[David Stevenson]

Sorry Jean but that’s a goner. Once you delete something in Versaworks there’s no way to bring it back. We’ve tried to get into a habit of saving any job (2nd option , including source file) that needs cut at a future date. It also helps to set the presets for your queues with a fixed width & spacing in the event you need to reload your job. We’ve ours set for 99% of jobs to 1300mm wide with a 15mm space. There’s always that day you forget to save and hit delete 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Thanks for the reply’s guy, sorry for the delay replying. Thankfully it seems we’ve doing the same as everyone else.

Many thanks,

David

[David Stevenson]

We use a lot of Oracal 970 and like Robert says it definitely doesn’t like the cold. It is however much more forgiving than Avery been that bit thicker and if I’ve a 2nd pair of hands I prefer it for certain jobs. For De-chroming (we do a lot of that) I find been that bit tackier helps prevent it lifting. We also use Oracal 3951GRA which is a printable wrap. It has a repositionable adhesive which works really well provided you allow it to outgas properly before laminating (at least 24hrs). If you don’t let it outgas you’ll see a massive difference in the tack it has. Oracal also have a material called 3551RA which is a budget wrapping vinyl. It’s new to us but I really like it for things like box vans, catering trucks etc. Again if allowed to outgas properly it’s really easy to fit and conforms really well around raised objects. We recently used it on a huge coffee & ice cream trailer which was covered in a couple of hundred rivets. Whilst we still cut around the rivets when we were finished it made dealing with them so much easier. It’s also a printable material. Hope this helps

David

[David Stevenson]

You could give “Roughmark GF285” fr0m General Formulations a go. Haven’t yet found anything it doesn’t stick to including concrete walls!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdCq_JCX_TY&t=102s

[David Stevenson]

Well no matter what we say customer is insistent that we install DiBond panels to the front of the building. Despite showing them several building covered with huge banners they believe banners to be a temporary solution. So out with the battens we go to try and level it out a bit.

[David Stevenson]

Hi Richard, the biggest problem we have found that even with our “Impact” & “Sign Elements” templates neither are 100% accurate. We would generally make the panels slightly larger, put knifeless tape around the edges, apply the panel, then use the knifeless tape to trim them back to size. We wouldn’t do enough of the same vehicles to justify the time to make custom templates however if you’d a big fleet coming in it may be worth your while. If you’re working on vehicles a lot then the above named templates are well worth the investment. If you have a look on eBay you can sometimes pick up a slightly older version however the vehicles would be slightly out of date.

[David Stevenson]

If you’ve space I’d recommend going for one that will take a 8ft sheet. Makes cutting correx, foamex, etc a breeze. Also very useful for scoring DiBond before snapping. Great machines although their steeltrak is useless for v-grooving boards as advertised even with the upgrade fitted 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Hi Tim, I don’t know of any Vvivid suppliers in the UK but it might do no harm to have a look at Teckwrap materials. They’ve some incredible colours compared to some of the big players here. It’s a calendared material though rather than cast so I bit more work involved in fitting and a 3 year lifespan compared to 7 on some others. Looking to buy a VW Scirocco and wrap it with one of their materials.

[David Stevenson]

Hi Iain, Have a look at this, should hopefully help you on your way – https://youtu.be/Iyh3OVZ560A

[David Stevenson]

Had a go Neil using your techinque and have to say we’re delighterd with the results 🙂 Perfectly smooth edge, finished product looks great. We’ve also ordered a downward spiral bit as recommended by Simon. The V bit creates a very thin black border which doesn’t bother us but will no doubt upset some awkward customer. Slowly getting the hang of this cnc , only broke 1 £70 bit and 2 £25 oscillating blade so far!!! We’ll get there in the end lol

[David Stevenson]

Food for thought guys. Would like to get this perfect if possible. The cnc has endless possibilities it seems. Looking forward to whats to come 🙂

[David Stevenson]

Cheers folks. Have to get registered now to make plates and stay legal. Had a play about with tape and glue, tape wins hands down, glues to mesy or at least when I’m using it.

