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Cast vinyl and Calendar vinyl differences....

fine point

New Member
So... My understanding was the cast vinyl has stronger adhesive than calendar vinyl. But someone told me it's about the "removability".

He was saying that the cast vinyls come off clean within the suggested length (~9 or 10 years). And calendar is shorter. The difference is not about the adhesive strength.

Is that true? I asked Avery help line and they didn't get back to me. haha.

FP
 

ikarasu

Active Member
The adhesiveness doesn't change, technically.

Cast is made by pouring vinyl into a sheet (very simple explanation). Calanderes is made by stretching/rolling the vinyl flat.

So calendered tends to shrink... It's also thicker, and not as stretchy. So removing it causes it to break more easily.


Cast will come off easier... And it will stick better since it's not shrinking down.

There are lots.of differences... Calandered has its uses, but cast is pretty much better in every way, except price point.

The most important part to being a sucessful sign company is knowing what materials to use to do the job properly... Otherwise in a year or two when all your jobs fail, so will your company.

So I suggest researching all the differences in vinyl.
 

Terry Welford

New Member
Cast is by far the best, but pricey, as with everything else it is 'Horses for courses', any truck jobs with rivet heads will need it as calendared is too brittle.
 

fine point

New Member
Thanks guys, except for Canuck.
We know the technical differences but I sometime feel the calendar is more appropriate for what we do (wall graphics) even though the cast is technically more aggressive.

It's a crapshoot sometime applying on painted walls, especially dark colors.
 

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
You keep saying cast is more aggressive and that's not true. Cast is more dimensionally stable so it is less likely to shrink and pull itself loose.

There are adhesives designed to be permanent or removable, with low tack or high tack, and you can combine those with air egress features and other features that reduce the initial tack. They put all of these adhesives on either vinyl type.

Removability has just as much to do with the adhesive as the vinyl’s ability to stay pliable and resist cracking over time. I imagine that they also try and save a few pennies on the adhesives when they are putting them on cheaper less durable calendared vinyl.

Ikarasu gave you a decent definition but how I have always explained it is:

Cast vinyl starts as a hot liquid and is sprayed on a moving web belt with very tight tolerances, 2 mils thick. It cools in this shape. Because of the ingredients and how it’s manufactured, cast vinyl is dimensionally stable, or less likely to shrink.

Calendared vinyl typically uses less expensive ingredients and starts as a warm ball of vinyl dough. It gets rolled out between rollers that get narrower and narrower as the line goes along. This process is referred to as calendaring, hence calendared vinyl. Because calendared vinyl started as a big ball, it wants to shrink back to that state but there are additives that help resist.

The higher end calendared vinyl’s ingredients are more expensive and give it most of the features of cast vinyl. The calendared manufacturing lines are a lot faster and cheaper to run making premium calendared vinyl that is still cheaper than cast.

My guess it that you do a lot or walls where they used the wrong paint. Paint has a lot of additives these days making it last longer and easier to clean and vinyl doesn’t stick to most of them. Kilz and Zinsser brand primers and paints are recommended for wall murals. In these situations, cast is less likely to fail because it can conform better to the orange peel texture of the paint. It’s still no guarantee. In these situations you can try and clean the wall multiple times with 30% isopropyl 70% water or just order vinyl with high tack adhesive like Arlon DPF 8000.
 

signbrad

New Member
There are adhesives designed to be permanent or removable, with low tack or high tack, and you can combine those with air egress features and other features that reduce the initial tack. They put all of these adhesives on either vinyl type.
Removability has just as much to do with the adhesive as the vinyl’s ability to stay pliable and resist cracking over time. I imagine that they also try and save a few pennies on the adhesives when they are putting them on cheaper less durable calendared vinyl.

Good points. There is great variation in the adhesives used for vinyl film. And there are many combinations of vinyl and adhesive being marketed, both in cast and calendered. I know one house brand of cast vinyl that is made by a major manufacturer and is marketed right alongside one of the major manufacturer's premium vinyl offerings as an equivalent, but it is not the same. Why? Because the house brand asked for an altered adhesive mix. They wanted a shorter, more aggressive initial tack, though they wanted the overall life expectancy to be similar.

While it's not always accurate to generalize about vinyls, usually the more expensive vinyls have better ingredients.
"Plasticiser migration" is a term used by manufacturers to describe how vinyls become brittle as they age. The plasticisers, chemicals that keep vinyl pliable, migrate. They leave the vinyl film from both the front side and the adhesive side as the vinyl ages. Plasticisers vary in quality and price. There are chemicals that can be added to resist plasticiser migration and this adds to cost.

