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Spray painted vinyl

showcase 66

New Member
Just curios if anyone has spray painted vinyl to get a different look to the vinyl. I was re arranging the shop a little today and I came across a can of spray paint I used for some bars on a sign awhile back. It was rustoleum Hammered paint. I was messing around and sprayed some white 651 with it. After about 2 hours or so, I cut out a few things with it. I thought it was going to start flaking off but it didnt. It gave the letters an aged look to them.
Just curios if anyone has done this before. It had never crossed my mind.
 

OldPaint

New Member
i dont know what the hammered finish will do but can tell you KRYLON or DUPLI-COLOR spray cans on vinyl work well. i prefer to cut vinyl 1st, then spray paint. saves the blade.
you can weed after painting, and you can also hit it with a light coat of clear.
 

RebeckaR

New Member
Yep, been doing that for years. I use Krylon because it dries really fast and bonds well on most vinyls.
For some reason we had some Arlon a few years ago that wouldn't hold the paint, but other than that it holds up really well.
 

showcase 66

New Member
Sweet... I dont know why I never thought about it before. What I was worried about was when I mask it. I thought it might peel the paint off when you apply it. I was thinking about applying some to some scrap aluminum and putting it on shed roof and leaving it there for a couple of months to see how it still looks.

i dont know what the hammered finish will do but can tell you KRYLON or DUPLI-COLOR spray cans on vinyl work well. i prefer to cut vinyl 1st, then spray paint. saves the blade.
you can weed after painting, and you can also hit it with a light coat of clear.
I was afraid of ruining the blade so I put the old blade back in.

Yep, been doing that for years. I use Krylon because it dries really fast and bonds well on most vinyls.
For some reason we had some Arlon a few years ago that wouldn't hold the paint, but other than that it holds up really well.

So does the color still look good years down the road? That would be one of my concerns to use for a client. Dont want something a year from now looking like crap.
 

iSign

New Member
I've seen it looking very good for years.
Butch Anton used to promote Krylon at the sign trade shows & showed some very cool effects he was getting before even the Edge printer came onto the scene...

I remember he would stick his hand in a glass of water, flick drops on a small bit of vinyl.. spray a little blue mist.. then maybe a little green mist.. then while that dried, he would take another small bit.. crumple it up... then flatten it somewhat & then spray some brown maybe... then turn it around to spray the same crumpled surface from the other side with some gold maybe.. and then he did something else, like maybe a straight fade of yellow on the bottom half, and red on the top half, careful to go over the very top a few times, a few less below that, and some wispy quick sprays in the middle, leaving a great looking red/orange/yellow fade after he weeded it.. and then he would weed, tape and apply his wrinkled one & once it was just some weeded letters stuck on a board, it wasn't wrinkled at all.. but it looked like marble almost, with two tone highlights & shadows on all the wrinkle "veins".. and of course the last one looked like some kind of underwater bubble texture, because all the different size dots came naturally but blocked out any paint.. very cool stuff!
 

CentralSigns

New Member
I've done a little paint spaying. Like I-Sign says it can give a cool effect. I use it for real custom jobs only. You can also get more $ for these jobs, but can't often exactly reproduce the effects. This means everything must be perfect the first time around. I got the inspiration from fixing another shops damaged decal, cost me lots to reproduce their effect what a headache. Krylon is tops for the spray paint to use.
 

Mike Paul

Super Active Member
It's been around along time.
Krylon fades worked good because of the MEK chemical in the paint. It adhered well and usually didn't peel off with application tape like enamel paint would.
I believe they removed the MEK a few years back...

Water Base airbrush paint like Createx Auto Air and Deka were popular years ago.
Solvent base Urethane's also... Metallic Urethanes look awesome.

There's been a ton of threads in the past on this if it's something you want to start doing...
 