[David Stevenson]

We haven’t a camera but have been printing a thin line around around the borders of our artwork and using this to line the cutting head up to. It was a pile of small signs for an outdoor pursuits company and it seemed ideal rather than putting each graphic on individually after cutting the dibond to get the cnc to cut them. Was hoping for a lazy, sorry automated way of doing jobs like this to get a perfect finish. We find it difficult to get a nice edge on dibond when cut manually. I know you can snap it quite easily but it always seems to have a slight bend in it afterwards which drives my ocd crazy lol. Thinking about possibly swapping to acrylic for some jobs and cutting them on the laser but this is a massive increase of cost for acrylic v dibond. It’s fitted with an oscillating head but I dont think the blade would be capable of cutting dibond 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Trying to decide what’s annoying me the most, the letters been bent or it running up to the right hand side 🙁 I think the bent letters win

[David Stevenson]

I see what your saying Robert. Perhaps VHB would be a safer bet long term. Going to have a play about to how they look. Will have a look at the hemming tape also. Thanks

[David Stevenson]

We’ve no experience at all with a CNC Robert so it’s a steep learning curve ahead. Snapped a £90 bit already by not setting our Z point properly (lesson learnt). I’d noticed the marks before on the paper templates that came with pre-cut lettering we’d ordered so that ties in with what your saying Phil. Is there a set number of locators required for each letter or a case of “that looks about right”? Would appreciate any further advice anyone can offer, we need this machine to start paying for itself sooner rather than later. TIA

[David Stevenson]

We’d definitely print those. Lay out your design, load your printer, hit print (with margin marks), walk away. All you’re left to do then is trim and add grommets. You could even add grommet marks in your design software so you haven’t even to measure them out. What’s the old saying “why buy a dog and bark yourself” 😉

[David Stevenson]

Hi Carl, We have a Roland GR640 cutter. It has a really frustrating feature were you have to manually change the position of the blade when changing between cutting and perforating. We print loads of stickers and thought it would be ideal to let our EJ640 print overnight then drop the roll into the GR the next day and leave it to cut. After a few metres of vinyl the tracking runs off so bad it can no longer read the registration marks, plus if your cutting then perforating sheets your constantly running back and forward changing blade position. That been said when cutting normal coloured the accuracy of the cuts is amazing. It can cut incredibly small text without any problems as long as your sheet isn’t huge. As for reflective it will rip through that without any problems, it can put down 600g of force!

[David Stevenson]

I wouldn’t be to concerned about its power for all your doing with it. A 1200w should rip through dibond no problems. The bit we use came from ITC, it’s a 6mm shank so would fit your collet. If your router has an edge guide you’ll find this extremely useful for keeping it running straight at a set distance from the edge.

[David Stevenson]

We’ve done quite a few using this method. You definitely need a decent v-groove bit with a flat bottom or your material will split when folded. You need a big flat bench to ensure your groove is equal in depth along it’s length. You can buy a router with a connection for a vacuum cleaner. We’ve a Bosch one which we connect to Henry. You can either glue the corners or rivet / screw angle brackets in to hold them in place.

Check out this link for details, there’s a section dedicated to folding dibond – https://www.curbellplastics.com/Research-Solutions/Technical-Resources/Technical-Resources/Dibond-Fabrication-Manual

[David Stevenson]

We’ve done a few now Martyn and just used Oracals 3651 for digital print and 651 for cut vinyl. One was for a lasy who loved gardening so had the sides and top wrapped with gardening themed graphics. We got the coffin without the handles fitted with made the job quite straight forward. Another had pictures of tattoos printed and applied ramdomly to it for a tattoo artist. The first one however was the saddest. It was simply angels and butterflies cut from black vinyl and applied to a white coffin. The girl passed away suddently before we’d time to get them applied so I put on my best suite and applied them in the persons house after the undertakers closed the coffin for me. The family came in afterwards and were quite upset (in a good way) when the seen it finished. I wear my heart on my sleeve so had to make a quick exit before I was in tears too. One of the simplest but most rewarding jobs we’ve ever done.

One thing to rembember Martyn if you start this is the turnaround time is always very fast. We didn’t bother de-gassing before laminating, just print – laminate – apply. You wouldn’t even need lamiate but freshly printed vinyl is like jelly and a pain to install. You could always use a sticker paper if you want something biodgradable.

[David Stevenson]

Don’t feel bad Tim I’m here on a Saturday too reading your post lol. Seen these before and was definately tempted to try one. I normally use whats known as the “Pre-stretch” technique – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FY8tHiQDq0

This video shows the tool it in action – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlGvITjN3hk

For £30 it might be worth a try. If it doesn’t suit stick it on eBay

The Sassercut looks ggos but I’m pretty certain I can do just as good a job with a NT-Cutter A-553P knife

[David Stevenson]

We’re wrapping the entire mirror cover including the part at the side. Basically changing its colour completely. I do the small inner section 1st then the main cap with a 2nd piece of material. Don’t see the point in overstretching the material to risk it failing in the future.

