Do you laminate your plain vinyl lettering?

[CKCUSTOMKC]

My installer says to laminate it, even if it is a solid factory color vinyl, a friend of mine in the industry who prints and installs says he never laminates plain lettering if it doesnt come off the printer. Personally I feel like using solid color vinyl, and then putting laminate in it before cutting, is a waste of laminate

If you are cutting lettering out of solid color vinyl, say black or red, do you laminate it?

 

[victor bogdanov]

no

 

[Gino]

Nope.

 

[White Haus]

Why? I don't understand why you would waste time and material to do this.

That solid color vinyl will outlive any print from any printer anyways.

 

[Boudica]

That's just goofy. Are you sure he wasn't talking about pre mask?

 

[CKCUSTOMKC]

That's just goofy. Are you sure he wasn't talking about pre mask?

for sure he wasn't talking about pre mask lol, had a conversation with him yesterday and when I said that the lettering would not be laminated, he began to question it and thats when I decided to make this poll

 

[CKCUSTOMKC]

Why? I don't understand why you would waste time and material to do this.

That solid color vinyl will outlive any print from any printer anyways.

100% agree, it might make the install slightly easier, but not by much and it would cost a few hundred in the amount of laminate it would use

 

[Billct2]

no

 

[Gino]

Outta curiosity............. your profile shows you have less than a year's experience. That's fine, nothing wrong with that. We all started at some point, but how much time does your installer have??

Does he want you to.... first, laminate colored vinyls, then feed them into a cutting machine and then cut it all at once ?? Sounds like a novel idea, however expensive in material costs and timewise, plus an unnecessary step, since cast vinyl is already far better and longer lasting than any laminate can help. The laminate would probably burn it in many cases.

 

[Signscorp]

We don't, but laminate would increase the longevity. We do it for a high-end train customer of ours. It definitely increases the lifespan. I talked pretty extensively to 3M about this one and unless the customer is super high end and willing to pay, there's just not a reason to do it.

 

[Scotchbrite]

I've only done it once because the customer liked a specific gloss vinyl color, but wanted it with a matte finish.

 

[jfiscus]

The only reason to ever laminate cut vinyl is when you're using specialty (non-cast) vinyls and you encapsulate the vinyl. You have to Cut it, weed it, laminate it, then cut it again, then weed it again then mask it. All with registration obviously, and it is a complicated process for only specialty materials.

 

[Gino]

Maybe someone in this thread could enlighten me.

They say laminate will add 12 to 18 months to a print. So, some people put cast overtop of calendered and some do it the correct way of matching it all up. So, if you do it the correct way, how does the laminate know to last 4 years and then start protecting or 6 years to start protecting ?? Does this mean different laminates will last a total of 4 or 5 years or some 7 or 8 years ?? Why do some laminates tend to burn anything beneath it ?? My thinking is this, once a print..... any print hits 3 or 4 years, it's gonna be just about shot. Do you think the laminates are really helping at the end of the lifespan ??

 

[Scotchbrite]

I have a sample sign hanging on our west facing fence. Half of it was treated with spray on laminate and the other half wasn't. The ink on the untreated side is nearly gone, but the covered side still looks pretty good. It was printed on a Mimaki JV3 with SS2 inks before we had a laminator which is why it's an aerosol laminate. It's gotta be at least 10 years old. So I know in that case, it made a huge difference.

 

[Billct2]

So most cast vinyl is 7- 8 years, correct? And if you use the exact same quality to laminate it how would that make it last longer? The one case I would see is to add some scratch protection.

 

[netsol]

Gino, I don't think you credit the laminate with the incredible intuition it displays

 

[Solventinkjet]

We have a large, laminated, sign facing south in Denver and two, unlaminated, banners that face south as well. We reprint the banners 2 or 3 times before needing to change out the larger sign.

 

[Black Star]

I'll sometimes laminate Gold vinyl before cutting.

 

[Stefanie]

My installer says to laminate it, even if it is a solid factory color vinyl, a friend of mine in the industry who prints and installs says he never laminates plain lettering if it doesnt come off the printer. Personally I feel like using solid color vinyl, and then putting laminate in it before cutting, is a waste of laminate

If you are cutting lettering out of solid color vinyl, say black or red, do you laminate it?

We did once. Needed matte black for a quick small job so applied matte lam to gloss and cut.

 

[ikarasu]

Think of it like sunscreen. If you put some on it helps you from being burnt by UV rays... Helps protect you from cancer and other things.

Laminate doesn't magically make a print last year's longer. It blocks UV rays until said UV protection wears out. So when it says it can increase the life by xx years... It's estimating the overlam will last xx years before it stops protecting the ink from degrading.


Does overlaming colored vinyl help? Maybe in a super UV exposed place. I've never seen a colored vinyl fade... Usually the vinyl will fall apart before the color will. So there isn't really a point in overlaming pre colored vinyl. As others have mentioned you're just adding another point of failure... Unless you use expensive lam, odds are it'll burn/darken and do more harm than good.