matte lam. over reflective?

[Signed Out]

This may be a dumb question, but I'll ask anyway. If you put matte lam. over reflective printed vinyl will it lose it's reflectivity?

 

[Signed Out]

Has anyone ever tried this?

 

[CentralSigns]

Manufacturer claims it changes it considerably. They say it may not meet Hwy sign standards in some jurisdictions. Since we do little, to those standards we laminate all the time, over our print jobs that is. My vinyl supplier says us the thinnest lam available to minimize the distortion of the reflective. I personally can't see the difference either way, it still is reflective to my eyes. Not all reflective vinyl is created equal make sure you get one that is printable. Meaning that all may except ink but only certain ones are printable. Hope that helps some.

 

[Signed Out]

I am using oracal 5600.. and are we both talking about laminating with matte laminate? Your response sounds like you may be talking about gloss or clear laminate.

 

[MikePro]

i've done it quite a few times with 2mil 8520 AND even the ultramatte 8915 and hardly notice a difference between the two or from using glossy/no lam at all.

this is just for parking lot/misc. signage and vehicle wraps, however, as we just outsource street/highway signage to Tapco... so I haven't needed to look into any sort of "standards" for my printables (yet).

 

[Signed Out]

I guess I should have said this in the first place that it is for my partner's and my trucks. We both agree that we love the reflective at night and like the matte finish in the daylight. "Standards" are not of any concern, we just want the lettering to still "light up" at night.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

The only time it's going to light up is when another cars headlights shine on it.

 

[spm]

It will still Reflect. Laminate is just a Clear Coat on top.

 

[cdiesel]

We have 8915 Ultramatte on four of our shop vehicles, and one of them has Oracal 5600 underneath. It is nowhere near as reflective as it would be with 8518 on top. All of our shop vehicles also have reflective lettering with 8518 laminate (including the one with reflective/matte) and side by side there is a huge difference.

It is still reflective, just not as much. And it looks sweet with the ultramatte lam.

 

[Malkin]

Matte lam over reflective does cut down on how much light get bounced back, but it also makes the lighting more even, without hot-spots. I used 3M 8520 over a print on IJ680cr to wrap my mailbox and it came out frikkin sweet.

However I don't think I would ever use this combo on anything that was supposed to be like a traditional reflective road sign.

 

[CentralSigns]

We used matte lam and bought the best 2 mil cast we could find. Like I said to us mot much difference, but overall as far as a manufacturer is concerned enough of one to not use for traffic signs. We used it on off-road vehicles, so to say.