Florida shop — 10 callbacks this year for laminate edge staining on IJ280. What are you running?

[LizKeenan]

I’m not sure about this specific laminate, but I do know Avery changed some of their vinyl formulations to have advanced UV guards. From the description of that over laminate I think it could be the case there too. If it is it could mean things like humidity were able to offgas/ evaporate. Now they could just be causing this blemish since sun is just heating up any liquid left in there from humidity. We use 8518 lam with no issue in MD. Less all year round humidity, but we get it bad in summers so take that for what you will.

 

[TheAngryCanadian]

thanks everyone for the input.

I just got off the phone with Arlon. The rep I spoke with actually worked for 3M for about 8 years, and she mentioned they’ve seen similar edge issues come up before, including a large wrap shop that pursued it legally. That definitely got my attention.

At this point I’m going to run a test with Arlon SLX+ paired with their V3370 12-year laminate and see how it performs in our climate. If it holds up on contour cuts and partial wraps without the edge staining, that may end up being my new standard.

Appreciate everyone taking the time to weigh in. I’ll report back once I’ve got some real-world time on it

See if Arlon rep will come look at those in person. I know her and she knows her stuff, you’ll be getting sound advice. Thanks for the pictures BTW cause this is bizarre. Pictures are tough to see what is happening and to my eyes it almost looks like mold (?) or dirt getting in between the lam and media. I’ll be watching this post.

 

[somcalmetim]

I've used 180 and 8519 for years...mostly heavy commercial vehicles... based in Canadinavia but ship all over US...only similar edge issue we had was with a very early 3m print material (for Roland Pro1 maybe) that had a silica based coating to help the ink dry that would actually suck moisture in under the vinyl...it being canada it sucked salty winter slush water between the layers all along the edge and it crystallized into salt crystals when dry making white salt chunks under the lam...

Asked my rep about 280 when I noticed some of our pressure washer friendly clients were occasionally blowing chunks of 180/8519 lam off the edges after 3-4 years looking for something rated longer...likely stick to 180 now even though I have to waste the last 10 ft of lam if im shipping out...you can bring the shine back and remove the foggy parts of 3m gloss lam with a good torch or heat gunning but hard to tell customer to bring the gloss back by lighting it on fire...

 

[Souldar]

you could always print the text with a good amount of bleed and then contour cut to the actual letter edge. That's how most shops I have worked in do it.

 

[BOTS]

you could always print the text with a good amount of bleed and then contour cut to the actual letter edge. That's how most shops I have worked in do it.

Yeah I do that sometimes depending on the vehicle color. It still happens on lighter colors though. On black vehicles you either can’t see it, or it gets so hot in the sun that it seems to kill whatever contamination is there.


The Arlon rep is coming out next week to meet with me. I went ahead and ordered SLX+ with the matching laminate, but since my supplier doesn’t stock the Arlon lamination, I picked up 3M 8518 to run over IJ280 for the wrap I’ve got this weekend.

 

[Krissy Louderback]

I dealt with this about 7ish years ago. Ended up redoing the van a second time with 3M, assuming bad batch or not outgassing enough. That time I let the prints outgas a full week before lamination. Within a month or two, the same thing happened. Switched to Avery, redid the van again and never looked back. Honestly if you were to take a good look at your full wraps, there probably is that same staining at the seams, just not as noticeable because of the design. I was seeing that same staining anywhere the vinyl was nicked from ladders etc. My Grimco rep at the time helped me get some money back from 3M, but it was only about $600. We had sent them samples of some of the vinyl that I had removed. IMO 3M print vinyl is highly overrated.

 

[BOTS]

I dealt with this about 7ish years ago. Ended up redoing the van a second time with 3M, assuming bad batch or not outgassing enough. That time I let the prints outgas a full week before lamination. Within a month or two, the same thing happened. Switched to Avery, redid the van again and never looked back. Honestly if you were to take a good look at your full wraps, there probably is that same staining at the seams, just not as noticeable because of the design. I was seeing that same staining anywhere the vinyl was nicked from ladders etc. My Grimco rep at the time helped me get some money back from 3M, but it was only about $600. We had sent them samples of some of the vinyl that I had removed. IMO 3M print vinyl is highly overrated.