[David Stevenson]

Good job Tim. Practice makes perfect as they say. We’re located in an industrial estate near the local Citroen dealer. Have lost count of the number of roofs and mirrors we’ve wrapped for them, easily 40 or 50! For a while there they were coming one after another. Was wrapping mirrors in my sleep 🙁

+1 More Photos

[David Stevenson]

That’s my 7th now Tim. Once you catch the mini bug it won’t go away 🙁 Every time I sell one a couple of years later another magically appears (to my wife’s disapproval lol).

It was resprayed years ago Gary. I’d love to wrap it but it’s 29 years old and there’s a couple of small rust spots appearing which would need dealt with before wrapping. It’s the normal problem, time & money.

[David Stevenson]

Graphics look great Tim, pity the cars look horrendous 🙁 As a classic mini owner I’ve still never warmed to these lol. Here’s mine 🙂

[David Stevenson]

Regardless of price that’s horrendous!!! I honestly don’t even think on my 1st days training with Justin Pate I was that bad. We wouldn’t let that out the door. We’d give the money back before putting our name to that. She’d probably have done just as good a job herself 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Well that’s both our XR640 & EJ640 back on genuine inks again. Only time will tell if it fixes our problems with faulty heads. Our supplier has admitted there may be a problem with the inks the supplied us with!!! 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Hi, have a word with https://www.opuscnc.co.uk/

We’ve a cnc router and laser cutter on route from them. Steep learning curve ahead!!!

[David Stevenson]

Simple advice but I always find when using cutting tape that it’s best to leave plenty spare and get it started at both ends if possible before applying your material. That way if the tape messes up when starting it you can reapply without trying to get it picked out from under your graphic which is a real pain in the ars*.

[David Stevenson]

We’ve bought one of these and have to say it’s fantastic. 2 of us can build and dismantle it in a matter of minutes. Super study, highly recommended.

http://www.laddersandscaffoldtowers.co.uk

https://youtu.be/Ak40m-URuMo

3T-Industrial-Scaffold-Tower.jpg 45 KB Image File - Click to view

• Copy Download Link

[David Stevenson]

What about these guys – signgeer.com

We use them all the time but can be a bit awkward as you need a pair of hands on both side of the fence sometimes. One person to hold the fixing in place and another to feed the bolt through

[David Stevenson]

MDP Supplies do them but keep a close eye on the quality. We had some really rough edges on a job recently isn’t like them. Guessing someone was having a bad day

[David Stevenson]

Cheers Robert. I’d say we’ll need a few of those for sure. Looks the job

[David Stevenson]

Waiting patiently for our CNC and laser cutter to arrive to upscale some balsa wood model plane plans for my dad. He’s 82 and totally amazed with all the technology nowadays. I can just see his 1st 6ft long Spitfire coming out of his garage lol

[David Stevenson]

We’ve been having the same problem for years. Seems to be the nature of the beast with tape. I just try now to wrap them really loosely.

[David Stevenson]

That’s actually a really smart way of doing it and in my opinion adds a bit of life to a rather boring solid frosted window. Doesn’t offer totally privacy but you’d look a real weirdo staring through the gaps to see in

[David Stevenson]

Went on a window tinting course and the theory behind it is simple. The reality I’ve found is very different. There’s absolutely no second chance with tint. One mistake and it’s in the bin. Without a doubt one of the most hateful jobs I’ve ever done. On some windows the film slips into the channels no problem, others it seems near impossible. There’s a local guy who does all the car garages around here, we just point people in his direction.

[David Stevenson]

Like David we also tried Sott Application Fluid. Completely useless. Causes more problems than it solves. I find on very rare occasions the pure waters just as good. Only do it once in a blue moon, normally when fitting clear material.

[David Stevenson]

Keep a check as well James that the material is lying flat in the machine. We’ve had instances were we’ve been working with a stiff media and it hasn’t been lying properly in the machine. Solved this by holding it down with a metal ruler while each mark was been read

[David Stevenson]

It’s a hard call James. To be honest if it’s was us we’d have printed it all with a cut line round all the elements with a bit of bleed added to them, laminated it then put it through the cutter to make it into cut graphics. The only time we’d flood fill a panel is if it was a totally different colour to the vehicle. Like you say there can be a massive difference in colour / finish between the two. For the value of it we’d strip it off and redo it as the customer asked. Would be a real pain though if you had to make it up from layers of different coloured vinyls. By refunding it in full you’ve lost the money for the original graphics whereas if you redo it and keep their money you might still make a few quid and keep a potential future customer.

