nightmare job just turned into job from hell

[Mike Thornley]

I suppose the decision is if they are a one off client or a regular one and it comes under the heading of swings and roundabouts.
We have probably all made mistakes in pricing, I tend to look at it over the year and think OK my mistake I will take the hit, but make it up over the year and not upset the client. Personally I always honour the quote.
Have you tried any chemical intervention (the vinyl and not you) and leave it to soak in etc.

[Richard Urquhart]

I think you should stick to the quote, you should not have given a time scale or price for just the reason above, have you tried the 3m graphic removal gel ?

[Dan Osterbery]

What material is the vinyl stuck to? What are the doors made of? I am asking as i had a job like this and the vinyl was an absolute pig to remove. We tried a product called decaptout from HEXIS, smeared it onto the vinyl, and then ran a steam cleaner over it, and it all began to curl up them we used a pressure washer to get the rest off (you would have to do a small test area first). It did bleed some colour out of the vinyl, but it turned an absolute nightmare into a pain in the arse job. It was a completely baked on print a that was laminated (we didn’t fit it but i have never seen vinyl break up into so many small pieces before!) Goodluck.

We trued to explain to the client about the extra time, but they wouldn’t have it, hence us trying the chemical route, but we only ever quote an hourly rate for vinyl removal on a hourly rate now, lesson learnt the hard way!
Goodluck.

Dan

[Hugh Potter]

I agreee with Rich, I would probably stick to the quote this time. I always make a point of telling customers that removal is by the hour and there’s no way on earth I would price it low just to get it, to do it properly can often be very time consuming,

I’ve had vans which on one side came off in 30mins, yet the other side took 4-5hours and still then needed glue removing.. that was the last ever removal I did on price (£60), the biggest removal I did was a 30ft horsebox, that came in at over £600 at my hourly rate, plus the cost of getting in a valeter to buff up the faded paint to remove ghosting etc.!!

The best way is to suggest the customer do it themselves, most of mine at least try when they hear the hourly rate! It may not work for the council but individuals will usually do it, or give up and pay you real money to do it once they’ve realised what a ball ache it is!!

To your job..

Are these double doors on glass? if so, shouldn’t take too long.. you can try vinyl removing gels etc but on glass i simply make downward cuts about 200mm apart, then peel then individually, thinner if need be. Or, I get angry with it and go at it with a razor scraper.. soapy water and a scraper has saved the day many times and will pick up most of the glue with it… you will have some mess to clean up but windows are fairly quick usually.

[Dan Osterbery]

if its glass, then i would go down the soap and water route and a scraper like this! So difficult to mark the glass with them!
Easy to change the blades. Goodluck!

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[Derek Heron]

Hi Martyn

I think we have all been there
have you tried different methods of removal
i did some windows once the first one was a nightmare loads of glue left on i used a glue remover which worked but smeared and dried got in a right old mess my mate said try soap and water :rollseyes: yea whatever :shocked: it was just the job and the rest was easy i also use screen printers screen cleaner on vans and paintwork
what i am saying is you hopefully you find a better method
i still quote with hourly rate for removal and have done jobs which have made me more money taking vinyl etc off

good luck

[Unknown Member]

My advice would be stick to the quote! Very early on when we started we got a nice council contract and on one of the jobs we billed them for more than we quoted, that was the last time we got any work from them again.

[Martyn Heath]

Hi all, thanks for the replies its really helped me to get my head around this job. Ive taken your advice and sent the client an email stating why the job is taking longer than expected and that we will stick to the high end of our initial quote even though its turned into a 4 day job.
All of the vinyl is on glass, the double doors is frosted and the small windows are black gloss (seems to be 7yr).
The outside doors came off fairly well as the vinyl is brittle (-5c) with scrapping. I then use 3m glue remover to clean it up. Have never tried the soapy water method but it sounds like it could work magic.
The internal windows are much harder, having to cut into strips and use elbow grease which is a bit of a killer with this amount of work. Ive never used any sort of chemical vinyl remover, im assuming its a bit like paint stripper and eats into the vinyl then you scape off?.
We tried using a heat gun but it made no difference.

Im guessing this is a learning curve and hopefully i wont make this mistake again.

[Alex Crosbie]

If it’s on glass then get yourself a decorators scraper and plenty of soapy water…. you’ll be amazed! You might get the rest off in a day!

[Hugh Potter]

Hi Martyn,
the soapy water and scraper is the way forward!

Be careful with heatguns on glass, especially if it’s -5 outside,

[Jon Marshall]

So with the soapy water trick are you just talking about water and washing up liquid sprayed on the glass and then scraping?

[Hugh Potter]

quote Jon Marshall:

So with the soapy water trick are you just talking about water and washing up liquid sprayed on the glass and then scraping?

yes, a few drops of liquid to a 500ml spray bottle is enough, if cut lettering just spray everything and away you go. with flood coat you just need to get it started and then soak it as you go, take plenty of paper towel for the mopping up!

I’ll still pullit off first if it comes away, then just soapy water for the glue. with thicker letters (or flood) I just go at small bites of an edge, working in whichever direction suits best. make sure you have spare blades too.. you may need them through breakage or blunting.

it’s also the best way to clean glass prior to final iso prep,

[Chris Windebank]

if you can use soapy water, soak and cover with opened dustbin liners it will absorb better and traps the fluid in
Leave for a few hours much easier.

Also use the gel graphic remover, leave for an hour and makes life simple but costly

[Gill Harrison]

Similar to Chris’s solution but instead of soap and water, try spraying the window Graphics with solvent and then cover with bubble wrap. This methods works great for etch and is certainly worth a go for your situation. The bubble wrap warms the area along with trapping the solvent.

Good luck

[Simon Worrall]

Just to add my 2 cents…if you are going to cut strips against the glass use a stainless steel blade. You wont scratch the glass that way.

Simon

[Martyn Heath]

Hi guys, thanks for the advice and ideas we have tried most of them 🙂
We have finally finished the job, 3 long days in the end.
Heres a picture to show what we were up against, every small square and the doors in the picture were graphics plus the same door section again with squares externally which took me 7 hours yesterday in -6c up a tower to complete. Ive definatly had better weeks at work thats for sure but i think this is a lesson for me to remember.

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[Martin Cole]

Well done Martyn, but definitely a lesson learnt..

That’s a horrible job, looks nearer 200 small windows.
These things are sent to test us so we don’t make the same mistake again.. :awkward: