What vinyl and laminate recommended?

[Peter Normington]

John,

you are asking the length of a piece of string!

If you are just starting with print i would say buy a roll of medium quality vinyl, and compatible lam, before going for anything expensive. Price will depend on the deal you can do with your supplier. Your current supplier will probably be the best avenue to go down, as you will already have a relationship with them, and they should be more than happy to give you a favorable rate.

Peter

[Martin Pearson]

Sorry John, I would have to agree with Peter. Try your normal vinyl supplier first as they are likely to be in a position to offer you the best deal on both vinyl and laminate.

A bit more detail would probably help as well, did you buy the printer for a particular type of sign work that you are already doing or did you buy it hoping to move into an area of the market that you don’t get that involved with at the moment.

As for wrapping how much experience do you have with vehicle wraps? If you have a fair bit of experience then what materials have you been working with already? Might be better to stick to what you are use to applying. One thing to remember is that you should really use a matched system for vehicle wrapping so what ever vinyl you choose you will need to use the matching laminate.

[Karl Williams]

John,
If you ring round a few suppliers they will be more than happy to send you samples for you to try out. I was impressed by how much material I was sent to try out. Asking the right questions is difficult if you are new to the printside of the game mate, so don’t worry if you confuse a few people through lack of experience.

[simple signs]

Cheers guys,

have spoke with suppliers and have samples of metmark and ritrama.

Better to get from the horses mouth ie you guys who actually use the stuff rather than rely on sales babble.

I am wondering whether i can print essentially stickers as to cut and weed out vinyl. Anyone else found they now print something where before they would cut and weed?

I will probably be printing and sticking to pvc mostly but would be using colour images on vehicle graphics, general consesus as i can see is laminate it for rubbing and scratching etc.

Will look at a wrapping course later in the year.

Was just hoping to get an idea of what is being used so i can talk to the right people at sign uk when i am there.

The info you guys offered is great but what do you use?

Cheers

John

[Robert Lambie]

what day are you going to signuk? are you staying overnight, or back same day?

I use Oracal digital and laminate from Europoint Display. there are many suppliers, most, if not all reputable ones offer digital media.
Grafityp
Spandex
Metamark
COX
Andersons
etc etc

when it comes to wrap material its a bit of a different story…

as for printing rather than cut, yeh we do lots of stuff in print as oppossed to cut vinyl. we now do runs of hundreds, if not thousands of print and cut stickers, labels etc stuff we never offered our customers before.

banners for one… we never did much digital printed banners, now we have them coming out our ears. before the days of our printer it was always cut vinyl on banners.
.

[Gab James]

Robert, how do you finish the banners you print, do you stitch them up or fold or just leave, do the edges even need finishing.

Cheers
Gab