Suggestions General Formulations Matte White Vinyl Suddenly Has Very Visible Ridges?

[krpalm]

Hi all, I'm hoping to get some insight about a problem the company I work for has been having recently. We make stickers, and we have been buying General Formulations 201-54 matte white vinyl for longer than I've even worked here. Recently (in the past 1-2 months or so) we have noticed that throughout the entire roll, on every roll, there are now slight vertical ridges in our matte white vinyl. They are so visible that the stickers we have been printing have a jean-like appearance to them because the ink settles into the ridges (the severity ranges depending on how dark the graphic is. Darker ink = more visible ridges, but the ridges are always visible regardless). The ridges are raised enough that there is now vertical silvering on all of our stickers after laminating because the ridges prevent our laminate from adhering evenly (the slivering eventually goes away, but it is not something that happened like this before). My boss gave our distributor a call, and they told her that they haven't had anyone else name this as a problem. They recommended we try using Orajet 3640M-010 white vinyl instead, but when received our shipment today we saw that the backing paper is branded, which means we can't use it.

I am curious if anyone else is having this issue recently, and if anyone has any advice on another reliable white vinyl brand they would recommend for making stickers? It's a huge headache and we are worried that we will start to lose customers if we don't solve the issue soon. We pride ourselves on making a super high-quality product, and not being able to trust our tried-and-true materials is frustrating (don't even get me started on the state of our Orajet glossy laminate recently).

Thanks in advance to anyone who weighs in!

 

[Grizzly]

We use a lot of the 201 OPAE and haven't seen this issue. Which 201 version are you using? What printer are you using?
You could switch to the 201 OP or the OPAE and see if the problem goes away or switch to the 203. The 203 is the gloss version of 201, but if you're laminating it, it shouldn't make a difference.
A couple of months, and you can go back to 201 and I bet the problem is gone.
Is there a reason you can't use a branded back?

 

[Rollout]

Hmm I also use 201 matte for stickers, but haven’t noticed it yet… maybe a bad batch? I was thinking about switching to gloss anyway to make the color pop a lil more.

 

[hybriddesign]

We had a batch of their floor graphic material with a similar issue (I think it's the same vinyl, just a different adhesive) a while back and moved away from GF for a little while but then when we came back everything seemed fine and I think it was just a bad batch. We buy the briteline stuff now as it's slightly cheaper and still GF but under the Grimco private label brand and we use a lot of it.

I'd just order from another distributor for a bit or something as maybe it's a bad batch. You could also send GF the lot numbers. We did that I think we may have gotten a roll reimbursed but I can't remember.

What's wrong with the oracal laminate? I'm asking as we stopped using the GF laminate as we didn't like it as it didn't come off the liner super clean and the gloss wasn't all that glossy. We switched to Oracal 210 lamination and like the GF 201 with Oracal 210 combo a lot.

 

[VizualVoice]

FWIW, Substance vinyl is completely unbranded on the liner since that sounds like it's a concern for you. It's good stuff IMHO and pretty much all I use for my sticker sales. If you reach out, they will also send out small sample rolls for you to try if you're unsure of which product you want.

 

[krpalm]

We use a lot of the 201 OPAE and haven't seen this issue. Which 201 version are you using? What printer are you using?
You could switch to the 201 OP or the OPAE and see if the problem goes away or switch to the 203. The 203 is the gloss version of 201, but if you're laminating it, it shouldn't make a difference.
A couple of months, and you can go back to 201 and I bet the problem is gone.
Is there a reason you can't use a branded back?

I believe we use the 201 OPAE. We use eco solvent wide format printers, and this is the first time we've had this specific issue. I appreciate the suggestion about trying out their glossy, I'll run that by my boss! I imagine that you're right that it's a temporary issue, and luckily some graphics are less obvious than others. We still want to find a replacement in the meantime though!

We don't use branded backing paper just because we prefer to keep the focus on our brand rather than have it be on the materials we use. We also prefer how our finished stickers look with clean backing.

 

[krpalm]

Hmm I also use 201 matte for stickers, but haven’t noticed it yet… maybe a bad batch? I was thinking about switching to gloss anyway to make the color pop a lil more.

Hopefully it's just a bad batch that will sort itself out soon because we really love our vinyl! It's been great up until now.

 

[krpalm]

We had a batch of their floor graphic material with a similar issue (I think it's the same vinyl, just a different adhesive) a while back and moved away from GF for a little while but then when we came back everything seemed fine and I think it was just a bad batch. We buy the briteline stuff now as it's slightly cheaper and still GF but under the Grimco private label brand and we use a lot of it.

I'd just order from another distributor for a bit or something as maybe it's a bad batch. You could also send GF the lot numbers. We did that I think we may have gotten a roll reimbursed but I can't remember.

What's wrong with the oracal laminate? I'm asking as we stopped using the GF laminate as we didn't like it as it didn't come off the liner super clean and the gloss wasn't all that glossy. We switched to Oracal 210 lamination and like the GF 201 with Oracal 210 combo a lot.

It's for sure validating to hear that you had a similar experience and that eventually the GF vinyl seemed fine. We bought a roll of Briteline and it had the same problem, but I believe Grimco is sending us a replacement roll under a different lot number. We are also trying out Substance.

Recently, our glossy lam from Oracal has had a really weird almost scummy texture. It used to be that the rolls only got weird at the very end, but within the past 4 or so months it has become a more pressing issue. Now, rather than only happening at the very end of the roll, it happens intermittently throughout. It leaves what almost looks like a water stain texture that does not come off and it makes the finished stickers not glossy. It's super strange! We tried a roll of Briteline glossy and it was more of a semi-gloss, similar to what you experienced with GF laminate (it sounds like Briteline and GF are the same so that makes sense).

Overall we also love our GF 201 + Oracal combo too, so it's a bummer that we've had so many issues recently!

 

[krpalm]

FWIW, Substance vinyl is completely unbranded on the liner since that sounds like it's a concern for you. It's good stuff IMHO and pretty much all I use for my sticker sales. If you reach out, they will also send out small sample rolls for you to try if you're unsure of which product you want.

Thank you for the recommendation! My boss let me know that they did order a roll of Substance to check out, so I have pretty high hopes for that to work.

 

[Grizzly]

I believe we use the 201 OPAE. We use eco solvent wide format printers, and this is the first time we've had this specific issue. I appreciate the suggestion about trying out their glossy, I'll run that by my boss! I imagine that you're right that it's a temporary issue, and luckily some graphics are less obvious than others. We still want to find a replacement in the meantime though!

We don't use branded backing paper just because we prefer to keep the focus on our brand rather than have it be on the materials we use. We also prefer how our finished stickers look with clean backing.

We only use our Colorados on the 201 so the UV gel might not react the same as it does with solvent which may be why we've never seen the issue.

 

[Saturn]

GF has always been pretty consistent for me (knock wood), but the box should have a batch # on it, and you could definitely reach out directly to GF. They'll route it to the right rep for some detective work.

I received a small pallet of 30" matte rolls about 2 weeks ago, straight from GF themselves, and no ridges.

 

[Goatshaver]

Check out Substance they have a 3.75mil matte vinyl. No branding on the backing paper. I love it.

 

[hybriddesign]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah the gf/briteline gloss lam was never really that glossy. Love their cast lam though.

We’ve had that issue a few times on the Oracal 210 but it’s been pretty minor.