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absolute_customs

oracle reflective vinyl, paint bleeding through

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Applied Oracal 5500 reflective vinyl on to the hood of a black truck maybe a week and a half ago. Get a call today from the customer that the blue vinyl is changing to black. Why is this? Any help would be great!

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What kind of truck is it? If it is a "hot rod" of sorts with headers and what not it may be producing to much extra heat and "baking" the color out of the vinyl... What grade reflective was it? Was it a new roll or something that had been sitting around for a while? We need more info to help diagnose.....

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Also some of the strong detergents at automatic car washes can cause this. I wouldn't think that soon though.

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What kind of truck is it? If it is a "hot rod" of sorts with headers and what not it may be producing to much extra heat and "baking" the color out of the vinyl... What grade reflective was it? Was it a new roll or something that had been sitting around for a while? We need more info to help diagnose.....

Sorry was writing it from my cell phone. The truck is a wrecker / tow truck. On the hood and doors both, it is starting to bleed through. The vinyl was oralite 5500 series and was brought brand new a few days prior from Uscutter just for this job.Uscutter site says "This five-year commercial grade reflective film is weather, chemical and corrosion resistant. Developed for the manufacture of traffic control, guidance, warning and information signs as well as reflective lettering, numbers and symbols." So im confused on how something like this could happen in a matter of days?

Also some of the strong detergents at automatic car washes can cause this. I wouldn't think that soon though.

That is true, but the truck hasnt moved. They have been working on it the past few days since I installed the decal. So all the moving it did was from the driveway to the garage and back.

You can see in the picture that top half is the truck itself, and the blue is the decal. The black is starting to show throught

post-7764-0-79816900-1337124649.jpg

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Those lines are weird. What caused them?

If the whole decal is doing that, I would call oracle. Theyll probably have some info on this.

Maybe put a piece of the vinyl on your car and see if it happens. To see if the roll is bad.

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Those lines are weird. What caused them?

If the whole decal is doing that, I would call oracle. Theyll probably have some info on this.

Maybe put a piece of the vinyl on your car and see if it happens. To see if the roll is bad.

Ya it looks sooooo weird!! I have no idea what happened. It was completely dry when I applied it. I did email oracle, hoping to hear back from them!!

I think I might do that, put a piece on my car and see if it does the same thing, maybe help narrow it down.

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Yeah youll be able to figure out if the customer did something to the vinyl.

Just a hunch but did you use app tape to apply the vinyl? Maybe to much pressure when you squeegeed it down?

My bet is its a bad roll of vinyl.

Let us know what oracle says.

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Ya I used app tape, but I have never had this problem before.

Im also thinking bad roll, but what do I do about it? $90 down the drain?

Im still waiting on Oracal to respond, however I did just email them lastnight

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If this 5500 is anything like their Oralite 5700 I would get rid of it. That stuff is junk.

I am having much better results with Arlon reflective or 3M.

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That bad huh? Ive always used Oracal vinyl with this being my first problem. But I may have to look into another company.

Still looking for a reason that this happened!

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That bad huh? Ive always used Oracal vinyl with this being my first problem. But I may have to look into another company.

Still looking for a reason that this happened!

I've had a couple issues with Oracal vinyl fading after about a year but they were always very very good about replacing it for me... Let me know what they say because unless the customer got some kind of acid or something on it when they were working I am leaning towards bad roll.

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Well Oracal support believes it was what ever was used to clean the surface with wasnt cleaned all the way off. He feels it was bad surface prep. So guess ill try it 1 more time and see what the outcome is. Im going to clean the surface sooo good you could eat off it!

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Well Oracal support believes it was what ever was used to clean the surface with wasnt cleaned all the way off. He feels it was bad surface prep. So guess ill try it 1 more time and see what the outcome is. Im going to clean the surface sooo good you could eat off it!

Sounds odd to me... What did you clean it with the first time? Only thing I could see doing that is starting fluid or brake fluid something to that nature.... I would still take a piece and stick it on something metal outside.

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Forget what exactly we used, but I know it wasnt anything harsh like that. I think I am still going to put a peice on something for a week or so and see what happens.

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Do the same process you used when you did that job. Same cleaner, same tape, try and be as consistent as you can for the test piece.

Actually just got an Idea!!!

How old is the truck? Was this thing brand spanking new? Or just get painted?

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Damn its not out gassing after 5 years. Im out of ideas. Dont forget to tell us what the outcome is.

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