Choosing a vinyl brand

[snowmancanada]

Hey Guys,

I just picked up a SP-540 and was wondering what you guys recommend for digital media, banner, and laminate? I also picked up a Big Squeegee for laminating for now until I make some $ to buy a cold laminator. It looks like the big squeegee doesn't work so well with Oracal laminate? I'm looking for a vinyl that works good on vehicles (not wraps) and would also work on other substrates.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Cheers,
Matt

 

[john1]

I personally use oracal lam with the BS with no problems. You have to pull the lam in front of the BS and guide the BS as you pull instead of pushing the lam with the BS. Oracal lam has a thinner backer paper than the 3M lam backers which work excellent and you can push the BS right on it.

I started out using oracal 3651 with orajet 210 lam and it's great vinyl but when contour cutting stickers and what not the grey adhesive glues back together making weeding a pain.

I now use a ton of general formulations concept 203 which is a 5 year vinyl and very reasonably priced and put orajet 210 lam on top of it. This vinyl is great for just about all your standard stuff such as contour cut stickers, yard signs, window graphics etc I have some 2x8' full color printed signs out for about a year and some change and they look as good as the day i printed them. I checked them out last week actually. You can get this from Fellers and Grimco. Grimco has it under Brite Line 203 which is the exact product just their house brand re-branded.

I'm currently also stocking 3M IJ35C which is reasonably priced as well as great for contour cut stickers, yard signs, magnetic signs, window graphics etc. It has a gray adhesive with air release channels for pretty much a bubble free application. The lam I'm using with the 3M stuff is their luster calendered laminate which looks nice in my opinion. Luster has a semi-gloss look to it. Get a 5 yd 54" sample of this vinyl and laminate here http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Graphics/Scotchprint/Prod-Info/RequestSamples/ Takes about 1.5 weeks to get it.

Alot of calendered vinyls have shrinkage but i have noticed the 3M IJ35C has a very small shrinkage from my personal experiments. The concept 203 and 3651 would have a small shrinkage area around contour cut graphics 2-3 days after contour cutting. The 3M has a very very tiny - no shrinkage around and it's been weeks since i printed and contour cut the graphics i was testing. One is applied on my car window and has no shrinkage whatsoever so far.

If you have anymore questions feel free to send me a PM, i have been through alot of testing different medias and stuff with the Roland and would love to help someone out if i can.

 

[petesign]

I use the 3M IJ35-C a lot. It's good stuff.

For laminate, I use the R-tape satin calendared laminate. I tried the luster 3M laminate, and thought it still had too much glare in sunlight. R-tape satin is great, and have had no problems with it yet, after using it for the last 8 months or so. I do not have a big squeegee, but I can run a full roll of the stuff using my daige solo, and that's no small feat.