Air bubbles under vinyl

[craigco]

I have seen it work both ways. I have picked up signs that bubbles had gone away and have seen bubbles that have lasted for years. There you go, however the bubbles that lasted for years didn't seem to become larger or present any problems.

 

[Mike Paul]

Wow, This poll is 3 1/2 years old and still going... :signs101:

 

[JimJenson]

Hate to burst your bubble :Big Laugh but they really do go away all by themselves. This happens for two reasons:

1. The vinyl is porous enough to allow a slow escape of air. When the air expands during the heat of the day, force is exerted allowing some air to pass through. When it shrinks back at night, there is less air and more of the adhesive makes contact and bonds. Eventually there is nothing left.

2. The adhesive is also porous ... somewhat like a thick spider web, which allows the air to spread out.

I did a rush window job at night once and ended up with bubbles the size of half dollars. Promised the customer a replacement. A week later I stopped by to see what would be needed and discovered that all the bubbles were gone.

3) The heat of the day expands the vinyl, thus enlarging the pores allowing trapped air to more readily escape.

 

[craigco]

Yea, those little bubbles can cause so much pain. They just keep hanging around.

I have very little applications in which i do not have at least a few bubbles.

I don't know about the sun thingy. I have seen bubbles stay after being in major sun.

 

[JimJenson]

According to the Center for Disease Control, a surgical glove is porus. By comparison, I would speculate a piece of vinyl is even more porus.

 

[chorca]

Well, i've had good luck as far as those went..

Just starting out, playing with some little decals for myself and friends, i was using masking tape as I hadn't gotten transfer tape in yet. I found that the strong adhesive caused small "pickling" after i peeled the tape back, most bubbles around 1/8" or smaller.. I was worried, but after a day or two, they seemed to settle down. I thought it just might be the heat of the Florida sun as i'd applied them to my car, but after putting a couple large decals on a friend's laptop, they also "settled" after a few days and were perfectly flat.

I can only assume that has something to do with the porus nature of the vinyl.. in both cases they were Oracal 751.

Since then i've gotten proper transfer tape, and haven't had those issues since!

 

[ALTEREDIMAGEDESIGNS]

getting bubbles out

So we know from experience that most bubbles DO in fact come out after some time, but how do you all do a dry job without barely any bubbles at all. I can do small stuff like lettering and coroplast and stuff dry without any bubbles but other times on larger panels i get bubbles...... Makes me want to do it wet but I know I shouldnt any insight on this????????

 

[trakers]

Small bubbles absolutely go away on there own, at least they do here in the Midwest in the summertime.

When I first started, before I watched the Rob Ivers tapes, I had a heck of a time with bubbles. The graphics that were affected (they were all our own) are flat as a pancake now and look perfect.

I did a sign just the other day with a large reverse cut panel and ended up with a row of bubbles where the hinge was. Two weeks later and they are perfect now and they were in the shop the whole time awaiting cusotmer pickup.

The above experience is based on Oracal cast film which is 99.999% of what we use. Not sure about calendered.

Would love to read a white paper from one of the vinyl manufactures that gave the technical specifics of the phenomenon, but I believe Fred nailed it.

 

[D2S]

Would running a heat gun over the bubbles after placing a pin hole speed up the process or just ruin the vinyl?