nightmare shrinkage! what do you think went wrong?

[Rod Gray]

Ouch Cheryl.

Have Metamark seen this yet and offered any reason for it happening?.

My only thoughts are that of under-heating and/or contamination on those edges.

A hazard we`ve discovered over the years is the protective wax used on new vehicles seeps under the rubber when it is applied and temporarily dries. It then melts and seeps back out when a heat gun is pointed at it.

What a mess though, i can imagine you must be very frustrated by this. 🙁

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Have they pressure washed it?
Have you gotten lots of snow and it laid on it?
Just wondering.
Man that sucks.
Looks like an Avery failure but it’s not Avery!
Love….Jill

[John Childs]

Don’t know.

Rod has a very valid point concerning wax, but that would just affect the adhesion and shouldn’t make the vinyl shrink.

[Peter Normington]

Cheryl,
what a bummer.. thats a LOT of shrinkage in such a short space of time.
I cant advise why it happened, but if I where you, I would be on the phone to Metamark to see if they have an answer first.

Peter

[Chris-Hooper]

sorry to see that, I have’nt seen anything come away that bad

could be the wax as mentioned,

was it left long enough before being laminated? did you use any heat when
laminating these? and also could be affected if there was alot of tension on the laminate when being laminated?

[Jason Xuereb]

The last pic looks like the laminate shrinking more then the vinyl itself. If you overstretched you would of had a colour change in the vinyl if it was that severe.

If the vehicle preparation wasn’t done properly the vinyl would more lift instead of shrink back. Shrink is caused by the tension in the vinyl.

Underneath the vinyl where its lifting is there any containment’s on the back of the adhesive?

On the front hood do you give the vinyl a lip so it goes to the underside of the hood then cut it under there?

[Shane Drew]

I don’t use metamark, but this is the worst I’ve seen of any problem like this.

Almost certainly a silicon based contaminate in my opinion. Pretty common problem with new cars off the showroom floor, that have not had concentrated cleaning in the folds and joins. (here at least :(). Is this a well detailed/maintained vehicle? Silicon polishes on the edge after the application is fitted will have the same result. I know a job here that was applied to new glass, and the glazier then fitted it in to the frame, with silicon. The result was almost as bad as this. 3M refused the claim as the silicon bleeds under the print and dissolves the glue

As Jason says, if it was overstretched it would have a colour change at the stretched point.

Did you do it wet or dry?

Would appreciate you letting us know the answer tho, when the suppliers have a look.

Sorry can’t be any better help than that

[Chris Wool]

do you think you could have overheated those areas. not dis similar to a problem i had a long time ago.
in the first attempts i used to overheat causing the glue to weaken in the stretched bits.

use a temp gauge to get used to the temps. then you just use it less & less

chris

[Richard Urquhart]

just had a look at this post and also another post regarding laminating

could this be a possible cause ???

the way the laminating file has been applied to the printed vinyl !!

You`re quite right in your assumption that too much tension can cause future problems with shrinkage or edge curling. I have seen a few instances of a heavy handed operator having too much brake on and within a short time the applied vinyl curling back on itself or shrinking. This can be worse with lower tack vinyls especially monomeric.

now I know md7 is great vinyl but could it be the way the md7 laminate has been applied. i don’t know but it sounds like a poss

[Stuart Taylor]

My suspicion is a combination of too much tension/braking during lamination process and potential wax/grease on surface – This would result in the shrinkage/edge curling effect you can see in the photos, as the vinyl combination tries to return to its original form prior to lamination. Do you have a lot of brake tension on your laminator ?

There is also a possibility of solvent retention in the base film – How long do you leave printed film prior to applying laminate ? 3M recommend 24 hrs drying time of ink prior to applying overlaminate for their wrapping film. This can also cause shrinkage after application.

Recommend the following steps –

(1) Leave print 24 hrs (loosely wound if still on roll) prior to applying laminate – ideally with fans blowing through the loosely wound vinyl to get rid of as much solvent as possible.
(2) Apply laminate with as little heat (if using a heated laminator) and the minimum amount of braking possible.
(3) Clean vehicle with suitable degreasing agent – even IPA won`t get rid of everything
(4) Apply using normal suppliers guidelines including application temperature, post heating to reset cast film etc etc

Apologies if I`m teaching you to suck eggs on any of this but a lot of people don`t realize the problems that points 1 and 2 can cause.

Hope the replacement goes OK for you

[Russell Huffer]

Nothing to do with wrapping but I think proves apoint about laminate pulling the base material, we normally supply around 30 banner stands a week. About 2 months ago we replaced are laminater as it was very tired, towards the end the only way to get it to laminate without airbubbles was to wind the tension right up to maximum, this ment the laminate went on smooth however the next day the graphic had a horrid curl, I belive caused manily by laminate contracting when cooling as it had been applied at 40 C stretched.
The curling problem was no more when we got the new laminater as we use the minimum tension on it.

Russell.

[Peter Normington]

May have been a combination of factors, including appying wet, (you naughty girl Cheryl), not saying it is the main reason, but combined with any of the other things would only exacerbate the problem.
Have you found out the reason yet Cheryl?

Peter

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

just a thought,

I don’t work with metamark, but is the md7 range a cast vinyl or a calandered wrapping vinyl?

mabye that’s the problem.

[Cheryl Smith]

thank you for all your comments and replies.
What I have done is trim all the crinkles out and edged with a quarter inch of cast clear all the way around. Thank goodness that it is a blue car, because it looks good without a hard contrast from paint to print, because of this I did not initially wrap into doors or under bonnet which would have possibly help hold the vinyl in place.
The cast film was all recommended as being the best film with the best laminate for this job. given 24 hours to dry, but overnight with a cold workshop…may be a factor…laminated by hand., Applied dry, On hind site, the vehicle was cleaned with meths and IPA with a paper towel as I had run out of soft cloths, so maybe the wax did not remove properly. I know I did not overheat…the shrink back happened in areas where I had hardly used heat at all.
Now just waiting for a few weeks to see how it goes…Id hate to have to re wrap the whole thing again!
Again thanks for all your valid and valued posts
Cxx

[David Jackson]

Hello Cheryl i have experienced this with Avery 1005 Easy Apply. and what i found out was the out gassing time for the inks. 24 hours is a minimum depending on the facility i was told fans need to circulate warm air around the prints with an extractor system removing solvents from the air. The Vinyl expands slightly when printed cause the inks soften it and if it hasn’t out gassed fully then it does this on the Vehicle when fitted because the vinyl shrinks back to where it was before printing. Have you tried the Avery Surface Cleaner. this is very for degreasing

[Cheryl Smith]

thanks David. I know that the vinyl still smelled of the print, which leads me to believe that it had not dried fully, tho it was 24hour, It was cold and unventilated.. not tried the avery cleaner…been using meths for years and it works well with soft cloth, not with paper towel tho, which can scratch as well.