[David Stevenson]

Cheers Michael, Looking at a few machines and trying to get our head around prices. Trying to decide if the extra cost for auto tool change and an oscillating knife is worth the extra cost. Would want dust extraction for definite. Price seems to vary between £8000 and £30000. Can we justify the extra cost for the more expensive machine when we’re only new to CNC? Hard to know.

[David Stevenson]

Thank you Kevin that’s an extremely kind offer, you may find us on your doorstep someday. We’re also toying with the idea of a cnc router. Again HPC seem very good for price and the service they offer. It’s good to hear Phil you’ve bought so much equipment from them. The fact you’ve 6 machines speaks volumes for their service.

[David Stevenson]

Thanks folks, food for thought. Seems to be a very useful piece of kit. Going to have a chat with HPC and see what they can offer us.

[David Stevenson]

Cheers folks, food for thought for sure. Going to have a good look around to see what we could produce with both. It’s a gamble for sure especially as things stand at the moment but hopefully one that will pay off. Thanks Kevin "catches fire a little bit!" sounds like fun!!!

[David Stevenson]

Definitely found it strange I’d been told that laminate wasn’t needed. I’ll go with my gut instinct and laminate it like advised by you guys. Like yourself Kevin we laminate almost everything just in case. 🙂

[David Stevenson]

quote Alex Crosbie:

David Stephenson, have you ever considered a job as an MP?! Or possibly a government advisor [emoji23]

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] It really is difficult to understand.

[David Stevenson]

quote Gavin Dooley:

I bought a Rollover last September.
Check out Rob’s post, especially the bubble free video (I think number 8) showing lamination of a vinyl print.
This type of production hasn’t been great as the printed vinyl puckers inward causing creases.
After much (oh, im a bad boy!) around with the supplier, the manufacturer sent a guy from their base to check out the issue.
Turned out that it needed calibration which involved slight adjustment to the glass bed. This helped some bit……it looks like the vinyl I am using, ie, Oracal is the real problem, as we tried some other brands with little or no issue.
It seems like there is an issue with the backing paper. I got some samples of General Formulations vinyl and things seem perfect.
7 months of pulling my hair out has got me to this point.
So, check that the brand of vinyl you use will work!!
Note: I’ve used Oracal vinyl for years & in my opinion it is the best I’ve ever used, never had any problems. Maybe the backing paper has been altered in some way, possibly something to do with latext printing.

The Rollover is just the business for laminating direct onto boards!!

That’s interesting Gavin as we also have the same problem when trying to laminate with ours (rollover). Using Oracal for 99% of our jobs. Normally just use the laminator to laminate but would be nice to have the confidence to use the table for smaller job without the worry of it messing up. Other than that it’s a fantastic table

[David Stevenson]

This sums things up nicely…. [emoji38]