There seems to be a use for all grades of vinyl, though sign shops may use certain grades more than others. I know a shop that uses Scothcal 50 almost exclusively. And though they have learned the hard way that cheap calendered vinyls like Scotchcal 50 are not long-lasting on most vehicle lettering jobs, they use the cheap stuff for everything else. They have been in business for many years peddling low price, so using less expensive materials fits their standard operating procedure. They have a steady clientele of customers whose main, if not only, consideration is low price. Yet they exist in a town that also has a shop known for high prices and high quality.

Cheap products exist in every industry. Walmart has built an empire based on "Low Prices Every Day," though they have abandoned that slogan in recent years.

Low price, low quality. These are not really moral issues, though I used to think of them in that way. Each sign maker decides what market segment to pursue. And they buy the materials and use the methods they feel are appropriate to what they are selling.
Certain materials, of course, work far better in certain situations. And unfortunately, much of what we learn is through trial and error. That is why forums like this one can be very helpful, especially when we share experiences about specific materials and substrates. We learn what works well and what doesn't.

Brad in Kansas City
 
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AKwrapguy

New Member
Thanks guys, except for Canuck.
We know the technical differences but I sometime feel the calendar is more appropriate for what we do (wall graphics) even though the cast is technically more aggressive.

It's a crapshoot sometime applying on painted walls, especially dark colors.

They make wall test kits so that you can test the material before you print/apply so that you know what your getting into. There are several brands that make material specifically for wall murals as well.

As far as 'feeling that one adhesive is more aggressive than that the other', There are materials that do have more aggressive but what your 'feeling' is the fact that cast tends to be a removable material. So while it may seem less aggressive it most likely is not as what you feeling is the glass beads creating a barrier between your fingers and the adhesive.
 

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
Good points. There is great variation in the adhesives used for vinyl film. And there are many combinations of vinyl and adhesive being marketed, both in cast and calendered. I know one house brand of cast vinyl that is made by a major manufacturer and is marketed right alongside one of the major manufacturer's premium vinyl offerings as an equivalent, but it is not the same. Why? Because the house brand asked for an altered adhesive mix. They wanted a shorter, more aggressive initial tack, though they wanted the overall life expectancy to be similar.

While it's not always accurate to generalize about vinyls, usually the more expensive vinyls have better ingredients.
"Plasticiser migration" is a term used by manufacturers to describe how vinyls become brittle as they age. The plasticisers, chemicals that keep vinyl pliable, migrate. They leave the vinyl film from both the front side and the adhesive side as the vinyl ages. Plasticisers vary in quality and price. There are chemicals that can be added to resist plasticiser migration and this adds to cost.

There seems to be a use for all grades of vinyl, though sign shops may use certain grades more than others. I know a shop that uses Scothcal 50 almost exclusively. And though they have learned the hard way that cheap calendered vinyls like Scotchcal 50 are not long-lasting on most vehicle lettering jobs, they use the cheap stuff for everything else. They have been in business for many years peddling low price, so using less expensive materials fits their standard operating procedure. They have a steady clientele of customers whose main, if not only, consideration is low price. Yet they exist in a town that also has a shop known for high prices and high quality.

Cheap products exist in every industry. Walmart has built an empire based on "Low Prices Every Day," though they have abandoned that slogan in recent years.

Low price, low quality. These are not really moral issues, though I used to think of them in that way. Each sign maker decides what market segment to pursue. And they buy the materials and use the methods they feel are appropriate to what they are selling.
Certain materials, of course, work far better in certain situations. And unfortunately, much of what we learn is through trial and error. That is why forums like this one can be very helpful, especially when we share experiences about specific materials and substrates. We learn what works well and what doesn't.

Brad in Kansas City


3M 7125
Gregory's Trendfilm 6500
Gerber's 220

are all the same 3M facestock with different liners and I assume the adhesive is made to each companies spec.

When I was in KC we used trendfilm unless special colors were needed and the price points were a lot less than the other two...
 

MikePro

New Member
I'd say Canuck's LMGTFY is a proper, cheeky, response to a topic that's rehashed over&over again on these forums.
people will also hint at the fact, that you can use the "Search Signs101" option to find the existing threads with same question (spoiler alert, there's at least eight since 2010)

I, however, will just post one of the threads here
and shorten the explaination into price vs. quality/longevity vs. special features. calendared being cheap/temporary & cast lasting as long as possible for the conditions it needs to withstand, but at an additional cost.
.... and +1 Derby's youtubevid for visual reference.
 
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