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Mono or Polymeric vinyls as your go to media?
Having spoken to another sign company last week, I’m starting to wonder if we’re over specifying some jobs.
We keep a stock of 3164, which is used for the cheap as chips flat panel signs, correx boards, and really short term stuff, where lifespans not that important.
Our go to for vehicles & everior signs is MD5. Cracking material, but is it a little overkill for flat panel work? Panel infills, couple of logo’s on a door or sign tray type of work?
MD5 has never failed us, but it’s been suggested that MD3 will be more than sufficient, where it is just flat panels.
MD5 will accommodate some gentle curves, and being rolled into recesses, but it’s not that regular occurrence, and for any ‘wrap’ we’d go onto a cast film.
I’m aware the saving isn’t huge between the two, but could help us keep a little more competitive at times.
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23 Replies
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i think it really depends on your volume of work. For myself its not cost effective to stock a large printable range. I stock a cheap mono for short term unlaminated stickers. A polymeric for everything else. And buy in wrap film by the mtr for specific jobs
I see it that your talking pounds per mtr difference but hundreds of pounds sitting on the shelf
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Same here, I’m just thinking a decent quality Monomeric (MD3) will handle 99% of the work we’re using MD5 for.
We’ve always pushed the quality of the materials, but it seems many don’t care, and it boils down to price.
This part of a bigger rethink we’re having internally.
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I’m on MD% for vehicles, if the customers request anything cheaper we simply tell them it’s not guaranteed against shrinking etc.
MD100 for cheap panels,
MDL100 for contour cut decals (doesn’t distort with the latex heat like MD100),
MD5HB for hi tack,MDX for cheap wrap,
3M or Arlon for longer term jobs.
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I’m looking at changing the way we price vans, and giving a fixed price for a set level of graphics.
Some vehicles we’ll make more, some we make less. I could continue as we are and offer a cheaper option using what we stock, as Hugh says, without warranty.
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I’ve tried in the past to make a set of prices suitable for different sized vans but, thr problem everytime is tat someone will say "oh, I like that one there but I wan’t to change that this and the other, and basically everything else while we’re at it", thus is becomes a bespoke quote again anyway!
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I’m going to do some number crunching tonight.
The plan is not be the cheapest, but reasonably priced. Make it very clear from the start what is included.
We can but try.
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I personally don’t use mono on anything long term like signs or vehicles. Although I can image customers may be happy with a small saving, I can’t imagine them being to happy in 3 years time when the signage is not looking so well. I can also seeing this going against a good reputation, people talking about where the work was done! All your advise will be long forgotten at this stage!
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Quite surprised that it was reputable company who would use MD3, where we’d use MD5.
I’d be interesting seeing what the long term difference was between the two?
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I think scrimping on the quality of the material is a false economy in the grand scheme of things in my opinion. Over a year, you might save enough for a cheap holiday. We are really selling time, the material costs in this industry are tuppence ha’penny if we’re honest. Saving a few quid on a 50 mtr roll of material, is really only a saving of a few pence in metres of print on a job. I never buy monomeric, it will inevitably end up getting used by mistake on a premium job & the damage to your reputation will be far more costly than the £20 saving in vinyl. I wouldn’t lose sleep over a customer that walks away because somebody down the road is £50 cheaper, its like going into a Bentley showroom & complaining about the price because Kia are much cheaper. Keep your standards high, be confident in the fact that your product will far outlast expectations & you don’t need to worry about the disgruntled punters who badmouth their sign makers because they expected far more than they paid for.
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You’re right Kevin, and that’s the mentality I tend to take. Just seems a bit wasteful if 95% of the work we do, we could use MD3, rather than MD5.
Bit like using a cast film for cut lettering on a flat panel, when a half decent polymeric will likely be more than sufficient. Would a customer be unhappy if the graphics started shrinking after 4 years?
I think we can fill some empty hours in the week, with some ‘budget’ work, that still turns a profit. It’s just bringing myself to dealing with that type of customer :shake:
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the difference between my economy MD100 (for site boards, ad boards, cheap stickers etc.) and my premium polymeric MD5 is about £200 a bundle!
I stock both because i couldn’t justify putting £8 a mtr film on correx when £3 a mtr will do!
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Agree with Kevin but we are the same as Hugh.
We laminate even our Monomeric prints for site safety jobs etc.. you never know they might be on site for 2 years.. or longer. Be pretty scuffed and battered by then.
Polymeric for everything else.
Customer recently asked me why my quote was £200 more, not really wanting the job I told him to go out his door, turn left, end of the street. SNP sign, was yellow, now Bleech white in less than 2 years. Called back 10 minutes later and job went ahead.
I agree with Kev though. We can all try and save £1 here, £9 there on how we print things or stock we buy, but end of the day more jobs that come out the workshop a day the more money we make.