So in case you are confused… These are the rules in the UK

1. You MUST NOT leave the house for any reason, but if you have a reason, you can leave the house.
2. Masks are useless at protecting you against the virus, but you may have to wear one because it can save lives, but they may not work, but they may be mandatory, but maybe not.
3. Shops are closed, except those shops that are open.
4. You must not go to work but you can get another job and go to work.
5. If you are sick, you can go out when you are better but anyone else in your household can’t go out when you are better unless they need to go out.
6. This virus can kill people, but don’t be scared of it. It can only kill those people who are vulnerable or those people who are not vulnerable. It’s possible to contain and control it, sometimes, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.
7. Gloves won’t help, but they can still help so wear them sometimes, or not.
8. STAY HOME, but it’s important to go out.
9. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarkets, but there are many things missing. Sometimes you won’t need loo rolls but you should buy some just in case you need some.
10. The virus has no effect on children except those children it affects.
11. Animals are not affected, but there was a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…
12. Stay 2 metres away from tigers (see point 11).
13. You will have many symptoms if you get the virus, but you can also get symptoms without getting the virus, get the virus without having any symptoms or be contagious without having symptoms, or be non contagious with symptoms…it’s a sort of lucky/unlucky dip.
14. To help protect yourself you should eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand as it’s better not to go to the shops, unless you need toilet roll or a fence panel.
15. It’s important to get fresh air but don’t go to parks but go for a walk. But don’t sit down, except if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant or if you’re not old or pregnant but need to sit down. If you do sit down don’t eat your picnic, unless you’ve had a long walk, which you are/aren’t allowed to do if you’re old or pregnant.
16. Don’t visit old people but you have to take care of the old people and bring them food and medication.
17. You should not go to the Doctor’s or to the hospital unless you have to go there, unless you are too poorly to go there.
18. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house. These deliveries are safe. But groceries you bring back to your house have to be decontaminated outside for 3 hours including frozen pizza.
19. You can’t see your older mother or grandmother, but they can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.
20. You are safe if you maintain the safe social distance when out but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.
21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours … or four hours…or six hours… I mean days, not hours. But it needs a damp environment. Or a cold environment that is warm and dry… in the air, as long as the air is not plastic.
22. Schools are closed so you need to home educate your children, unless you can send them to school because you’re not at home. If you are at home you can home educate your children using various portals and virtual class rooms, unless you have poor internet, or more than one child and only one computer, or you are working from home. Baking cakes can be considered maths, science or art. If you are home educating you can include household chores within their education. If you are home educating you can start drinking at 10am.
23. If you are not home educating children you can also start drinking at 10am.
24. The number of corona related deaths will be announced daily but we don’t know how many people are infected as they are only testing those who are almost dead to find out if that’s what they will die of. The people who die of corona who aren’t counted, won’t or will be counted but maybe not.
25. We should stay in locked down until the virus stops infecting people but it will only stop infecting people if we all get infected so it’s important we get infected and some don’t get infected.
26. You can join your neighbours for a street party and turn your music up for an outside disco and your neighbours won’t call the police. People in another street are allowed to call the police about your music whilst also having a party which you are allowed to call the police about.
27. No business will go down due to Coronavirus except those businesses that will go down due to Coronavirus.
Hope that makes things clearer for you

[David Stevenson]

We used 970ra for years without any problems. Seemed a bit tacky but not enough to cause any real issues. Started using avery and the difference is incredible. So much softer, less tacky, and easier to apply. On some jobs the amount of time and hassle saved is unbelievable

[David Stevenson]

Hi, Here’s some advice directly from Roland with regards to inkjet printer downtime. They have an area on the American website dedicated to this.

https://www.rolanddga.com/support/produ … of-Non-Use

[David Stevenson]

Hi, Here’s some advice directly from Roland with regards to inkjet printer downtime. They have an area on the American website dedicated to this.

CLICK HERE

[David Stevenson]

quote Carl Hanley:

Thank you for all the comments so far; it’s greatly appreciated.

In reality, I could possibly stretch my budget to £3K and could work with a width of 304mm.

I would apply most of my prints to a wet transparent acrylic so laminating wouldn’t be essential to begin with but thanks for letting me know that I would need to consider this when doing car graphics.

I do have a Cameo3 which is a vinyl cutter. I could possibly print registration marks, print onto my media and then cut via the cameo so maybe I don’t necessarily need a printer/cutter?

Would I be better off just purchasing a standalone printer and standalone laminator and use my current cameo to cut to shape and size; I believe the cameo can handle media of 12′ wide (304mm)?

So, looking at this a bit more would I be better off purchasing a standalone printer that can laydown a white ink? Currently i only have a CYMK laser printer which doesn’t print onto vinyl very well.

Your comments are appreciated!

Kind regards,
Carl.

Carl we have a Roland XR640 which can lay down white ink and find it a very disappointing finish. Printing speed is reduced dramatically and opacity isn’t the best. What we tend to do if we need white is print on a clear material then laminate that onto a piece of white vinyl. You could possibly buy a small laminator on eBay etc if you’ve only doing small prints. A bit tedious though for you get bigger print runs

[David Stevenson]

quote Kevin Mahoney:

quote David Stevenson:

I screwed our apart when it was full and filled it with sanitary towels!).

[emoji23] nobody like a signwriter to be that resourceful mate, was that a permanent solution or just monthly?

Funny you say that Kevin, we noticed at got a bit moody around the same time each month 🙁

[David Stevenson]

If can can stretch even to a SP300 or similar I’d skip the BN20. We started with one , its really slow to print, has a terrible dryer, and a waste ink tank that needs replacing (although I screwed our apart when it was full and filled it with sanitary towels!). Our supplier nicknames them boomerang 20’s as their no sooner out their door till their back for a trade in .