I appreciate your help. Every area that had scratches ended up failing the same way. I’ve wrapped around 500 vehicles using this film, so this is extremely frustrating. I’m trying to give my customers the best product possible and I’m paying a premium for it. Being told by 3m to basically get lost.

 

[BOTS]

You can see it on the backside as well,

 

[Evan Gillette]

Years ago I had issues with 180 and 8518 on a few vans and the laminate failing. Of course no one at 3M could care less. I have been using Orafol and Arlon since. I usually liked 3M for installing, but you can get used to the other brands just as well. If you are really stuck on 280, I would do a test on a shop or friends vehicle using 280 with Arlon laminate of choice. I had an Arlon rep stop by when I was going through this and he said that they would warranty their laminate, even if used on another brand film. I dont know if that is true, and I assume that would be contingent on proper matching and such. Oracal has also always been amazing with any issues over the years with print media whereas 3M just sends you layers of hoops to jump through...

 

[JBurton]

V3370 12-year laminate

Never heard of this, just looked into it, I'm surprised it's just $20 more per roll than their economy cast 3270. That said, I guess it's not as conformable as their 3220 line, it's a couple hundred more a roll. May want to consider both for testing.
SLX is really great stuff, I've been using it for years, the initial tack is very low though, and post heating is necessary if you like to sleep at night.

You can see it on the backside as well,

Oh now that's interesting... sounds like the issue would be more the base media than the laminate?

I was reading through the product bulletin, and it linked me to the 'sheeting, scoring and film cutting bulletin, which shows techniques for cutting rolls and stacks of materials with saws. Not relevant, but interesting as hell. I'd never seen anyone officially saying 'you can cut a roll with a saw', but here we are.

Last thing, I see 280 is recommended to post heat to 200F after application. I could have sworn 3m ij180 did not require post heating (just checked, it does), or at least folks would complain about having to do it with SLX. I'd postulate this is due to the air channels, and the need to seal them to prevent water intrusion. This would make both stand alone cut letters most susceptible, and make the full wraps less vulnerable, assuming that wrapping and adhering over the prior layer provides a more conformable bond than sticking to paint, as both the bottom and top layer will conform to one another.
Any way, are you post heating to 200F?

 

[BOTS]

Years ago I had issues with 180 and 8518 on a few vans and the laminate failing. Of course no one at 3M could care less. I have been using Orafol and Arlon since. I usually liked 3M for installing, but you can get used to the other brands just as well. If you are really stuck on 280, I would do a test on a shop or friends vehicle using 280 with Arlon laminate of choice. I had an Arlon rep stop by when I was going through this and he said that they would warranty their laminate, even if used on another brand film. I dont know if that is true, and I assume that would be contingent on proper matching and such. Oracal has also always been amazing with any issues over the years with print media whereas 3M just sends you layers of hoops to jump through...

I love oracal 651/751, I use dark colors in 651 lasts like 7-10 years, and 751 in light colors like red that lasts around 6 years in Florida sun, wasn't a fan of there wrap film when i tried it years ago.

Never heard of this, just looked into it, I'm surprised it's just $20 more per roll than their economy cast 3270. That said, I guess it's not as conformable as their 3220 line, it's a couple hundred more a roll. May want to consider both for testing.
SLX is really great stuff, I've been using it for years, the initial tack is very low though, and post heating is necessary if you like to sleep at night.

Oh now that's interesting... sounds like the issue would be more the base media than the laminate?

I was reading through the product bulletin, and it linked me to the 'sheeting, scoring and film cutting bulletin, which shows techniques for cutting rolls and stacks of materials with saws. Not relevant, but interesting as hell. I'd never seen anyone officially saying 'you can cut a roll with a saw', but here we are.

