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should i apply glass etch in pieces and wet?
Hi guys,
I’m pretty new to this board, have only been a memeber for a few months, the demos are brilliant. I’ve only just recently started to do vinyl jobs, i’ve been doing large format printing for the last few years.
I have a customer which requires his shop front windows to be covered with etch vinyl with cut out words. the area is about 2m x 0.5m. Should i apply it wet? should i apply it in pieces? or one long strip. I recently practiced with etch vinyl. i applied it wet to a glass, but it was stretching from the edges of the cut out areas. Any suggestions.
Thanks in advance
Oh my name is Imran by the way.
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4 Replies
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hi imran, and welcome to the boards mate. not sure how long in the sign business but if new then ide suggest do what works for you. if thats wet then wet it is… no point doing the job if you waste it time and time again?
on the other hand it maybe much faster dry and job done in fraction of the time? 🙄personally ide suggest dry, but thats just my opinion. if you can…. do it dry… if your not confident, do it wet and progress to dry at every available opertunity.
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We do a lot of glass partitions in offices with silver etch and almost always apply wet in one piece. If you are cutting out letters, just be careful of any with floating middles, A’s O’s etc when applying making sure they don’t move about when squeegeeing the water out. Although we’ve converted to fitting most vinyls dry now, applying to glass wet we feel is still easier and you can see any bubbles that may occur from the other side of the glass giving you the opportunity to squeegee them out.
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Hi,
On this topic, the trouble I have had applying dry is that I always seem to get some squeegee marks showing after I remove the application tape. This is despite trying gentle squeegeeing, hard squeegeeing and different squeegees. I tried wet application once, but that gave me a lot of trouble with the etch film lifting as I removed the application tape. I would be interested to know where I might be going wrong, as I have a little job to do in York next week.
Are some films better than others? Maybe there is some difference in the adhesives that make some vinyls more prone to show squeegee marks.
Incidentally, the best type of squeegee I have found for this and all my other work is the felt one made by X-FILM. I gave up with plastic squeegees ages ago.
Regards,
David
Leeds.
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i think felt squeegees are best on glass, especially for multilayer work.
(thats IF you are applying DRY) wet app with a felt squeegee just wont work.the showing of your squeegee marks is common on the rear of glass, it can be down to squeegee/vinyl used, the heat of the room/glass etc all this comes into play when appying for this to happen. i think in most cases it disapears when the adhesive gradualy takes on a better bite to the glass, a few days maybe required for that though… to be honest if you apply using multi-directional swipes of your squeegee it becomes much more viasable. use verticle or horizontal swipes only & you do not see it, or not as much…. this is because all the sipes run uniformed. i may not be expalining this too well here 😕 :lol1: look it like this. when we paint a door. we paint with the grain in one direction. if we painted any old way, the different directions stand out like a sore thumb?
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