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wrapping vinyl : which is best?
Got a full van to wrap next week. Done loads of partial wraps in the past but have to hold my hands up here and admit that this will be our first full wrap. This mainly being due to the lack of customers who are willing to pay the money for this kind of work.
Question is this. In terms of ease of fit and cost, which mat’l do you feel is best for the job. Also, when it comes to laminating the prints, who goes with liquid lam and who goes with roll mat’l and how does this affect the fitting?
Look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
Cheers
Gary
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9 Replies
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Hiya Gary,
I’m sure you’ll get different opinions, but I like 3M’s Controltac with the appropriate laminate. Hopefully this link will work. If not, just search scotchprint.com
http://products3.3m.com/catalog/ca/fr00 … utput_htmlCheckers
a.k.a. Brian Born
Harrisburg, PA USA -
Gary, all wrap materials should be a matching set, so laminate is the way to go, your normal supplier of digital media should have a suitable material,
Are you printing and laminating yourself, or buying in?Peter
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What van are you doing? Something with deeper recesses might affect the decision.
Avery vinyls are easy to work with. We did something with MacTac imagine the other week (unlaminated) and I personally thought that was horrible.
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quote autosign:We did something with MacTac imagine the other week (unlaminated) and I personally thought that was horrible.an explanation to why it was would be helpful 😕
nik
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As I have said on previous posts, common sense tells me liquid lam is better than film, if you have trouble getting one layer of vinyl to stay in a recess your chances with 2 are less.
As for which film that depends on the vehicle, shape, recesses etc. the most successful wrapping film (everyone has some sort of failure rate) has got to be, if printed, Avery MPI 1005 (Film Lam Dol 1003) if just a colour change the best reccomendation would be Avery 900 series.
Either of those films may be over spec’d for the particular vehicle you need to do. -
phil…
i have not used liquid lam mate, so i cannot comment on that. however, when dry, what characteristics does it have?
does it stay a soft skin like gloss paint or does it take the usual hard varnish type of protective finish?
if the later, surely it will flake if any sort of pulling out occurs from the base vinyl within a recess. id also imagine it longer to prepair/laminate due to drying time.
if like gloss paint, then i guess it would be OK.
that said, i doubt any type of liquid laminate is going to "protect" prints from abrasion or chemical attack as much as an overlaminate.
as i said, i havent used it, other than frog juice back in the roland pc60 days, but even then i reverted to a clear vinyl for protection.
not disagreeing with you… just voicing some thoughts on the matter… 🙂 -
we use Avery 1005 and liquid Lam.. and Avery series items for standard colours. We have a laminator but dont use laminate wraps for the time being, mainly the effect of having two layers to worry about while heating and getting into position/recesses.
Haven’t tried any thing else, but would like to use a cheaper wrap but dont know if we want to risk it as we have got used to the 1005.
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Peter, yes we will be producing the prints ourselves.
Dave, the Avery 1005 and liquid lam. Who supplies this to you and do you know what you pay for it? Is the Avery 1005 available in 1370 wide and how do you apply the liquid lam? Is it with a roller?
What about ‘Easy Apply’ from Avery. Anybody have any comments about their experience with this mat’l?
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Hiya SD,
A few years ago here in the USA, a lot of sign makers had issues with some of Avery’s vinyls. The problem was the material was shrinking and falling off the substrate on which it was applied within a very short period of time.
Although Avery claims the issue has been addressed and their producs have been modified since, their handling of the issue and subsequent claims left a bad taste in many mouths. I know of at least one person that is still waiting to settle their claim.
I’ll never say that one specific brand of vinyl is perfect. But I can recommend other brands, like 3M and Arlon, and I can comfortably state that these companies would handle the situation differently and in a more favorable manner for the sign maker.Checkers
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