[David Stevenson]

Thank you very much Chris, I appreciate your help 🙂

[David Stevenson]

Wow!!! I’m actually lost for words Robert! That’s an incredible bit of work. Wouldn’t have liked to have been paying the bill for getting those fitted, can’t imagine the amount of man hours that would have taken both in preparation then fitting.

Do you think Iain you could sell the shorter strip idea on the basis that if it gets damaged you could leave them some spare strips that they could replace themselves rather than having the expense of bringing you back?

[David Stevenson]

Found the magnets to be hit and miss. Some brands seem to line up others don’t. If I can’t get them to line up (test first) stick them on a few mm from the edge of the graphic. Would always laminate as well stops them getting scratched

[David Stevenson]

Olfa 9mm 30degree blades. Perfect result everytime 🙂

[David Stevenson]

Maybe I’m weird but I do the complete opposite. I used to have the same problem with the raised edges when you scored it a few times. Now what I do is gently score it once, line it up with the edge of the bench and start to snap it as close to the bench as possible. Once it starts the rest snaps quite easy and doesn’t bend the sheet. I was amazed how gently I could score it with a really sharp knife and get it to snap.
Gave up with the deburring tool, would have made a neater edge with a hatchet!

[David Stevenson]

This may sound stupid but is your blade holder secure in the machine? Ours was loose one day and causing a very similar fault. Felt silly when I found it 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Would one from an XR640 suit. Max 2?

[David Stevenson]

quote Robert Lambie:

quote David Stevenson:

Thank you Chris. Can you image how much we’d charge for some of the “Homer’s” we do. Hope you all have a great Christmas.

I can just see it now David…

“Merry Christmas Son, looks great doesn’t it, just like you asked for!!
Oh and your invoice is on top of the TV” [emoji23]

Invoice! You must be joking, that’s a cash on delivery job. That customers caught me multiple times over the last few years getting work done then refusing to pay. You think I’d have learnt by now 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Thank you Chris. Can you image how much we’d charge for some of the "Homer’s" we do. Hope you all have a great Christmas.

[David Stevenson]

Well that’s it sorted. Full decals plus blues and twos fitted. He’ll probably get a ticket for impersonating a police vehicle lol!!!. It’s a shame Santa will get all the credit 🙁

[David Stevenson]

quote Adam Nowak:

LLumar ATR serie. Its same as Suntek I believe but more popular in UK. Much easier to shrink then other brands.. To avoid dust, use rolling technique for back and top loading for sides. Spray water and squeegee it off top to bottom 3 times just before application, use fresh mix J&J baby 2-3 pumps per liter with distillate water – dont use slime… Less drought and movement = cleaner application. Heating is also a key, IR heaters wouldn’t move dust and air. Practice is a key to success here…

You don’t recommend the tint slime Adam? Done a course for a day and that’s what they recommended but they were also selling it so maybe it was to benefit them more than us. Would love to learn to how to prefect it but just haven’t the time. There’s a guy that does work round the local car dealers and he has it down to a fine art.

[David Stevenson]

There’s a fluid called "tint slime" that’s great for applying tint. We use "Max Pro" which great to use but it’s still a job I hate and try to avoid at all costs. Just makes me miserable due to lack of practice. One mistake and it’s in the bin.

[David Stevenson]

quote Iain Pearson:

Harp Lager – Jesus do they still brew that [emoji23][emoji23]

Staple drink here in Ireland, that and Guinness. I’d prefer Coors but never was one look a gift horse in the mouth. With 2 weeks off for Christmas and my 2 little sh1ts off school I’m guessing I’ll drink anything with alcohol lol

[David Stevenson]

I agree. Just had a customer call in with a present. Seems he was delighted with the job we done on his bin lorry 🙂

[David Stevenson]

I’d be pretty sure there’s something. Wrapped 7x Citroën c1 roofs one after the other a couple of months ago and had pains in my arms and chest for weeks. I put it down to stretching the material when applying. Won’t do that again if I can avoid it!

[David Stevenson]

We’ve a rollover table and I definitely wouldn’t use it to laminate anything longer than about 4ft. Find it totally useless for laminating, that’s definitely a job for the easy mount in my eyes. Apart from that you could only laminate the length of the table, any longer would cause issues

[David Stevenson]

quote Daniel Evans:

Hahahaha

I did actually write a long rant but realised that it more hassle finding a new supplier so decided to delete the post. Turns out you can’t delete a post so I removed the text instead lol.

