Signs: Freeway

[Jill Marie Welsh]

…only if it had a bean burrito for lunch….
seriously, I have heard that the acrylic,
if masked,
needs to be unmasked
and left sit for a few days before applying vinyl.
I know someone that this happened to and that was supposedly the cause.
I think that eventually the bubbles went away.
Don’t do much acrylic stuff myself.
Love….Jill

[Andy Gorman]

Never had a problem like that before.
Was the acrylic flame polished or cleaned with something that has left a residue? I know coloured acrylics are supposed to have a ‘face’ side, something to do with settling of pigments, but I don’t know if this applies to clear.

[David McDonald]

The panel was ‘masked’ on both sides and I immediately applied the vinyl as soon as this was removed – maybe I should have left it for a few days as Jill suggests.

I’d requested the edges to be flame polished from my supplier but they could have been polished or laser cut – I can’t tell.

I have a gut feeling that the bubbles will disappear as soon as they came I will have to wait and see.

Macky

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Jillbeans:

…only if it had a bean burrito for lunch….

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

nice signs macky!! 😀

nik

[Andy Gorman]

You did clean the panels before applying the vinyl, didn’t you? If you didn’t, that may be the problem. The protective polythene stuff can leave a residue of…..stuff on the sheet.

[John Cornfield]

You probably used cast acrylic – the expensive type. Cast acrylic can bubble when graphics are applied.

We work with a lot of acrylic, mounting graphics on the inside face mostly for George Wimpey.

Extruded acrylic – the cheaper of the two does not produce the bubbling.

The bubbling comes when the acrylic gets hot we learned the hard way with aload of lightboxes we had put graphics on.

Cheers

John

[David McDonald]

Hi Big G

I cleaned the panels with Rapd-Tac which according to the data sheet is OK for cleaning glass & acrylic – although reading their list of uses there isn’t much you can’t use Raid-Tac for (could just be a ploy to get you to buy more).

Now you’ve asked the question though this does sound a fairly likely cause – maybe I should have used Iso alcohol?

Macky

[David McDonald]

Popdog

Yep it was cast – I shall take your advice and from now on I will only use cheap materials to make signs out of! (or for acrylic ones at least).

Macky

[Andy Gorman]

I’d be inclined to request a data sheet from your supplier and see what their recommendations are. I’ve put a lot of vinyl onto cast acrylic and never had this problem before. I clean first with either isopropyl or meths.

The only time I’ve had graphics bubble after application was with a solvent print onto metal once, and the bubbles diappeared a few days later.

[Rodney Gold]

Acrylic should not out gas at all (tho some forms can absorb a bit of moisture if stored flat in a damp environment for a long time)
Be VERY careful when cleaning it with some solvents
(like meths, benziene etc) as the machining process (especially flame polishing or laser cutting) puts incredible stress into the materials and can lead to stress cracks or crazing developing. (especially near the machined edges , the flat parts are generally not a hassle)
Often these cracks only appear hours , days or even weeks after. Extruded acrylic is the worst to use in this regard.
We just laser cut 5000 disks for a screen printer (with a whole lot of holes etc) and he supplied the material – the only way to cut these was with a laser
We initially did the samples in cast which he supplied and then he delivered the cheapest extruded he could get for the production run , we advised him to go for cast due to stress problems, but he was penny pinching and insisted we go ahead without another sample and the discs almost grenaded when the screen print inks solvents contacted them – cost him a LOT of money.

The acrylic will expand quite a bit in heat and combined with a wet application trapped behind the lettering could be the cause of bubbling.
Cast acrylic is better to use for large panels as it expands equally in all directions , extruded expands more in the direction its extruded and can buckle – extruded is better to use for construction as it’s thickness tolerance is much less than cast (which can vary by up to + and – 10-15% over a sheet)
In general , with acrylics , the accepted norm is that the side with the printed covering is the face.

[J_J_O]

Great signs Macky, I always like these standout translucent signs. The combination with brushed alu (effect) looks very nice, I might make one for myself like this 😀 .

Haven’t worked a lot with acrylics yet, but I talked about this subjkect with another local signmaker a few weeks ago. He made a large 3m wide translucent acrylic sign with coloured acryl routed letters on top. When they hang it on the shop it looked perfect, when he came back three days later to deliver another order to the customer he saw that the complete baseplate was waving. The customer hadn’t noticed this yet ( 😮 ) and so he didn’t mention it but returned the next day with his tools to put more connections on it, when he arrived the sign was again perfectly flat .. and it still is 😀 . Like Rodney said, there are pretty big tolerances with acrylics.

As for what I have learned so far with acrylics and eevn Polycarbonat is that it is always best to apply dry, specialy for outdoor signs, did you?

JJ

[handyman]

Hi Macky D

The signs look very good indeed!, Shame about the bubbling!

The perspex that you have used is cast perspex colour code 6T21, this is made especially for sign making, so I cannot see the problem being the perspex as it is used for thousands of signs each year.

Perhaps it was what you used to clean the surface or some fault with the vinyl, I am no expert on either!

Big g is correct about there being a show side and a under side but this does not apply to clears and tints as they are the same colour all the way through the sheet. Solid colours can differ ever so slightly from the show face and the underside of the sheet, although a human eye would struggle to tell!

There is a booklet available in pdf format, which tells you quite a bit about perspex, it’s called the perspex workshop manual. If you click on this link you can download it for free, once downloaded simply save it to your pc for future reference.

ultimatehandyman

(mod-edit) admin@uksignboards.com

[J_J_O]

That is a lot of info on perspex handyman! Thanks for sharing.

I would even add (mod-edit) admin@uksignboards.com as this is very informative about handeling the material.

Thanks again for your input handyman

JJ

[handyman]

JJ, you are welcome!

I hope to improve the acrylics section of my site substantially, when I have finished the electrical and plumbing centres lol. Hopefully I will pick some good tips up from you guys on here!

Macky D, have the bubbles gone from the signs above?

Did you get to the reason why the vinyl bubbled?

Thanks

ultimatehandyman

[Robert Lambie]

i know what your probably gonna say about this but ide have used toughend or laminate glass with polished edges. i like the signs you have made, nice one… only bit of constructive crit would be to down size all the vinyl work about 15%

thanks for taking the time to post your work mate.

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Went back and had a look yesterday and 99% of the bubbles have gone?

Rob – thanks for the constructive crit, can see what you mean.

Thanks
Macky