Any ideas.............??

[Gino]

We have a customer who wants to bring back a bunch of signs we did for them about a year ago and re-use them with a new message. Here's the catch:

It was 1/8" dibond or whatever you call it and printed with U/V inks with full coverage. Ink is on the entire panels. He wants to know if we can print to vinyl and cover over the old message ?? The panels are in fine shape and we can just clean them and cover over quite easily, but will the adhesive from air egress vinyl stick well to year old ink.... and if so, for how long ??

I'm not afraid of the ink doing anything silly, just how well will vinyl stick to ink. These panels were not clear coated or laminated. Not needed for where they go.

Any ideas ?? Gino
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[BigfishDM]

It should be fine, lots of people apply over old graphics like bus kings and queens. Just give him a heads up that there is no warranty lol.

 

[Gino]

Maybe I should've added it was flatbed printed. That's the reason for our concern.

 

[BigfishDM]

Maybe I should've added it was flatbed printed. That's the reason for our concern.

I see, well I can only make an educated guess that it should be fine but I will see if any other flatbed UV guys do it also. Lol I know that doesn't help much but Im tryin

 

[petepaz]

maybe try laminating a small piece of vinyl to the sign and try pulling it up to see how the ink reacts. if it does seem to hold up ok then as an extra precaution can you make the new graphics bigger than the panel and wrap it over the edges so there is less chance of the edges lifting. one thing that may be a problem is i know they have special lam for uv graphic because there are some issues with regular lam sticking to the inks. i don't normal laminate my uv prints so i can't confirm or deny this but you may want to use something with a more aggressive adhesive

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I just got done with a slew of signs that were done on a flatbed and just used Oracal 3641 to cover them up, there holding up fine outdoors, why would you waste money on air egress vinyl?

 

[d fleming]

do it on his panels for x amount with no warranty or offer warranty for +x amount (the price of new dibond or whatever the hell you call it). Ball's in his park.

 

[Gino]

I just got done with a slew of signs that were done on a flatbed and just used Oracal 3641 to cover them up, there holding up fine outdoors, why would you waste money on air egress vinyl?

First of all, it's about all we use anymore on everything. We are gonna use a low end air egress, but it makes it much easier to put down. Also, they are a very good customer and I wanna make sure they don't start peeling or lifting because of eventual lack of adhesion.

If everything goes right, we'll use the backs, but I don't know what condition the backs will be in, so putting vinyl overtop flatbed inks, just doesn't make good sound sense either.

 

[HulkSmash]

id tell them it's cheaper to just use new panels.

 

[phototec]

I just got done with a slew of signs that were done on a flatbed and just used Oracal 3641 to cover them up, there holding up fine outdoors, why would you waste money on air egress vinyl?

I agree 100%, air egress vinyls were developed for the vehicle wrap industry, because during application, you constantly need to reposition the vinyl for working the compound and convex contours of the surface. Applying digitally printed vinyl to a FLAT surface using a laminator or Big Squeegee does not require repositioning.

Also, it's my understanding, that the non-air egress adhesives have a much stronger bond and would be better suited for this application - IMO.

 

[Gino]

id tell them it's cheaper to just use new panels.

I could do that, but like I said it's a good customer since 1987, so they know they can trust us.

It's hard to tell someone that to clean I think 8 or 9 panels 4'x 6', and put a sheet of vinyl on it, costs more than buying 6 new panels, cutting them and running them through the flatbed. Vinyl vs. full sheet of dibond ?? We'll have them all cleaned in about 10 or 15 minutes.