You’re that friend that will always ask aren’t you lol, you encourage them :smiles: .

Lol, I’m the friend that agrees with how shite their life is while pointing out nobody loves them, not even their mother.

[David Stevenson]

You can’t leave it at that, you need to get it off your chest. That’s like putting the baiting comment "I hate my life" as your Facebook status waiting for your friends to ask "what’s up hun?" lol

[David Stevenson]

Great job Kevin, looks the dogs. Bet you spend all weekend playing with it.

[David Stevenson]

Cutting something with a bright light, never ceases to amaze me!

[David Stevenson]

quote Simon Worrall:

As I see it the difficult part of this is getting the vinyl to sit in such a way that there is enough air space between the layers so the air can flow over all of the printed surface. Just loosening the roll and sitting it on its end is not really enough to do the job.

For sure Simon. It takes a bit of playing sometimes to get the roll to sit right. In an ideal world there’d be a lovely 5mm gap between each layer. The amount of air 8x server fans draw is incredible for their size so a couple of mm between each layer seems to work. Does no harm to move the roll every so often if it’s not sitting 100% right. Try our best to schedule printing so it gets time to out-gas. Would never risk cutting out gassing for a wrap, to much money at stake for that.

[David Stevenson]

When you’re finished your dryer Jamie you’ll have to build a fan system for your sp. Just be careful if you make one to mount it pointing down at an angle so you don’t blow the ink as it leaves the head. With regards to contamination we’ve very little problems with it and also have a company dog. Ours is seriously hard, he’s a punk rocker [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

[David Stevenson]

I know it increases the cost of an already expensive material but you can always laminate it onto a piece of say Oracal 3651 rapid air. Al. A lot less aggressive adhesive and rapid air to prevent the bubbles 😉

[David Stevenson]

Yeah I’d say it definitely reduces drying times. I’d notice it more of banners and posters that have a heavy ink saturation. Tines we need things out the door quick and this does the job. Like a say yellotools are charging a few hundred quid for something similar. It’s a 12v 4amp adaptor bought on eBay. Been running for months cos we normally forget to switch it off!

[David Stevenson]

I made one also. It runs 8x large pc fans. It sucks like a (resists temptation to say something rude) I’ll take a pic tomorrow but basically it’s a rectangular box made from mdf the has 2 circular rolls cut on the top. Two large cardboard tube that pop up banner material fits into them, then you media slides into them. Definitely helps with the drying of things needed in a hurry. Running 2x Roland 640s so degassing is a must. Great from banners as well. Have a look on Yello tools website, they sell a couple for stupid money. They claim to reduce drying times by 75%!!!

[David Stevenson]

Unfortunately it’s rarely that easy Daniel 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Our Roland GR640 was doing something similar. It’s would cut for example a full sheet of vehicle graphics then suddenly cut a digional line across them. Fixed with a firmware update

[David Stevenson]

For that back window I’d definitely cut the shape rather than bend a strip round. For all the value of the vinyl needed. You’d have to stretch it pretty bad to make that corner.

[David Stevenson]

Have a nosey at Kanban Tool while your at it. Doesn’t cost a fortune yet covers the day to day running of things

[David Stevenson]

quote James Boden:

Thanks guys, this will make my life a heap easier. Thanks for the offer David but I should be able to work it out [emoji106]

Let me know how you get one James. We’ve been doing like this for years and have it down to a t. If you set your sheet up approx 1m long then cut them either manually or using the sheet cut feature you can stack 5 sheets on top of each other and rip 5 sets out at once

[David Stevenson]

You need a swatch in Illustrator called "PerfCutContour". Can be any colour but the name must be typed exactly as above. I can upload the swatch panel for you to Google drive if you want it. Only have it for Illustrator through

[David Stevenson]

quote Alex Crosbie:

A stand-alone cutter would remove the bottle neck….. print and cut machines are good at space saving but painfully slow, you could get rid of the XR and replace it with a cutter.

The ej will happily print multiple rolls of material per day and a stand-alone cutter will be much faster than the XR.

