Frost film strips placement and application method

[bulbus_maximus]

Hi,

I have to do some print and cut on frost film that would be applied on a large office window partition around 6 ft by 13 ft.

The final effect would be like the image attached which is also one of my jobs but went wrong in the finishing. I plan to redo this job and want to make sure the job is well done.
The problems were:
1) I did not wait for the graphic to outgas - so the edges of my stripes are curling. So here, I will use crop marks and do the cut maybe after 2 days.
2) I did wet application - My doubt lies here. I have not done window frosting before. Hence I am new here. I was wondering if I should do HALF PRESSURE/FORCE CUT. So that when I am doing wet application the whole sheet lifts up and I can apply it as a single piece. Finally, I can weed out the unwanted parts as can be seen in the graphic - this way the half pressure should help me cut the unwanted parts easily after they are on the glass and at the same time I am able to maintain the spacing between each of the lines and not use masking tape which was a part of the problem. (I had major problems in the alignment as I had weeded the unwanted portion and hence the strips were moving individually). Hope I can work this out.
I think finally I should do Dry application to help myself here!!

Hope you guys can help me with your valuable inputs. And I must be confusing all of you :Oops:

Regards
Rahul

 

[WrapperX]

When I use the frosted/etched vinyl I only wet apply - Air is too easily caught under the vinyl and it's too fragile and thin to pull up and release the air. (I know you can just use a needle and pop these bubbles BUT I try to not put holes in my work if I can avoid it) So to avoid the air bubbles I will use a wet application. For alignment I generally make notes or marks on my mask before I leave the shop so that I have "registration marks" to follow. Finally if I'm lining up two adjacent pieces of frost I won't remove the mask on the one panel until the next panel is alligned - this way my mark stays and I have something to align to.

I would be heistant to half cut the frosted and still not mask it off. This stuff is soo thin it stretches and warps so easily that I wouldn't risk it. You could try the half cut and then do some more weeding on the glass. Be carefull you use the right type of blade if you do any cutting on the glass though - you don't want to scratch it. I'd still use wet application tech. just because of air bubbles - but that's me.

 

[OhioSignShop]

Wet application for me too and have some help. Also don't forget to spray the application tape after you apply to window and let stand for a couple mins to help release. Stuff will be slippery for awhile too. Not fun stuff to work with sometimes at the large sizes. xacto will scratch glass from my experience.

 

[HulkSmash]

dry application here... easier for us at least.

 

[bulbus_maximus]

Thanks for the advice...
So it looks like Half Force cut is not a tried and tested method? I am not finding anything in the forums either about this. Just about Half-Cut i.e. in a hyphenated cut line format. I was thinking a continuous cut at lower force could help as these panels are so big and difficult to handle. So you suggest that I weed the unwanted part and then apply masking tape. Where do I put the registration marks?
Also in this job I noticed that when I did wet and since I go bottom up, at some point there is so much water in the below panel that it starts moving as the water from the top panels start coming into this - how do I prevent this? - so then it becomes tricky once again.

So, I am still thinking wet or dry. @Coloradosigns - I understand that many people recommend dry but is there any special technique? Do we put a Center hinge, pull the liner backing till here, cut the liner and then use a good squeegee like big squeegee to apply the graphic smoothly - assuming the masking tape also has been put with the big squeegee flat on the frost film. Similarly I have to do the rest half on the other side of the center hinge. So is this the technique you follow?

Thanks

 

[CanuckSigns]

for that design, I would weed away the unwanted bits at the shop, apply wet, and squeegee side to side, not up and down. it would't hurt to have another set of hands to help you as well.