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Edge curling on solvent murals
- Thread starter CC-CMYK
- Start date
jfiscus
Rap Master
No, but do NOT laminate your prints until they out-gas; we wait overnight here before we laminate. I would really recommend just getting an S60, do you REALLY need the extra color gamut? We've never had any of our picky customers complain that we can't hit their colors. The extra inks are more expensive and make it harder to clean the printer.
signheremd
New Member
For wall murals, we almost never laminate, but we still off gas the print before cutting. This helps prevent edge curling of full bleed areas.
How’s the durability? What printer do you use?
And do you not laminate because of the curling.
signheremd
New Member
We use a Roland XR-640 and Eco-Solv Max2 inks. Solvent inks affect the vinyl and adhesive. We have found that you sometimes get curling if you cut immediately after printing, but you do not if you let it off gas for a few hours or overnight. We have laminated some prints, it is just most applications do not require the lamination (due to expected time it will be up or a desire for a particular finished look). When we laminate, we usually use a high performance lamination, like Oraguard 290 Matte. We have not had any problem with this causing curl. I expect an Intermediate Lamination might shrink more and cause curling. We have had customers that were part of a franchise provide wall murals on 3M that had matte or luster laminates on them. These went on well and have held up well. not sure which 3M materials these were, but they were good - though not better than the OraFol products we use (Oracal, OraGuard).
TheAngryCanadian
New Member
Number 1 reason is that you are over saturating your prints. Reduce the amount of inks you’re laying down. Recommend using the manufacture profiles for that media you are printing on. Get or make a dryer for your printed projects and dry them overnight if possible. Small stuff lay out on a table overnight but do not lay prints on top of one another cause that doesn’t do anything… large runs should use a dryer of some type.
greysquirrel
New Member
If your edges are curling you have too much tension when laminating…less is more. If you can laminate with zero tension, it would be ideal
Depends what style are you going for, HP has a very nice thin paper like (or paper?) pre-pasted stuff that works like traditional wallpaper no lamination needed, light colors/pastels may be pretty grainy tho.
Epson prints cristal clear even with CMYK config but lamination is a must if not printed on a textured material (which feels "satin"-ish, never a nice matte finish)
Epson prints cristal clear even with CMYK config but lamination is a must if not printed on a textured material (which feels "satin"-ish, never a nice matte finish)
IndySignPro
New Member
What material are you using for the wall murals? A lot of wall materials say you have to leave a white boarder to prevent curling, so finding one that allows cut to color is more important than the printer. If it's temporary we use Ritrama Wall Action and liquid laminate after installation. For permanent/long term we use 3M-40C and laminate with 8509. As far as the S80600, Print beautifully and they are surprisingly fast.... But the machine itself is garbage. We have had our 2 years and have spend $7000 on maintenance, not counting $10,000 in warranty repairs during the first year. We also have an 8 year old Roland XR-640 that has no issues. Buy a Roland. They are a few dollars more, but worth it!
bob
It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Whether or not edges curl on a full bleed has absolutely nothing to do with most, if not all, of the nonsense listed above. Nothing, nada, zip, zero. The determining factor is just what media you're printing. Most media needs white borders to prevent curing, some does not. It has to do with the inks subtly and not so subtly affecting the media and, sometimes the adhesive as well. It takes a while for the media to return to something resembling normal and when it does, the edges tend to lift a bit. It's been my experience that, in general, the better, and of course more expensive, the media the less likely it's apt to curl on a full bleed. Some media not so much.
Ritrama Wall Action works well against curling. It has been discontinued. Mactac bought this company. Do you know a similar product? Which one do you recommend?
IndySignPro
New Member
We switched to 3M-40-20R. Doesn't have the removability, but installation is 1000 times easier.
ONE Marketing
New Member
If curling on the table, I'd check print profiles and laminate settings (tension and heat if used). If it is curling on the wall after application 90% of the time that is a VOC issue in the paint. VOC is a rabbit hole with no clear answer that I know of, and the best workaround I have found is to just jump to an IJ-180 or equal vinyl and to clean the application area with alcohol. There are Youtube videos on this that I would recommend watching. You can do test strips, 3m used to make a wall test kit, I don't think they do anymore. But in my experience, the above-mentioned is the best way to ensure no failure because of VOC. I have heard of people using a wall primer that preps surfaces for wallpaper but I don't have any experience with it. Correctly profiled Eco Solvent printing doesn't cause these issues alone, I have a lot of experience with eco-solvent and latex printing. Epson S60 and S70 and HP latex 570.