Unless I’m missing something! Always happy to be proved wrong

It’s hard to see Alex but there a GR640 cutter hiding in the corner. It has a really useful but annoying feature. When we make stickers we normally gang up as many as will fit on a a4 sheet or there abouts then add a perf line around the outside edge. This means when we remove them from the sheet we’re left with a very well presented sheet which also saves man hours by having the machine cut them. The problem is that the GR has 2 blade positions. The 1st is for normal cuts and puts the blade down on the cutting strip. When you ask it to perf you have to change the blade position which allows it to go into a channel which avoids destroying the cutting strip as your cutting right through. To keep accuracy up the max sheet length recommended is 1.5m. It’s like playing the bloody hokey pokey moving the blade about. No way to bypass this really annoying feature which is a real pain in the ass. We don’t have to change the cutting strip very often on the XR and it perfs thousands of stickers!!!

[David Stevenson]

I’d definitely do that in 2 pieces. Bit of knifeless first up and round the wee flat back section, wrap that 1st. Then more knifeless around the edge of that and soytge front and 2 sides. Job done, no worries 🙂

[David Stevenson]

What about a few strips of scrap vinyl on the rubber then knifeless stuck to it? You might need to mask the visible vinyl though to stop the new material sticking to it.

[David Stevenson]

Cheers guys, a few ideas there. We’ve only recently changed to layout of the workshop around to give us more length. We’re located near several car garages and often have 2 vehicles in at a time doing advertising on them. An insulated and humidity controlled room would be the prefect solution if we moved the office as we need the space in the workshop.

A dedicated poster printer could be an idea as we’ve a second floor, just don’t fancy running up the stairs all the time. Look g at my beer belly though that would probably do no harm.

Running avery MPI3000 for labels so not just bottom of the market. Ran 3164 previously but found it seemed to curl badly when cut into a4 sized sheets. Might be the lesser of 2 evils though.

According to Roland there’s no way to switch off that cleaning cycle on the XR which is a shame. We deal with a few companies that order thousands of labels which can literally tie up the XR for a week so over night onto the take up would have been the ideal solution. Problem definitely get worse as the weather gets colder. Hopefully the new heating system will help [emoji4][emoji4][emoji4]

[David Stevenson]

Hi Glenn, Job log unfortunately hasn’t that feature. Only tells you when jobs start, stop & how much media & ink is used which is a shame 🙁

[David Stevenson]

Saving time and hassle is definitely a huge factor. A few extra quid on material is well worth it for certain jobs. I remember when we started wrapping one of the reps referring to us as “heroes” after he we told him about some of the things things we’d managed to wrap with KMPF film. It was only after training with Justin Pate that my eyes were opened to the advantages offered my the more expensive materials. Good luck with your Porsche , sounds an enjoyable job 🙂

[David Stevenson]

The banner system was slightly more expensive than the dibond but we were going to take the hit for what we believe to be a better and more professional product. No changing the customers mind. On a brighter note their getting the batons fitted so all we’ve to do it prepare and screw 27 panels to them.

[David Stevenson]

While the plaster is flaking a bit in places the wall behind it’s super solid. Tried hammering a masonry nail into it and bent the nail!!! That banner system looks a good job. The building doors are changing slightly from what they are now but I can see that working nicely. Thanks

[David Stevenson]

@Gary-Forbes1 , Sorry just seeing your comment. We finish our banners using a reinforced woven banner tape (skipped that step in my previous comment). Used to use double sided tape and fold them over but the tape is faster and just as strong. Stuff has serious adhesive on it.

[David Stevenson]

“Thats a shame because apart from that its a really nice design”

🤣🤣🤣 I can smell sarcasm a mile away Martyn 😉

[David Stevenson]

We got a new 18v DeWalt hammer drill and some decent Bosch masonary bits. Makes fitting stuff a doddle. It smashes through red bricks like butter. Cost £220 all in but well worth the money.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-dch033-3kg-18v-4-0ah-li-ion-xr-brushless-cordless-sds-plus-drill/675fj

https://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-sds-hammer-drill-bit-set-brute-tough-box-8pcs/92406

[David Stevenson]

Hi Robert, would you mind sending me the details too? Seen the video and they look brilliant. We’ve got a new cnc router and laser installed so time to up our game.

Thanks

[David Stevenson]

Are they painted already or just bare plastic? If just bare plastic I wouldn’t touch them. Near impossible to get anything to stick for the long term. If unpainted the only way you’d have any hope of getting them to stick would be to paint them with 3M PRIMER 94. If the wrap was ever removed though there’s a good chance there’d be a residue left

[David Stevenson]

Designing in 2D can be hard enough without adding a 3rd dimension. I can see a huge learning curve approaching lol