What's your recipe for Application Fluid?

[SignosaurusRex]

Just a note to those of you that use Windex ®... there are two different types, one with Ammonia and one without. Ammonia is a "no-no" with vinyl application fluids! If you insist on using anything containing Ammonia, you will pay the price at some point.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

The dollar store stuff is what I always used. It's cheaper to buy that than an empty spray bottle. I used to strip window tint with ammonia, stuff takes it right off but the smell is terrible. Never tried it on decals.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

We do a lot of PPF installs. Impossible to do dry! And to get certified from 3M you need to take their course and wrap a dozen or so vehicles. Well... 3ms official instructions are to use a mixture of alcohol + water and baby soap. We go through a gallon or so every vehicle we do depending on partial or full install. and it works better than rapid tac because you can can control how fast it dries via how much alcohol you use.


It's pretty much all we do as a wet install...that and a few frosted / translucent installs! But we use rapid tac for those.


Our installer has used wndex for 20 years without any issues as well. We dont anymore just because if 3M ever found out Wed be removed as good installers from their website... But no issues. One time I used one with amonia though.. It fell down after a week

I got rapid tac for etch. I was afraid the window cleaner would dry and leave blue behind the material.

 

[Johnny Best]

They are naming him Rex.

 

[neutrinocv]

We use Rapidtac with distilled water. ⅓ Rapidtac - ⅔ water. We don't do much wraps and mostly dry installs; we go though less than 8 gallons of Rapidtac a year... Should we need more than that, I would consider making our own mix of dist. water - alc. - soap. 15-20 yrs ago, in a shop I used to work, 2-3 droplets of lemon dishsoap in 1 gallon of water was used as fluid and worked fine. Too much soap can leave white shadowy trails when applying vinyl to a clear surface (plexi or glass); be careful. Also beware of soaps with any of "cream" in them like those "soft on the hands" dishsoaps; they are greasy and affect adhesiveness.

 

[Gino]

Wow..... all this bickering over some weasel p!ss !!! I used to mix it, but finally got smart. Why waste the time getting this stuff, mixing it up, when ya just charge the customer the same way you charge for the vinyl, application tape, squeegee, weeding time, cutting time, application time, overhead, insurance and just add a few cents in for a mist ??

 

[Jester1167]

Baby shampoo as a surfactant has the least amount of additives that could affect long term adhesion.
Water
Alcohol 70%

The alcohol content changes based on the conditions. The more alcohol the quicker is dries/flashes. Never used more than about 30%. The same with the baby shampoo except its measured in drops, around 5 per spray bottle.

On big jobs, I use a big pump garden sprayer with a long hose. On medium jobs, I'll use one like Moze posted and on small ones, a normal spray bottle.

 

[Jester1167]

Wow..... all this bickering over some weasel p!ss !!! I used to mix it, but finally got smart. Why waste the time getting this stuff, mixing it up, when ya just charge the customer the same way you charge for the vinyl, application tape, squeegee, weeding time, cutting time, application time, overhead, insurance and just add a few cents in for a mist ??

When your installing 1000 square feet of second surface windows it makes sense.

 

[Johnny Best]

You still sell this stuff Gino.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

When your installing 1000 square feet of second surface windows it makes sense.

It's all relative. Your price reflects every bit that goes into the job, big or small, it shouldn't matter.

 

[neutrinocv]

Wow..... all this bickering over some weasel p!ss !!! I used to mix it, but finally got smart. Why waste the time getting this stuff, mixing it up, when ya just charge the customer the same way you charge for the vinyl, application tape, squeegee, weeding time, cutting time, application time, overhead, insurance and just add a few cents in for a mist ??

Agreed; no real economy to be made if you factor in all the costs in you pricing. Unless of course one's prices are rock bottom... We mainly dissolve the Rapidtac to prolong the drying time and it's a quick and easy thing to do; pour ⅔ of water in the pump-spray bottle then top off with Rapidtac: badabing, badaboom !! Otherwise, mixing our own juice I would do it in a big 100 gallons batch once every other month to consider it worth the effort and cost... Not there yet !

 

[Gino]

When your installing 1000 square feet of second surface windows it makes sense.

So tell me jester, if you're doing 100 sq ft of window second surface...... do you figure it differently then 200 sq ft...... 400 sq ft....... 1,000 sq ft.. ?? I'm not following your logic. Don't ya just add up all of your costs and charge the customer accordingly ??

 

[Pewter0000]

Nothing will eat the adhesive enough to ruin it. Cheap windex works fine. Rapid tac smells better and seems to evaporate a little faster. Why does everyone go through so much of this that it becomes an issue? The old timers I was around as a kid would laugh you out of the shop for using it except in a handful or rare cases.

Probably nothing listed in these recipes will eat the vinyl glue, but I can absolutely confirm that frustrating clients that ignore our warnings and use fancy car/chrome detailing chemicals will absolutely ruin vinyl glue. Had a dealership continually wash one of our wraps and the glue and vinyl separated around the drip edges - poof, right apart in layers, glue was totally eaten.

 

[Jester1167]

Gino, do you figure how much alcohol, rags or paper towels each job will take and charge accordingly? How about pro rating blades and squeeges on a per job basis? That would be counter productive and cost more than its worth. Instead, most consider consumables when determining a shop rate. Instead of spending $100 for 3 gallons of rapid tac, I prefer free water, a few dollars worth of alcohol, and penny for baby shampoo. On a small job mixing it not worth the time.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Just add on 2% to every invoice for consumables - "shop supplies." Auto shops do it. Trucking companies add a fuel surcharge, others add on environmental fees. We started that about 4 years ago and not 1 person has even asked about it.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

5-10 drops (whatever suits the way you like best) of original blue Dawn per spray bottle of straight water. Shake it well and spray on the vinyl.
30 years of installs without failure tell me it works just fine.

Oh and I'm both 3m and Avery certified as an installer.....

 

[netsol]

ikarasu I am not a chemical scientist. The RapidTac sales rep explained it to me. There are various acids in soaps. Just let a little get in your eyes and you know what I am talking about.
So let me suggest a simple test for baby shampoo. Take a small scrap of vinyl. Take off the backing. Straight out of the bottle, pour some baby shampoo on the adhesive and let it set overnight, maybe several days. That gives you a chance to see what really is going on. Just a thought.

so, robert, we won't use it at the eye wash stations

 

[Rocco G]

Way back when we rode dinosaurs to work, we got our first plotter, a Gerber 4B plotter - delivered by Fred Flintstone himself. The 3M rep gave us an "official" formula for application fluid. We were told to take a std. spray bottle fill it with warm tap water (long before the bottled water craze) and put in a couple of large drops of Lux dishwashing liquid. Then shake it up, toss out half of it and refill with tap water. I can't seem to find that brand around here anymore and so use baby shampoo. It gets used for large cut graphics and the occasional large digital print, etc. We don't do wraps so I can't comment on that. I have vinyl on an illuminated sign in downtown Philly that's lasted 36-37 years (almost no direct sunlight) so I guess it's OK.

YMMV

 

[Johnny Best]

Potassium hydroxide is used to make liquid soap. Lye is another name for it. That is why the suggestions being made as to pouring on an exposed side of vinyl with adhesive. RapidTac was not around when the Gerber first came out so the formulas of baby shampoo and liquid soaps with water were offered up. I use to cut up Ivory soap and put in the water until it was all mixed up but it is easier to just buy RapidTac. Takes me about a year or two to go though a gallon. Or being on the job and realized you did or didn'tt put enough soap in your water mixture.

 

[Reveal1]

Wondering who sells those 1 quart condoms...