Booper

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Posts posted by Booper

  4. Posted

    Solvent ink is fade resistant for 3-5 years according to specs on my Mutoh..Yes I know conditions dictate how long and how much but to just make the blanket statement that sol decals will fail quickly is not great advice to a newbie...It will also depend on the quality of the vinyl upon which you print that makes a big difference in long term use as well...No lam or too lam thats always been a question for us printers..Lam is expensive and does make your product last longer I agree, but to not lam makes a good choice for the customer as well...

    Agreed, for short term applications like temporary wraps you can get away with not laminating. Debating the multitude of vinyl/ink/exposure variables is pointless as you said given that any number of reasons can cause a wrap to fail. At our shop however we do not send out any wraps that will be on the vehicle for more than a month without lamination. The upfront cost far outweighs the anger & frustration down the road for the customer when they have to pay us upwards of a 1000 dollars to remove the old faded wrap & adhesive, & then design, print and install a whole NEW wrap because some crappy shop talked them into taking the cheap route & told them Oracal or whoever have 3 to 5 year fade warranties which is not the case.

    Regardless, point being is if the OP wants to get into the vinyl wrap business he/she will NEED a laminator in order to be able to supply long term high quality wraps, the same way they need to use good quality vinyls & inks & proper installation techniques along with all the rest of the tools & equipment, or they are doomed to produce nothing but temporary wraps & spend eternity doing free warranty repairs.

    Ben

  5. Posted

    If it was me, I'd lay the stripe down on the polymetal and position it exactly where you need it, center hinge it and using a grease pencil or china marker mark the top edge of the vinyl on the polymetal at the ends. Peel the backing off and wet down the surface using whatever app fluid you prefer (I use rapidtac2). Then lay the stripe down aligning it with the grease pencil mark & using a squeegee with a nylon sleeve or felt edge lay it down & repeat the process for the other side. The grease pencil marks are the key to a straight application once the backing paper is removed. If you dont have a grease pencil a piece of tape butted up against the stripe works too.

    Cheers!

    Ben

  6. Posted

    Real nice, did it occur to you english might not be his/her first language? Nice to see the veterans around here treating the first timers in such a manner.

    Dosky, no this printer will not work, you need something that prints with SOLVENT ink, like a Roland or Mutoh or Mimaki. Epson does make a new one that uses solvent ink, but if you are just starting out try to find a good deal on a used one. You will also need a laminator, even with solvent ink a wrap that is not laminated will fade and fail very quickly.

    Cheers!

    Ben

    • Like 2

  7. Posted

    Take a photo of the car as dead on as you can, import that photo into whatever design software you prefer & draw the stripes. Once yer happy with your stripe design save it & import it into your cutting software, scale it up to fit the actual car size (its always easier to design in smaller scale & up it for the cut), Cut them, mask them, apply them & get paid large sums of money from the customer for all yer hard work. Save the files for future use & enjoy!

    Ben

  8. Posted

    The quick & dirty answer is you need a printer that uses SOLVENT ink. None of the wide format HP's or Canon's or whatever use solvent ink. Epson has come out with a solvent printer, its about 20 - 25 Grand, not a bad price for a quality machine. The industry standards are Roland and Mutoh, they can go upwards of 50 grand but can be had used for around the 10 grand mark in excellent condition.

    Keep in mind the printer is only the half of it, print heads can be thousands of dollars each and ink and material will quickly suck up all yer cash. A bundle roll of 3M 180 will run you a grand easy.

  9. Posted

    Use the heat gun & warm the vinyl up as you go. Dont over heat it as there is a fine line between removing it clean and heating it up to the point where the adhesive delaminates itself from the vinyl and yer left with a holy mess to clean up. If yer removing a printed wrap cut it into strips and peel it off in sections, much easier & quicker than trying large sections.

    Ben

  11. Posted

    No you cant do RTA layered decals wet the backing paper will get all gummy & ruin the decal, wet is for installing onto the substrate.

    You can use paper tape instead of clear if you have a light table to help line up your registration marks. Another way is mask the top layer with paper tape leaving the registration marks exposed, then apply a piece of clear packing tape over the registration marks & the top edge of the paper tape. This will help you see the marks better & when you are done you cut the registration marks off anyways so the customer never sees the clear tape.

    Cheers!

    Ben

  12. Posted

    Brother if you have yer blade sticking out 2 millimeters you are WAAAAAAAY off, the term 2 mil vinyl refers to 2 thousandths of an inch thick. 2 Millimeters is 120 thou. When you are in your cutting software switch to wireframe view & show all control points, if there are alot of nodes the thing will cut jagged. You should only have a node on a direction change so for instance a zero should only have 2 nodes, one for the start/end of the inside circle & one for the start/end of the outside circle.

    Ben

  13. Posted

    Also make sure the eps file you have created is an actual VECTOR, you cant just take a jpeg & resave it as an eps you have to live trace or "vectorize" it first. Save it as eps version 8 or earlier as stated above.

    Ben

  19. Posted

    I'm going to start selling some layered decals and there are some areas that look like they could be in trouble at the car wash. Should I use an overlaminate, say oraguard 210 or the like?

    Laminating a layered decal you will get bubbles at the seams where the layers overlap. I only laminate printed stuff.

  25. Posted

    Make 2 registration marks in a different color than the stroke/fill and in the cut screen select only the reg mark color and either one of the stroke/fill at a time. Unless your software does auto reg marks like WinPCSign or Flexi