Wes Phifer

New Member
The Norwegian air brush! That is what Butch called it. LOL.
We used to do it some. I haven't tried it lately. Krylon always stuck good.
 

iSign

New Member
Krylon fades worked good because of the MEK chemical in the paint. It adhered well and usually didn't peel off with application tape like enamel paint would.
I believe they removed the MEK a few years back...

thanks... I wanted to add that part, but didn't know the details as well...
 

studio 440

New Member
shot a lot of control tac with centari auto motive paint and held up great let dry over night then cut it in plotter if you cut first you have to weed it wet or the cuts will bridge
 

sdimmick

New Member
tried the krylon (gloss) last night on Oracal 651. Then I applied the krylon clearcoat, i think it made it look worse, but prob. need it to protect.

Im excited about this process, im glad I read it hear! Thanks!
 

sdimmick

New Member
not so sure this was a good idea afterall...edges chipped when I pulled app tape off.
I painted then cut, is there a better process?
 

Vinylman

New Member
I have used this process for a number of years to create many faux finishes.

When using Krylon, make sure that when you look at the ingredients on the back label that includes MEK.
I know that over the years Sherwin-Williams paint company, who are the current manufacturers of Krylon, have been slowly changing the formulation.

I have experimented over the years also with their product called Fusion®. it seems to adhere very well to many of the vinyl products that are available today for plotting. It was developed so that you could repaint the deck furniture, garbage cans anything with vinyl in it, so it's a perfect fit for the vinyl that we use for plotting. The only problem that I found is that the colors can be somewhat limiting as to their availability. I have found that Walmart seems to carry the largest color spectrum, and their prices are very fair.

One thing that I've learned over the years is to pre-clean the vinyl with isopropyl alcohol prior to adding any of the paint treatments to it, this will assure you that you have a clean surface without any oils from your hands were the shop to cause paint adhesion problems.

When you use this approach to add value to the vinyl products that you're selling to your customer, one thing you must keep in mind, that each technique that you use is customized, and therefore very unique to this particular project and customer.
I have always referred to this as "value added selling”. Using these techniques and a little bit of salesmanship you can easily take a one dollar piece of vinyl, and add $25, or more, to the final selling price of your product.

Another thing that you might want to keep in mind, is that what you might perceive as a mistake because it didn't turn out exactly the way you had envisioned it, may well thrill your customer.
Unless the job is really screwed up, never admit to the customer that you made a mistake in the process, but just enthusiastically agree with him that, " yeah, that really looks cool”. Then hand him the invoice, and collect the money.:thankyou:
You might also consider taking a few scrap pieces of pre-painted aluminum, and make up some sample signs that can show the customer variations of these techniques. They will assist you greatly in up selling your future customers, and adding a great deal of profit to your bottom line. In my shop I use a Good, Better, Best three-tier pricing process. with this process you give the customer three choices of how to do the same sign. Good would just be a basic sign one color on whatever substrate he chooses.
Better would be the same copy but with perhaps a drop shadow.
Best, of course would be with all of the bells and whistles added such as shadows, outlines and some of the Krylon techniques that you want to add.

You can create some sample company signs using this technique, and have them on display for your customers to look at. This gives them a great visual, so that they can easily understand the good better best idea, and how it might work for them. I have five sets of these Good, Better, Best Sample signs, that I use all the time to assist me in helping the customer visualize what they can have for their sign.

A couple of $5 cans of Krylon, a little creativity on your part, and less than 10 min. of your time can add thousands of dollars to your bottom line over the period a year.

So if you don't have access to a full-color digital printer this is your next best option for adding value to your Signs.

Have fun, experiment, make money!:clapping:
 

Dogvan

New Member
I had to "white out" an RV window so that large reflective copy could go over it. The unit was older and was not brilliant white anymore. So I used the Fusion paint, an antique whitish, and painted the black window frame and the ControlTac covered windows simultaneously, even painting the black rubber window seals. It has held up well.
 

adkmaid

New Member
nice to see someone else has done this kinda stuff too......oh the simpler days before roland printers to put these patterns on. get yerself a ton of krylon and have at it, its a lot of fun and interesting too.
 

Wes Phifer

New Member
sdimmick - probably to much paint. Don't use the clear and use really thin coats of the Krylon. That was my experience anyway. If think it needs a protective coat use Frog Juice.
 
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