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is nikkalite reflective available from europoint?
i have designed and registered a few products that i make, and have been selling for the past few months, from what i’m sure is nikkalite, bought from my usual supplier.
Having recently run out of a couple of colours, and with my current marketing racking up lots of orders, i decided to take advantage of the uksg prices with europoint and ordered a fair amount last week, i only opened it today to cut off a couple of chunks for another use, and noticed that it is different to my old stock which is only about 5-6 months old at most,
the new nikkalite is definitely nikkalite, as it is watermarked in the yellowish backing paper, where-as my old stock is simply on a white backing with no name. the old seems fairly sparkly, and seems to pick up the surrounding light better than the new, the new looks less sparkly and more like red vinyl (though it is reflective),
obviously my product has been / is being sold, based on samples i send out made from the old stock, and i’m a little worried that this may be a cheaper, possibly inferior grade, i want to ensure continuity in the product.
is there more than one nikkalite in the cheaper range ? any ideas ?
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9 Replies
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Hugh just checked all my older stock, its all watermarked and it is from europoint, it is similar to lg reflective, I wouldnt say it was sparkly though?
Peter
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hi pete, when i say sparkly, i mean that it looks to have tiny bits of crushed something in it, not glittery, the nikkalite is the same, but finer i guess.
trouble i now have, is that i’m gonna have to test this stuff all over again, to be sure it’s good for the applications i sell it for. 😕
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just checked the vinyl corporation catlogue, and it says nikalite (suited to print / gerber work), could that be the difference ?
i wonder now, if they sold me kiwilite instead, same price. guess i’ll have to try this stuff and see if it applies different, it’s imperitive that it suits the application properly.
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Nikalite was changed a while back to a newer version which was supposed to be easier to remove. The older stuff was much more "crumbly" and broke up when you tried to peel it off. You must have been using the older type which is probably no longer available. Your Europoint agent should be able to advise
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I did try it on my gerber, without success, europoint were unable to offer any advice, so I went back to avery for the print.
Peter
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thanks both,
phil, not so worried about removing it ! among some more ‘usual’ applications, some of the more specialised uses wrap around thin cylindrical shapes, meaning stickiness and conformability are more important than removal, i’ll try it in the morning before sending out the next batches, not much more i can do for now !
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as has been said, it is the new version of nikalite.
the old version was like most reflective vinyls. they break/snap very easy due to how reflective vinyl is made up. this makes it VERY labouring when trying to remove a bit of reflective after making the tiniest mistake.
nikalite have now top coated their vinyl with a polyester film making it much tougher, so doesn’t snap easy. it also improves weeding too as your less likely to tear letters.
i personally prefer the new stuff, its much glossier and as i said, easier to work with.i recon the gloss top coat is probably what is making the glittery effect less noticeable Hugh. but is the same vinyl underneath…
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thanks for that Rob, guess only the application test will tell if the new top coating will effect the some of the uses i market it for.
thanks again all.
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well, as a comparisson tween what i think is kiwilite (my older stock) and the new nikalite, i think the white, green, yellow and blue are equally as reflective, the red and orange are not so, which is a little dissapointing,
however, the tape seems softer than what i used before, so what i loose in reflectabilityness (new word !) i gain in better adhesive and conformity.
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