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Regular Laminate for Floors?

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
Would IJ40 or 3551 be ok for floor graphics? Our supplier said they were advised that is was ok to use Oracal 215G laminate for floor decals and not much else was available. Any opinions?
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
As far as actually using the 3551 for floor decals, you shouldn’t have any problems on flat surfaces.

With regards to the 215, that’s not an anti-slip rated laminate so I definitely wouldn’t trust that. I’ve laminated rolls and rolls of the 3551/215 Combo and every now and then we lay a few surplus signs on the floor for *storage*, I can tell you now, that stuff is pretty easy to slide on.
 

karst41

New Member
Would IJ40 or 3551 be ok for floor graphics? Our supplier said they were advised that is was ok to use Oracal 215G laminate for floor decals and not much else was available. Any opinions?

It needs to be slip resistant, otherwise if somebody slips, gets injured and sues, it could become a real bad thing. Grimco sells a print media that has sand in it. Prints well. They do sell an over laminate for regular print media and while it is expensive you can print in IJ35C or IJ40. Floor Graphics are becoming a popular product. Price it correctly. Cheers
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Thanks. I grabbed a roll of 3060 yesterday, it said its rated for floor graphics. Thats all I could find that appeared available. Hope its not garbage.

That's the gloss right? I don't think we've used it before, but we've been really happy with the 2080. We use it for a lot of different things and have never run into issues with it. Good value laminate for sure.
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
That's the gloss right? I don't think we've used it before, but we've been really happy with the 2080. We use it for a lot of different things and have never run into issues with it. Good value laminate for sure.
Its gloss but thats all they had. The 3000 is 2 year but should be ok for floor decals.
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
We’ve been trying to find “removable” vinyl where possible. A lot of these floor graphics will be changed and/or just plain removed whenever this goes back to *normal* so I’m guessing there’s gonna be a lot of angry people wondering why their floor vinyls won’t come off or left a huge chunk of glue lol
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
We’ve been trying to find “removable” vinyl where possible. A lot of these floor graphics will be changed and/or just plain removed whenever this goes back to *normal* so I’m guessing there’s gonna be a lot of angry people wondering why their floor vinyls won’t come off or left a huge chunk of glue lol
This is new to me, going to use oracal 3551 since we already have it. How removable is it after everyone walks all over it?
There are people selling 10 packs of these on amazon for $15, it’ll cost them more to have someone scrape them off the floor and hope they dont damage it in the process.
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
To be honest we only ever used the 3551 for flat signage and vehicle graphics. It’s a permanent adhesive though so won’t be easy to get off depending on how long it’s there. We used the 3162 removable monomeric once but after about three months the customer called saying they were having trouble removing them, and that’s the removable stuff!
 

ikarasu

Active Member
A store came to us because they bought a hundred or so 6 ft markers on Craigslist... They out a couple on their walls and decided to move them. Buy were they pissed when it tore chunks off....

We use removable for floors, and all our covid decals - you never know where people are going to put it.
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
To be honest we only ever used the 3551 for flat signage and vehicle graphics. It’s a permanent adhesive though so won’t be easy to get off depending on how long it’s there. We used the 3162 removable monomeric once but after about three months the customer called saying they were having trouble removing them, and that’s the removable stuff!
3551 is permanent but removable with heat? What is everyone else using? I don't want something that peels up with traffic and cleaning either, I just figured the promo stuff wouldn't be so hot on the floor
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
Removable with heat but I’ve found it leaves residue/glue. Even the removable stuff does! Though you won’t have any problems with it sticking. We tried some 3164 about three years ago and anti slip lam and it looks good as new (our cleaner is amazing though, must have OCD)

We have mostly been using textured/anti slip vinyl recently and are fortunate enough that the Colorado inks are very scratch resistant/hard wearing. Both the floor and carpet vinyls can go ~6 months after application and leave no residue.

We also have some pretty expensive canon media (IJM 684) that works on floors and carpets as a one step process (no lam) and that stuff is great. Just nobody wants to pay for it lol.

As much as it won’t be a help now I’d definitely look into the anti slip vinyls, saved us a lot of time laminating so far as we’ve probably done ~100 rolls in the last couple weeks and it’s saved an entire person worth of work lol. Works out a fair bit cheaper too.
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
Removable with heat but I’ve found it leaves residue/glue. Even the removable stuff does! Though you won’t have any problems with it sticking. We tried some 3164 about three years ago and anti slip lam and it looks good as new (our cleaner is amazing though, must have OCD)

We have mostly been using textured/anti slip vinyl recently and are fortunate enough that the Colorado inks are very scratch resistant/hard wearing. Both the floor and carpet vinyls can go ~6 months after application and leave no residue.

We also have some pretty expensive canon media (IJM 684) that works on floors and carpets as a one step process (no lam) and that stuff is great. Just nobody wants to pay for it lol.

As much as it won’t be a help now I’d definitely look into the anti slip vinyls, saved us a lot of time laminating so far as we’ve probably done ~100 rolls in the last couple weeks and it’s saved an entire person worth of work lol. Works out a fair bit cheaper too.
Would I be better off just using a decent inexpensive cal vinyl like 3165 then? It wouldn’t surprise me if the adhesive is the same on both that and 3551. I pulled a decal off my door that had been on there a couple of years yesterday and it came off clean. It was 3165 and was curious.
 

Bly

New Member
Every supplier here is out of floor graphic laminates and the textured non laminated stuff.
Talking to one about alternatives he said they got some regular matte lams rated R9.
HP Prime Matte and Avery DOL2100 among others.
I wouldn't risk it to be honest. Those films aren't real grippy dry but when wet they'd be outright slippery.
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
Would I be better off just using a decent inexpensive cal vinyl like 3165 then? It wouldn’t surprise me if the adhesive is the same on both that and 3551. I pulled a decal off my door that had been on there a couple of years yesterday and it came off clean. It was 3165 and was curious.

Yeah wouldn’t go OTT with the vinyl, the main thing here is the laminate. I doubt sticking to the actual floors will be an issue
 

AGinVT

New Member
Would IJ40 or 3551 be ok for floor graphics? Our supplier said they were advised that is was ok to use Oracal 215G laminate for floor decals and not much else was available. Any opinions?
We were having a tough time tracking down a floor vinyl/lam combo that wasn’t sold out, so I dug around a little and found that 3M40C/8509 is considered a viable slip resistant option for floors and even short carpeting. Works great and we always have them in-stock. Definitely not as burly as a traditional floor lam, but we haven’t had any complaints so far.
 
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