:

the above workthrough was based on say a .2 inch line upto about 1 inch wide vinyl without app tape. i find it much easier to sway of course, stretch, or whatever with thin lines than thick.

my interval marks for something like a 3 inch strip at 30 foot would be about every 2 or 3 foot, just depending on how its going down.
the thing about applying as you go along is, once its down, its much easier to kink/stretch the vinyl snapping it back up, if its not bang on… after you have laid 30 ft of the stuff 😕 :lol1:

if i am laying up say a .5 inch wide line with a .25 inch space then a .25 inch line.. ill cut them with the prespace and apply both once & using app tape.

[Nicola McIntosh]

i don’t mark anything, does not matter how big or long the stripe is i have never done so, always used my eye…and it is very straight 😉

Nik

[Peter Normington]

Rob all i use is 610 app tape, for pinstripes @ 1MM Or whatevever I cut an array of them say 2 m long, @ 10mm apart, apply app tape then slit down the middle, loads of stripes and easy to apply. Years ago When I first started I bought app tape sliced into 2 3 4 inch etc. waste of time 610 does all even 1220 in two bits.

[Robert Lambie]

we buy in 2,3,4,5,,6,8,10,12,15,18,20,24,36 & 48inch wide.
i think we buy 3 logs at a time. we just keep topping up the ones that run low. although upto christmas we just run them all out as we didnt want them laying on shelf in cold workshop over chrismass, as it can make them harder to unravel. 😕

[Peter Normington]

Hi again Rob
Why do you have your app tape slit, do you use 2 inch rolls of vinyl?
We always cut from 610 or 1220 so I dont see a need for the app tape to be different, Perhaps Im missing something, Can you explain?
Peter

[Robert Lambie]

welll… our rolls are 48 & 54inch wide…
lets say you cut a line of text at 2 inch high for a repair job a few miles away.
i would have to tape it with a 610 roll, then cut away the offcut and tack it to somthing untill needed, normaly it would get damged, sruck together or somthing like that. i just see it as a bit of a waste. day in day out, that outlay/waste can only increase as staff arent just as careful as we would like them to be. 😕

[Andy Gorman]

Peter, you have to bear in mind that Rob is Scottish. He hangs his used teabags up in the airing cupboard!

Ah, the old ones are the best. 🙂

Actually, I find it very handy having a few smaller sizes of tape, they just take up too much space most of the time. If you keep some clean, used backing paper laying around it is possible to lift small lines of text off the main roll and re lay them onto the backing paper, without the need to chop them off the master roll of vinyl. If you know what I mean.

[Peter Normington]

Fair comment, but if you cut out of 48″ vinyl 2″ high that gives you 48″ wide so you could sill use 610 to mask.. As for repair jobs you can just cut what you need from 610 Still cant see your logic in having rolls of app tape cut into smaller bits. By having smaller bit of app tape you could be wasting more
Peter

[Peter Normington]

andy
are you sure you’re not from a scotish heritage as well as rob?
Peter

[Robert Lambie]

quote Peter Normington:

Fair comment, but if you cut out of 48″ vinyl 2″ high that gives you 48″ wide so you could sill use 610 to mask.. As for repair jobs you can just cut what you need from 610 Still cant see your logic in having rolls of app tape cut into smaller bits. By having smaller bit of app tape you could be wasting more
Peter

you have completely lost me mate, :lol1:

we cut mountains of work each week using vinyl. your way cannot be more economical in various ways, than to do have precut rolls. (not for us anyway) please explain, as i must be missing something..

im not being funny, honest. i just dont see it. 😕

[Andy Gorman]

Peter, actually, yes. I’m half Lanarkshire, half Lambeth. I’m only half tight.

[Ramj]

Hey rob, he’s saying if you have a line of text/graphic that fits the ~Width~ of the roll, you can roll out 2″ (for example) ~length~ ways, …

I think,

and anyway, both ways would be exactly as economical surely?

you could always do what I do and tape two things at once on the larger app. tape rolls if you haven’t a corresponding size, if neccesary that is

[Peter Normington]

Rob,
You lost me as well. Lets just agree to differ.
Your way works for you as mine does for me 😀
Peter

[Robert Lambie]

still cant see it mate sorry… 😕 we are talking allot of waste as far as i can see. fair enough, cut some from a wider roll and tape a small line of text or whatever, but surely having to continually cut up your wider rolls to suit smaller text is more time consuming, doesnt give as good a job & the offcuts (from experience) normaly end up in the bin. 😕
take these scenarios all day, all week in a busy vinyl production room and your gonna loss out along the line.

if you have a 2 inch line of text, lift a two inch tape, easier to apply, no waste and faster.
you have 6 inch line of text, lift 6 inch roll or closest to it, easier to apply, less waste and neater finish.
you have loadsa text stacked up all over a section of 48 inch wide vinyl. cover the lot in 48inch wide app tape and slit to suit.

