what flooding technique do you use?

[Fat Bob]

Hi Guys

Its Dam hard to try to explain somethingyou get to do as a second nature Normally iwould go dry on that size. But I think you should go wet till you gain more confidence.

Try This If You like. Cut a piece of vinyl approx 50mm Larger than the board you wish to cover. having cleaned your board with meths (assuming your both up for this ) Buy a small garden spray gun. Fill it with a mixture of 1 part meths to 6 parts of water Different people use different
mixes) Water on its own – Water with a single drop of washing up liquid and numerous others. Iuse Meths mix cause i like it after you used it throw it away as after a day or two it stinks and is not as afective.

spray the board lay the vinyl side on to the water ( i do it this way) peel of the backing paper (the suction helps) DO NOT get the backing paper wet as this causes it to stick to the vinyl and is troublesome.
With the paper now off spray the sticky side of the vinyl absolutly soak it your first couple of times till you start to get a feel for the vinyl. Now take a corner each lift and turnit over line it up so you do cover the whole board Ifind it easy to keep one end up line the other up with the corners then slowly let it down if you have a lot of water down it will seem to flow on and as the back is already wet it helps to stop the viyl scratching as you squgee the water out from the centre Out. Again this is a preverence but i seem to do a sort of herringbone patern thing. if your still a bit worried try it on a formica work survace with any old bit of scrap vinyl first.

Hope this helps …..FB

[John Singh]

Excellent advice from Bob

Just another tip
Use a scalpel or blade along with a straight edge to cut back about one sixteenth short of the edge

This will help you to expel the water at the edge properly and stop it being caught and lifted accidentally

John

[coolinshot]

Hi – the favourite method used here is as Fat Bob says (with the meths and water) we also spray the gloss side of the vinyl when it’s down with water & W\U Liquid and smooth down with a rubber squeegee (as used by screenprinters) – the “fairy” acts as a lubricant and stops the rubber from sticking / marking the surface (make sure you wear your rubber trousers though)
Col

[ruth]

Thanks for the tips guys, I did it wet, exactly as FB suggested but sadly it all went wrong! All down to my squeegy technique I’m sure but I got into a mess. I decided to do it dry…. New piece of vinyl, fortunately an error in ordering left me with plenty to spare and then carefully just using my finger to squeegy we moved down the length of the board peeling the backing paper back 2 inches at a time. The alluminium however did not like to go dry but it responded much better to the wet so small was done wet and the big dry.

Now that I applied a big scary piece of vinyl dry am I a MAN of the signmaking world or do I need to be able to layer complex designs dry too?

Sadly the application of the design proved too much of a nightmare so I’ve had to call in the emergency services(Signjoe) to assist.

Thanks again for the tips, most instructive

Best regards
Ramjam

[Fat Bob]

Well done guys you just learned a big lesson and that is that even the simple jobs can be pain in the neck you also learned that you can do a job in a varity of ways nothing is set in stone.

And the very fact that you did a piece of vinyl with your hands is good as you will get a feel for your materials and what they react to very Quickly
and the good news is you suceeded in doing something on your own give you a couple of more weeks and you will soon see a big improvement.

Bet you got a big buzz when you done it……… when you lose that buzz
its time to Quit or youll end up in same slave like drudgery that other poor misfortunates call a life.

Love to you both………..FB another old funky fart.

[Kevin Flowers]

quote Fat Bob:

Well done guys you just learned a big lesson and that is that even the simple jobs can be pain in the neck you also learned that you can do a job in a varity of ways nothing is set in stone.

And the very fact that you did a piece of vinyl with your hands is good as you will get a feel for your materials and what they react to very Quickly
and the good news is you suceeded in doing something on your own give you a couple of more weeks and you will soon see a big improvement.

Bet you got a big buzz when you done it……… when you lose that buzz
its time to Quit or youll end up in same slave like drudgery that other poor misfortunates call a life.

Love to you both………..FB another old funky ( PARDON ME ).

Hi
i have found each vinyl responds to different techniques, the problem that was encountered with the ali for instance. i use doro tapes aislan 118 at present and have just done fall cover on 5′ x 6′ boards 2 off ali and 2 off foamex these were covered in strips 2′ wide. These were done dry and by my self, the first strip was aligned and taped in place and alignment marks placed at the opposite end and then taped down. the first end was then lifted a few inches of backing removed allowing the vinyl to be stuck to the substrate. the other end was then untaped and the backing was pulled back whilst holding the vinyl high to keep from contacting substrate. The vinyl was then lowered whilst being kept taunt on to its alignment marks. Using a felt squeege the vinyl was pressured applied to the substrate from the centre of the board out, if a large bubble appeared due to misalignment the vinyl was lifted and laid back down although if you follow the union jack approach for pressure applying due can pretty much eliminate the need for lifting. The over hang at each end was warmed with hot air gun and then returned on to the rear of the board. This was repeated for each strip with a 1 cm overlap on each strip 3 strips for each board, graphics were then applied over this these were applied with Rapid-tac as i find that this is quicker to work with than water mixtures and if you are multi layering as i was speed comes in handy.
Hope this leaves you wanting to try both applications again because vinyl application is about practise and teaching yourself from each different job you do. No i am not a seasoned professional just a rapidly ageing engineer who got fed up with machinery and facied a change 2 year of trading and still surviving

Regards
KTF 😛

[Martin Pearson]

Well done guys, it couldn’t all have gone wrong if you got the job done. There are loads of ways of applying vinyl, find the way that suits you best and stick to it.
One thing to take on board from this is that mistakes can happen at any time, you ordered to much vinyl by mistake which you ended up using because you spoiled a bit. If I have a job to do I always make sure I have more than enough vinyl to do the job, this way if I do make a mistake I can still get the job done and if I dont make a mistake I have an extra bit of vinyl in stock.
Next time you have a job like this to do I’m sure it will be a lot easier as you have now got over your fears. We use a different method to Bob, I didnt say anything before because I didnt want to confuse you with lots of different methods and the way Bob does it works well.
We lay the vinyl over the board face up and ensure there is an overlap all the way round. We then tape the vinyl to the bench at one end, this then acts as a hinge. We remove the backing paper wetting the vinyl as we go, we normally remove all the backing paper at once but if the board is really long you can do it in stages. We then lift the free end of the vinyl back over the board and one of us holds it above the board while the other one starts to squeegee from the taped end.

[Robert Lambie]

did the alluminium have a thin skin of protective cover on it when you got it? just a thought on why may have had probs.. 🙄

[ruth]

Rob,

The alluminium was actually signicolour from Amari so it was painted one side, (I’d ordered a sheet for a different job). The was no protective film left on after I prepared it but I think it was a something to do with static electricity. The foamex generates quite some charge as you remove the protective film, just as the vinyl does as you remove the backing paper, the alluminium of course simply conducts away any charge.

I’m sure that I could have applied the flood to the alluminium dry if I’d had someone to hold the ends but she’d got fed up of my swearing and cursing and gone to the pub by then.

Is there a supplier out there who offers a uniform set of coulours across different materials, ie could I buy painted alluminium, forex top and vinyl all in the same colour in a manner whereby I could make different elements of a company’s signage in the same colours that would fade at the same rate across different materials,,,, I guess I’m just dreaming, let me guess????? I have to match the colours as best as possible by eye then just hope that the manufacturer claims for UV stability and weather protection are acurate, that or just cover everythingin the same vinyl as I did here?