Full Print or Cut Vinyl Letters

[lkt1954]

We have 5 large signs (4’ x 10’ horizontally mounted) toletter with sponsors names for a local football booster club. The signs need tobe black with white lettering and we will use poly-metal as the substrate. Wehave a Roland VS 540 so we could do either cut vinyl letters or do a fulllaydown reverse print- keeping the lettering white and printing a blackbackground.

Here is what I see as the pro & cons of each:

Cut Vinyl

Pros--

No ink used

Easier to fix mistakes

Cons—

Wasted material

Having to do shorter runs (5’ or less) to keep contour cutfor varying

More time and labor to align the names

Weeding & masking required



Full Print Mounted

Pros—

Faster- no weeding or masking

No wasted material

No extra time spent on alignment/mounting individual names

Using a laminator to mount the print

Cons—

A mistake means doing the whole print over

Ink cost of printing 50% coverage black on a 4’ x 10’ run ofvinyl

Having to edge tape all 4 sides to ensure no lifting



These signs are going to be facing west into the Texas sunall year long and that could cause cut letters to curl. My initial thoughts areto do a full print, laminate and mount to the substrate.

Would anyone care to share their thoughts and/or advise herein case I am missing something?



Thanks

Larry

 

[Pro Image]

Black substrate and White cut vinyl letters......

Why would you have to use registration marks to cut regular Vinyl......?

 

[kanini]

Cut vinyl for this application, gives you good black and you don't have to laminate (use the proper cut vinyl though depending on how long the sign should last). The cost will end up about the same I think if you factor in all material and labour with both methods.

 

[S'N'S]

Black substrate and White cut vinyl letters......

Why would you have to use registration marks to cut regular Vinyl......?

This is the way I would do it.... white letters on black composite panel.

 

[Pat Whatley]

One thing to be wary of, in my experience black polymetal in direct sun warps horribly. I replaced two 4x8 signs that looked like somebody had wadded them up.