[Peter Normington]

[Peter Normington]

Rob, I cant visualise what you mean, a roll of cut vinyl comes out of the cutter, so I put the app tape and then cut to the various components. the waste is waste but the roll size is the governing factor, everythng that you dont want is chucked. so on any roll size how can you save by using small rolls of app tape.,

[Ramj]

It’s down to personal taste, by using lots of little Rolls, Rob doesn’t have to tape the gaps in between each component surely, less waste, when you tape up the vinyl, do you leave any gaps to help you guide more? or do you use clear tape?

[Peter Normington]

might be less waste, but takes a lot more time and time is money.vinyl and app tape are a small percetage of the total cost of the job, so for me time is more valuable and a dont muck around trying to save a quids worth of app tape on a £200 job
Peter

[Robert Lambie]

take a 3inch line or even a 6 inch line 10ft long.
you only have 24inch or 48inch wide tape.
using both those widths are harder to handle so take longer to tape?
using 24inch wide roll to tape one 3 or 6 inch wide stripe 10ft long, is going to waste 21 or 18 inches wide by 10ft long of app tape…
unless you unravel 10ft of the app tape and trim it to size then apply the cut section and keep the large part which will take even longer, the large bit goes in the bin, thats “If” you manage to keep it?
do this several time a day, every day of the week, you not only take much longer, you waste allot of tape. surely turning round and lifting the exact size or very close to roll of app tape and applying in seconds, makes more sense? :headbang2:

this saves time, money & makes the taping much neater 😕

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

[Peter Normington]

Rob,
After you have cut the stripe from a roll, what happens to the remainder of the vinyl? It becomes an offcut. I Can see where your coming from, but if I want a small ammount of vinyl for a repair, or a stripe, I would cut it with other stuff and mask the whole width of the roll, I also dont use 48″ rolls of app tape, I double up with 610, find it much easier to apply by hand as we dont have an app dispenser. I only keep a small quantity of offcuts, and these tend to end up in the bin after a while, or given to the local kids playgroup.
Its down to different methods, For me this way works as I am sure your way works for you
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Peter

[Robert Lambie]

hi peter, this is a long thread now :lol1: :lol1:

anyway,
we dont cut the vinyl from the roll. we lift it onto a fresh bit of carrying paper. roll it outwords and off wee go… cutting it from the master roll is worse than cutting away the app tape & binning.
years ago, when gerber 4B’s & the sprocket machines were all the rage, this was the biggest issue ever. if you cut one bit of the vinyl away from the roll you could not run the rest of the vinyl because the sprockets had nothing to run on (its cut away)
the only option you had back then was to eather drive around with the full roll in your van or lift onto carrying paper. back then it was a pain because the rolls max size was only 12inches wide. nowadays with upto 60inch wide machines on the go, we are faced with the same issues in a way, as cutting away will create waste, much more waste than a small 12inch roll can offer. (but at least we can still use it in the friction fed machines)
so reverting back to the old ways, it saves far more vinyl, application tape and time.

having said this, we are never without offcuts, we have lots of the stuff whci we roll up elastic band round and put in a bag under the table.
we do lots of health and saftey signs, taxi signs etc… if you ever have a slow day or some staff standing doing nothing. give them a rake of standard safety signs to cut up out the scraps, funny signs and the like. apply them to old offcuts of foamex & correx. then stick them in your reception area with a standard price tag, they can be cheap as chip coz you made it from scrap.

then, just waite till the next guys standing in your reception waiting on his van being lettered, on paying his invoice he will say, oh and stick some of these “no smoking signs” 2no. “staff only” and a couple of “male/female toilet” signs… 😉

[Robert Lambie]

i knew i missed a bit.. doh… sorry

double tapping, again its just down to what you prefer but..
if you double tape something, the tape separating can become a problem, when squeegeeing.
the main problem i find is that it is almost impossible to prevent causing a line, or a row of tiny bubble on large graphics right along were you have joined the two tapes.

this isn’t the end of the world i know, but does happen. 😕

i agree with you though mate, its a self preference thing. if its not broke for you, why fix it?

[Peter Normington]

rob
the line of bubs prob did happen when I first did it, but I find if the first piece of app tape is rolled firmly before applying the second, its not a problem.
Peter

[Bill Dewison]

Cunning plan…. if the border you want to cut is smaller than your plotter width, just cut the whole border out, weed the centre and edges, tape it up and Bob’s a not too distant relative married to your Auntie! 😀 A tad wasteful, but it kind of saves lots of measuring, especially if you’re doing a double-lined border or want something with fancy corners etc.

I just a lazy one who likes everything the easy way though 😳 Btw, Big G, thanks for the tip on the teabags in the airing cupboard! 😀 Excellent, I’ll save a fortune!!! 😀

Cheers, Dewi