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Browsing Posts published by scottyg
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Well, I had some difficulties with the wall vinyl I’ve been using so I decided to stop being so cheap and do a bunch of designs to practice installing.
Did some research on other user’s different techniques for Oracal 631 wall vinyl application. I cut most of the designs before I realized I should cut some with the cutting force lowered. The 2 circular dragon designs were cut after I lowered the cutting force. I rubbed the vinyl down with isopropyl alcohol to get my finger oils off the designs. I also squeegeed the backside of the designs after application tape installation. I tried the smaller reverse dragon design in my room again and had a much easier time with it. I think it was the alcohol that did the trick.
I took the T-Rex design to Ontario for my godson who loves dinosaurs. Had no real problem getting the design off the backer perhaps because of the alcohol. The application tape removal had a few hiccups that were easily corrected. I think in our haste to get the design on the wall we didn’t squeegee the design on the wall as thoroughly as we should have. Anyway, he loved the design and I look forward to doing some more for his brother and sister once I get some other colors.
Unfortunately, I found another problem when I was showing samples of the “etched glass” vinyl. I had used some low tack clear tape which seems to be losing adhesion over time. It could not lift the design of the backer. It worked fine for the multi-color design I did earlier for our glass door at the office. I checked on the PDS logo design which also used that tape and it seemed to have adherence issue on that as well. Obviously that’s not going to work for sending designs out. So now I am doing a bunch of designs in Mactac 8300 vinyl to test outdoors.
Now, I have to fine tune my depth, cutting force, and speed settings along with getting the proper tape for different vinyls and installation types. I need a good clear tape for doing multi-color designs and a consistent high-tack tape for getting the wall vinyl off the backer and onto the substrate.
Arrg! It’s always something.
Tried to put up this dragon design onto my wall at home and ran into a few problems. Some people have had problems with the Oracal 631 vinyl material not lifting off the liner with even the highest tack tapes and I was one of them Thursday night. I squeegeed the front and back of the design like some have suggested and used a high-tack tape similar to the one Oracal recommends. I took it home and squeegeed it again. Taped it into position and proceeded to peel the backer from the application tape. The design was coming off good for a bit then I started running into problems with the more intricate smaller portions of the design. Laid it back down, rubbed over the non-lifting area but I could not get the thing to release from the backer after a few tries. I then coaxed it along with a fingernail and proceeded until the next snag. I kept going over it with the squeegee to try and get the tape to grab to the vinyl but no luck. Finally laid down some of the design onto the wall to do it in stages but then I had a problem with it not coming off the application tape. Fixed that but I finally gave up on when it was clear I couldn’t get a large section of the design to release from the liner. I ripped the design off the wall and chucked it the trash. (Sorry, it was late I didn’t get any pictures.)
The next day I did some research and busted out about 12 designs of various detail levels, including 2 small dragon designs (weeded one in reverse) and 2 large dragon designs to see if some of the vinyl pieces were just too small to get a good bite with the tape. I also lowered the cutting force on the cutter on the 2 larger designs and I was going to do that on another small dragon but I had to leave and feed my parent’s dogs as they were babysitting at my brother’s house. Anyway, I took the designs home and rubbed some isopropyl alcohol on the designs to clean off any oil from my hands that may have been on the designs.
I had absolutely no problem getting the reverse dragon design onto my wall. It released from the liner without a problem and came off the application tape and onto the wall without incident. I’m feeling better now – but not so confident for me to run out and buy the 12 color pack of material. So I guess it’s just brown design for awhile until I am sure I can give these out for people to install themselves without a big hassle.
Good weeding experience
This material is very easy to weed so I ended up with the finished design in about a half hour. The design itself is less than 6.5 inches in diameter but it went pretty smooth. The white around the dragon scale was the only part I really had any trouble with. Scott would make me chuckle though as he would come by every few minutes, look at the progress, shake his head, and say “Holy Crap!”.
Straight from the cutter
My vinyl test wall
I’ve been doing small designs right now to just get the hang of it and not waste too much material. In the picture is a small fire extinguisher and the top of our HP 5si printer for scale. I don’ think I’ve done a wall design yet that was over 10 inches in size. Maybe tomorrow.