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Personally we use polymeric for everything- scrimping on pennies is not the way forward for us. We are happy with our polymeric and the supplier, plus it means we have less to keep in stock. I don’t use the cheapest vinyl, nor will I ever do, but I do have piece of mind knowing that every job o do is consistent and cost effective.
I’m surprised so many on this site are penny pinching over a cheap mono – just my opinion -
Not so much penny pinching.
The 50x unlaminated stickers I will print tomorrow, doesnt warrant a poly.
Customer wont pay for a poly, doesnt care what its printed on. We supply 1000’s to this one customer, and make a nice margin.
The monomeric vinyl is perfectly adequate for that job.
a decent mono might do 90% of work we use a poly for, looking at the prices between a decent poly & mono theres not much in it. Theres a huge difference between a cheap mono and a quality one, but I wouldn’t chance that.
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We use MD3 (couple of dozen rolls a year) for 99% of our work…and 99.9% of that gets laminated in MD3 clear rather than MetaGuard. Lets me do reverse prints without stocking more material.
We find it’s got a 4 to 6 year lifespan. (Most clients update every 3 to 4 years with us). Mainly doing wrapped panels and windows…and occasionally a little vehicle work (which more likely I’d do in polymeric). I never push it beyond its limits. It’s also one of the cleanest peeling medias I’ve used as we do a lot of menu and window reprints. Also, running a 1600mm machine means no joins on even a 10×5 panel and we frequently lay up to 4.5m as a single ‘pre joined’ sign avoiding media joins on long signs too…work with the media limits to our advantage.
It’s not about penny pinching…it allows us to offer a good, maybe not amazing, grade at a price point and see a good return on it.
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As I said, it’s only my opinion [emoji106]
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The main difference is the ability to hold its’ shape. Monomeric will shrink faster and with bigger shrinkage whereas polymeric is a better quality vinyl and will shrink less over a longer term.
It’s horses for courses, there’s not “one size fits all” in this game. Someone who wants sav mounted to board will get mono and if they want vehicle graphics they will get poly. Using mono on a car will get shrinkage at the edges and where the glue was stuck previously will cause that scummy black outer edge as dirt sticks to the previous adhesive.
Neil D.
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I’ve always used polymeric as a good all rounder. We don’t have a high volume of work so it makes more sense to stock as few differing brands as possible rather than have a huge stock of different colours and brands. As others have said unless doing high volume work, the major part of the cost is your time – the vinyl cost should only be a fraction of the selling price
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Polymeric. For everything except temporary correx signs – we keep a roll of cheap digitac for those.
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We’ll continue as we are, Poly for anything external/long term, and cheap mono for anything short term, cheap as chips.
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We use Polymeric or Cast for all vehicle graphics and sign work and all print is laminated with the equivalent base vinyl.
Around 12 months ago we started buying some monomeric in for short term correx boards. In the past, we have always done correx in polymeric but due to now doing high volume correx work we now do it in monomeric. it would be daft not to due to the volume and them being short life promo work and in many cases only used for a week or so…
I see people switching back and forth from one brand/type of vinyl, week in week out, just to save some money.
My first reaction to this is "they are probably not charging their work out properly!"
I am also, very much of the same opinion with vehicle wrapping. the first thing the sign/wrap company does to compete with another company is to switch the quality of their product. I just see it as a "false economy" when everything is taken into consideration unless you have a specific requirement or type of sign you are making in a justifiable quantity. Then yes, of course, you purchase the correct tool for the job. but, as a general allrounder for sign work, it’s polymeric or higher me. -
We stock MD5, and a cheap Mono, Orajet 3164.
Matching gloss laminate for the MD5, and a gloss & Matt for the 3164.
Looking at job we did the other day, using MD5, we actually made more money on two cars, than we do on some larger vans. Especially when you weigh up the time and effort in some jobs. :awkward:
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This has made me look at what I stock…
aside from some older stock that will do for charity jobs until it runs out, I keep a stock of..
3M IJ180 wrap & lam (usually purchased when on offer)
3M 780MC reflective wrap (bought for one regular who pays up front)Metamark:
MDX polymeric wrap & lam, for easier or short term wraps,
MD5 AB & lam – Polymeric air release, block-out, 6-7yr so our go to for vehicle graphics.
MD100 & lam, 3yr mono, used for flat panel advertising hoarding and site boards etc.
MD100L (layflat liner) keeps it’s shape much better in the Latex 26000 for smaller contour cut decals.
MD-WA, artisan wallpaper, self adhesive.
MD-CV, perforated window film.Mainly we go through 1-3 bundles of MD5 a month, and a the same in MD100. I’ve got a bit lazy of late and do proint a lot more than i maybe need too, but like on the other thread about print vs cut, I can print and get on with other work, with cut vinyl it’s cheap but more labour involved, plus the shipping cost if I need to order it in!
I don’t think I keep masses of stock! Much of what is on display, other than the most common colours, is more remnants of rolls for small jobs or display!
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