Last thing, I see 280 is recommended to post heat to 200F after application. I could have sworn 3m ij180 did not require post heating (just checked, it does), or at least folks would complain about having to do it with SLX. I'd postulate this is due to the air channels, and the need to seal them to prevent water intrusion. This would make both stand alone cut letters most susceptible, and make the full wraps less vulnerable, assuming that wrapping and adhering over the prior layer provides a more conformable bond than sticking to paint, as both the bottom and top layer will conform to one another.
Any way, are you post heating to 200F?

Do you contour cut lettering and logos in SLX? I was a little concerned about how it releases — mainly whether the letters would stay down on the liner or if it would cause issues during weeding or install.

I do post-heat all recessed channels to 200°+, and I really haven’t had lifting in those areas. The only thing I haven’t been doing is post-heating the edges. I’m starting to wonder if that could be contributing to the problem.

I also let every vehicle sit in the sun for a full day before pickup. In the summer the paint gets so hot you can barely touch it. I figured that was helping everything settle, but now I’m second guessing whether I should be post-heating the edges as well.

 

[JBurton]

Do you contour cut lettering and logos in SLX? I was a little concerned about how it releases — mainly whether the letters would stay down on the liner or if it would cause issues during weeding or install.

Yes, and it has been a pain. There is a certain technique to weeding this stuff, small stiff jerks seem to keep the letters in place best. I was doing about a dozen sets of contour cut lettering on a repeat order for a shipping company, so I had plenty of time to add in extra cuts for weeding to minimize large blank areas that tended to hold up weeding. Like, if you have 3" letters, make a 3.5" box surround them, so you are only pulling up .25" sections around it, place fingers on the letter, and pop up the weeded vinyl. It's easily 3x slower than regular vinyl weeding.
Also, the backing is basically teflon to premask, so we always left a 1 or 2" border of print material before masking, and then left that in place after trimming (These were getting shipped so having flappy edges wasn't going to work, to take from mask table straight to install would have been fine)

In the summer the paint gets so hot you can barely touch it. I figured that was helping everything settle, but now I’m second guessing whether I should be post-heating the edges as well.

So, I'm right there with ya, we set panels that have been wet applied out in 'god's oven', aka outside on a sunny day. Evidently 200F is pretty far from 'too hot to touch', 3rd degree burns can result in 5 seconds at 140F. If it were me, I'd plot two sets of text, stick on the same panel, heat the one to 200F, and leave it facing South at 45 degree angle and see what happens.

 

[BOTS]

Yes, and it has been a pain. There is a certain technique to weeding this stuff, small stiff jerks seem to keep the letters in place best. I was doing about a dozen sets of contour cut lettering on a repeat order for a shipping company, so I had plenty of time to add in extra cuts for weeding to minimize large blank areas that tended to hold up weeding. Like, if you have 3" letters, make a 3.5" box surround them, so you are only pulling up .25" sections around it, place fingers on the letter, and pop up the weeded vinyl. It's easily 3x slower than regular vinyl weeding.
Also, the backing is basically teflon to premask, so we always left a 1 or 2" border of print material before masking, and then left that in place after trimming (These were getting shipped so having flappy edges wasn't going to work, to take from mask table straight to install would have been fine)

So, I'm right there with ya, we set panels that have been wet applied out in 'god's oven', aka outside on a sunny day. Evidently 200F is pretty far from 'too hot to touch', 3rd degree burns can result in 5 seconds at 140F. If it were me, I'd plot two sets of text, stick on the same panel, heat the one to 200F, and leave it facing South at 45 degree angle and see what happens.

That has been very helpful thank you

 

[Boudica]

you could always print the text with a good amount of bleed and then contour cut to the actual letter edge. That's how most shops I have worked in do it.

This is what I do as well. Not just letters, but any graphic. One exception might be when they have multiple colors overlapping - then it get's to be a pita, so I just cross my fingers the cut is perfect.