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wet application

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I have been using dry application for my stickers, but I would like to have a go at wet.  Two things I need some help with, is there a particluar type of fluid that I should use or will water do? And secondly are there any tricks I should watch out for so I don't stuff things up?

Cheers!

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do a search for application fluid recipe and a few should pop up.

i don't know if there are any tricks to watch for, though.

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Make sure you use paper app tape, and there are lots of brands of wet-app fluid out there. The paper tape I bought is Conform

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I did a bumble bee stripe on my truck with 751 and had better luck with johns home made brew than with rapid tac!

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doing wet is about as easy as it gets. Key is to  squeegee well, and wait til the right time to pull the tape. I've told people how to do it over the phone and they got it right the first try.

With wet...being in a hurry is what will trip you up.

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Unless I know I'm gonna have to do a lot of moving around, I just MIST it...enough to lift it if I have to. I'm doing a 4x20 foot banner now, each letter is about 22x24"...no tape, just putting it on raw...a good misting, squeegee..and on to the next letter. It takes some getting used to I guess but I never have a single bubble.

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Wow! What a lot of great info and advice!! I've mixed a special application fluid witches brew and I'm going to have a go at it this weekend. I have made the graphics with a mixture of clear and paper app tape and will see which one I manage with the best and I've done my youtube research. I just need my daughter to wash her race car to remove the inch layer of mud first and I'll be right. Wish me luck everyone!!

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Get a spray bottle.....fill almost to the top with warm water ...add about two capfuls of isopropy alcohol .... a drop of dish soap. and you have rapid tach 2 ...

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May seem like a no brainer but make sure you get rid of as much excess app tape before you apply. A few extra inches of tape makes it a LOT harder to get all the fluid squeegeed out.

And nukleon, you can use the clear in a pinch, you just need some time and a good arm.  :thumbsup: I thought the same thing until I ran out of paper app tape and tried it with clear.

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This is funny. Someone resurrected this post, and I had asked about wet-installs in a new thread. Turns out reading my own post answered my question LOL. Thanks MikeRob....what do you mean by good arm? Harder to pull the clear app-tape on a wet install?

Is the paper app-tape see-through enough to work with on a wet install?

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I bet the strong arm is to sqeegee, that is what my comphrension ( & experience )tells me .

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I bet the strong arm is to sqeegee, that is what my comphrension ( & experience )tells me .

:) correct!

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It's been a while since I started the thread, but I wanted to share what I found.

I experimented and used both clear and paper app tape. The clear was some cheap stuff I got when I bought the machine and it worked really well. It wasn't very sticky so came of easily I just had to trim really close to edge of the sticker before applying to allow the squeegied fluid to run off.  The longer you leave the app tape on after you've finished squeeging the better. I haven't tried it with good quality clear as I still have plenty of cheapo stuff to use up first.

I found the paper app tape harder because it was stickier and I found it harder to release.  I was using medium tack as that was all I had, so I had to be more patient and wait longer before trying to remove.

Overall using wet app (lightly misting) I found I had less bubbles, especially in bigger graphics which gave a better finish, but it did take longer to apply.

So there you go, thanks everyone for your advice. I now use both wet and dry app, it just depends on the size of the sticker and what I'm applying it to.

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Just to be clear on this (I've never actually done a wet-app), you can move the decal around as long as it's wet underneath? The only reason you wait is when everything is well-placed, is that correct?

I am starting to think wet-app for everything would be nice...I seem to get little bubbles even with simple dry-installs...I suppose a wet-app might improve this?

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you are correct. Wet allows you to pull it up and reposition it.

One thing...the paper tape is easier to remove if you spray it after you allow the vinyl to bond to the substrate. Just don't let the fluid seep back under the vinyl at the top.

some excellent videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/RapidTac

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you are correct. Wet allows you to pull it up and reposition it.

One thing...the paper tape is easier to remove if you spray it after you allow the vinyl to bond to the substrate. Just don't let the fluid seep back under the vinyl at the top.

some excellent videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/RapidTac

Nice. I'm going to check out that video. I might do all wet-installs if I can get bubble-free vinyl applications. It's really hard to get the bubbles out of a dry-install and I don't like having to lift and re-apply or pop the bubbles.

Thanks for the link.

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