I decided after my sample test of the wall vinyl to just bite the bullet and get a bunch of rolls of the more popular colors and just wade right in. I was disappointed when I got to the sign supply shop. They had barely any Oracal 631 material on the shelves and only in the larger roll size (50 yards as opposed to 10 yard rolls) and no black at all! Pisser. I settled on 15″x50 yard roll of brown material just because I was jonesing for a vinyl hit.
Got to work and started picking out a bunch of sample designs. I decided to start with some botanical type designs to go with the brown color of the vinyl. The bamboo design I decided to cut it out of a circle design so it looks like your looking out of a window and the other design I would use it as is to look like a shadow projected on the wall.
Weeding again was not a problem with this material. This time I went easier with the squeegee and had no problems applying it to my “test wall” (my boss, also Scott, wants me to fill up my wall with designs). Again, no problem over the medium textured wall. Wrapped my squeegee in some Kleenex and used a Q-tip (one of these days I’ll invest in a toothbrush) to go over the textured wall surface.
The wall texture is not really noticeable except when you use the camera flash. The picture on the left was shot straight on so you can see the bumps and tips in the wall. The one on the right is at an angle and the texture is much less noticeable.
Well, I researched what type of vinyl was good for wall decals, wall art, wall tattoos, whatever you want to call it and I came up with Oracal 631 as a good first choice. It has a matte finish and is really easy to weed but I heard some people had problems lifting the vinyl of the release liner even with the special application tape Oracal recommends. I only had one 8″x10″ sample sheet of it to try so I decided to do a simple design so as not to over complicate my life.
Medium textured surface - No prob!
Worked like a dream. The weeding was extremely smooth and hassle-free. I used some high-tack tape as recommended by the manufacturer (not the Oracal brand though). Had a minor issue with the line delaminating on the first try but just scraped it off with my fingernail and kept on going. Put up the first decal at work on a medium textured surface and it worked – no problem! Taped it down, peeled the backer off carefully, laid it down, smoothed it with the side of my hand and a credit card, and improvised with a Q-tip to smooth it over the texture, pulled the tape off slowly and BLAM!
The decal I took home to try on my smooth walls gave me a few problems but nothing major. Had a problem with the liner delaminating but I think I was a little rough with the squeegee when I applied the application tape. Had a little issue with the design not coming off the backer but I just laid it down again ran a finger over it and it pulled off fine.
Now I’m excited! Gonna pick up some more 631 material to try out.
For my third vinyl project I decided to do a larger 4-color window decal. Had a little bit of frustration with the Corel Draw interface but I ended up gaining a better understanding of more efficiently editing vector graphics.
First applied window decal
I started with a stock 1 color frame design and modified to include multiple colors and text. I couldn’t get the envelope looking right for the text flowing in the scroll banner so I ended up just doing text on a path end editing the spacing and font size of each character to look right. I’m sure there is a much better way to do it but it worked out pretty good and was much quicker than futzing around with the other tools. I still have a long way to go until I feel as comfortable working with vector graphics as I do with raster graphics.
Anyway, as usual I screwed up the first design when I applied the tape. Who knew tape and dirt didn’t go together? Everything was going good on the second try until I was at the end of the third layer. One of the registration marks came loose so I had to use one mark and eyeball it. I accidentally bobbled the tape and got part of the fourth layer stuck to design before I had it fully registered. Boy does that vinyl stick pretty good! I decided to just lay it down but I introduced a lot of air bubbles into the design.
Measured the window with my boss and layed it out and applied it. No problem there! I then started popping and smoothing the air bubbles out. Couldn’t get it 100% but it’s not too bad. You can see the holes in the design where I was a little too rough but only if you look straight on with the light behind it. The alignment trouble is barely noticeable.
For my second vinyl project I had to try a multi-color design. My company’s logo was created by a design agency but the vector artwork was kinda sloppy so this was a perfect opportunity to hone my Corel Draw skills. I cleaned up the graphic to make a nice 3-color design ready for vinyl cutting.
PDS Logo in multi-layer vinyl
The first time I started the layer ordering backwards. The second time I kept pulling up the registration marks on the final layer so the alignment was a little off. I realized I had left a critical piece out of the design and went back to fix and cleanup the design a little more. I was feeling confident for the third try so I cut 4 at the same time. Turned out great. The last one had a big air bubble when I layed out the application tape too quick but I smoothed it out and it was usable after all.
