Need Help Digitally Printing Reflective / Removal

[TeamOutlaw]

We do a lot of "safety vehicle" graphics (firetrucks, ambulances, police). Now, after a lot of these vehicles have been in service for a few years, and the departments are beginning to cycle though them and trade them off we are getting requests to remove the reflective graphics before they can be sold or traded.

We had a basic police car in the other day to remove film and one of my guys spent 4hrs with a heat gun and only got the rear qtr panel removed! It was BRUTAL! So, we switched to vinyl eraser wheel and managed to get the entire vehicle removed in 4hrs (which still seemed like a long time).

We have been printing to FDC 2407 reflective white. I was wondering if the process of printing and the drying heat of the printer was somehow making the film "extra" sticky!?

Any thoughts, advice, suggestions? Thanks

 

[Behrmon]

POD Steam for sure, makes short work of it for us.

 

[theyllek]

I don't think the printing on it affected the adhesiveness, reflective stuff just sucks. Loves to rip on install, then likes to hang around when you want it off. Heat gun and luck is what we've used for removal.

Will have to give a steamer a try next time. Thanks for the idea

 

[TeamOutlaw]

POD Steam for sure, makes short work of it for us.

Thanks! What exactly is POD Steam? We have a steamer around here somewhere...but have never used it. Do you just get it good and hot and start peeling or is there another "trick" to it? Thanks in advance!

 

[AKwrapguy]

Heat gun and elbow grease, and adhesive remover. We tried one of the POD systems a local supply rep dropped off for application and removal and wasn't impressed. In theory it sounded great but in practice the steam didn't get the temperature that was helpful, the holding tank was small and needed to be refilled often, it needed to much time to heat up so we were only able to use it for a few seconds at a time. While I understand that not all steam systems are created equal, maybe try and rent one first.

 

[SlikGRFX]

I learnt the hard way in the past. So whenever I produced reflectives I would laminate the reflective onto a regular polymeric vinyl before printing and cutting it. Easier to handle and fit, sticks just fine, and easy to remove in the future.

 

[Behrmon]

POD is pressure on demand. It works great for us on regular SAV as well as reflective, could just be a matter of the unit itself or if a primer was used.

 

[printhog]

I do a lot lot lot of reflective removal. My fuel station clients use it everywhere. So I tested the time to do each type of removal to better our site time.

A trade magazine was going to do an article on it... But we found that it all comes off about the the same, it comes of about as fast as it takes to properly apply, 30-40 sq ft per hour on average. In most cases at least 50%, but usually 90%of the adhesive was left on the surface. And none of the methods we tried were really amazingly better given the cost of tooling or skill..

We tested:

chemical:

with "crystal tech Reflective". Very slow, messy, requires constant temperature. 36 PSF per hr in summer sun. 10 PSF per hr if surface if under 70 degrees. To get above 50 PSF, use a pressure washer after the chemical gets into the vinyl. It will remove glue from surface nicely But needs warm water, and sticky bits go everywhere.

Goof off with heat, again messy, can damage car plastics. 40 PSF per hr in summer sun. Strip vinyl first, glue second. Pressure wash to finish.

Steam with the aforementioned b&d steamer reasonably good but slow, 30 PSF per hr. Use a lil chiseler or yello tools yello blade to get that speed. Chemical strip remaining glue.

steam with a Dupray hand wand system, poor performer. 20 PSF hr very expensive. Anyone want to buy a used one?

Steam with a high pressure commercial steam cleaner, fast, 90 PSF per hr but requires lots of expense and risk of surface damage. Environmentally Messy. Blows sticky bits everywhere.

Manual with heat gun, 30 PSF per hr. Expect 90% of adhesive to remain and require chemical removal.

With radiant heaters, 50 PSF per hr. Same adhesive left over as with heat gun.

Wheel. 3M stripe remover, 20 PSF/hr
Wheel. MBX tool, 40 PSF but messy and tool head wheels are pricey. Can burn surface of not careful.

Dry ice blasting: 200+ PSF per hr.. by far the fastest, but very very pricey to equip and provide.

Manual with isopropyl alcohol and yello tools yello blade or a Zinser razor scraper.. well over 60 PSF per hr. FLAT SURFACES ONLY - LEARNED SKILL IF YOU USE THE 4 INCH RAZOR

Best type for ease of use.. a yello tools yello blade scraper with isopropyl alcohol as a lubricant between the surface and the film.. I can strip 80 PSF per hr this way. You hold the scraper at a shallow angle of 15 degrees or less to the surface, and squirt IPA into the blade and graphics gap as you wiggle it under the film. Can't do contours or indents, but on large areas it flies. The IPA acts as both lubricant and solvent, it dissolves most of the adhesive on contact, as well as any 94 primer it contacts. This is our go to stripping method for Reflective.

The scraper works at 36 degrees to 95 degrees surface temp. But it is a SKILL that needs practice. I use the razor, is faster, I move the blade as I do a squeegee, snowplowing the edge. and you develop feel for what it's doing.

Having said that, I have had hundreds of gas pumps and semis to perfect this on. Stripping decals and wraps, some were 5 years old, many were 10 to 20 year old Scotchlite.. on some cases we were removing graphics applied in 1978..

We removed 25,000 sq ft doing this test. We conducted tests in side by side conditions on like surfaces and films. Overall effort was fairly physical, and there just isn't a fast easy mess free way to get reflective of a surface.

I recommend you laminate all Reflective films onto a 2 mil vinyl with air egress and removability properties to avoid these issues in the future.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

I haven't found anything that works better than the Red Tred wheel for a 7" polisher/grinder. This isn't like the MBX tool, it looks like an angle grinder wheel with mud tire tred on the bottom of it. I use it on fire trucks primarily, but it eats through most reflectives and the adhesive pretty quickly. As with the other removal wheels it can burn the paint if you hold it in one place, but from my experience you would have to really try to get it to do that.

 

[Retro Graphics]

I always hope the owner gets rid of the vehicle before I have to do reflective removals...

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I always hope the owner gets rid of the vehicle before I have to do reflective removals...

5 years later, the chances are probably pretty good that they did.

 

[ikarasu]

5 years later, the chances are probably pretty good that they did.

I dunno, it's reflective... They might still be working on that vehicle.

Joking aside. If its a removable reflective it's not bad... which if you're doing vehicle wraps it should be. Now we have cheated and used non removable... One time a customer wanted his hood wrapped in reflective... We're talking full, 100% coverage.. This was before vehicle grade came out... We did it in 3290, then about 2 months later decided to sell his vehicle....

We got about 1/4 of the reflective off... and told him its cheaper to buy a new hood than to continue at this rate. We refuse to do any reflective unless its a couple letters or striping in non removable - And if someone comes in for a removal we didnt do... we do a test piece, then we're honest with them on how long we think it'll take... If its huge and a whizzy wheel cant work, odds are it's cheaper to replace the part than it is to remove it!