Have you ever?

[Proofread People]

Accidentally grab the wrong roll? I just laminated a piece of IJ180 with 3M 8150 (cast digital vinyl) thinking it was IJ8515 cast lam. Has anyone goofed like me? Both are cast, would it hold up? It's for a box truck.

 

[GAC05]

I printed a good part of a 50yd roll of static cling thinking it was IJ35. Took me a while to figure out wondering why it was not sticking to the coroplast.

 

[rydods]

My production manager printed on Avery 1106 instead of 1005 for a vehicle wrap. Was wondering why it was so aggressive with it's initial tack. Hope the customer never asks me to remove it.

 

[Proofread People]

I printed a good part of a 50yd roll of static cling thinking it was IJ35. Took me a while to figure out wondering why it was not sticking to the coroplast.

omgggg, I can't believe I did what I did.

My production manager printed on Avery 1106 instead of 1005 for a vehicle wrap. Was wondering why it was so aggressive with it's initial tack. Hope the customer never asks me to remove it.

omgggg, no they will love their wrap forever!

 

[Proofread People]

I printed a good part of a 50yd roll of static cling thinking it was IJ35. Took me a while to figure out wondering why it was not sticking to the coroplast.

plus I'm going to blame (not really) my absent mindedness on our Ops. I had our laminates stored way far away from the vinyls just for that purpose but he insisted that they be consolidated

 

[Proofread People]

For a box truck, maybe. My understanding is the UV protection is only in laminates, since putting it in clear printables would put it behind the ink...

My worst was laminating a mural with 3m 8520 matte instead of arlon 3420 satin... that's like tripling the price instantly...

ouch yep. Anyway I'm reprinting, wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I printed on clear because it looked the same as the white roll, laminated it, sent it to the shop where they weeded, taped and shipped it out. The customer called complaining and I argued a bit about it until it hit me. Oops.

 

[Proofread People]

I printed on clear because it looked the same as the white roll, laminated it, sent it to the shop where they weeded, taped and shipped it out. The customer called complaining and I argued a bit about it until it hit me. Oops.

Thank you all, you are making me feel better, now how my boss will feel will be another story

 

[CanuckSigns]

I printed on clear because it looked the same as the white roll, laminated it, sent it to the shop where they weeded, taped and shipped it out. The customer called complaining and I argued a bit about it until it hit me. Oops.

I've printed on clear before thinking it was white, but how do you miss it when weeding? Unless there was another type of weeding going on during lunch break...

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I've printed on clear before thinking it was white, but how do you miss it when weeding? Unless there was another type of weeding going on during lunch break...

That's always a possibility but not from me.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Thank you all, you are making me feel better, now how my boss will feel will be another story

It's easy to mix stuff up. 3m has labels in the tubes but oracal has no markings except for about every 20' on the backing. I had a painter put coal tar epoxy hardener in epoxy primer and shoot an entire excavator. We had to literally scrape it off with a razor blade. That was a disaster. Same guy also painted a big tandem axle DOT bucket truck and forgot to put catalyst in the paint. Probably 8 gals at $300/gal. We got "lucky" there, sprayed over it and didn't hear any bad news. It's cool that you caught it and owned it, can't get too mad about that.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Not printing related but I drove 6 hours away to a job site with my lift and when I got there I realized the key to it was back in my desk...


I had a bunch of keys in my center console and a Master padlock key got it to work... and then I figured out it will work on almost any equipment..so that was a bonus.

 

[Boudica]

I have media markers. I made them with .060 HIPS about 6" x 2", with foam core or ultra board sticks. The markers sit in the appropriate media roll. When a roll is in the printer so I have a 38" banner core sitting between our two roll to roll printers, and the markers go in there when the media is loaded in the printer.
I've got the same system with laminate.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Not printing related but I drove 6 hours away to a job site with my lift and when I got there I realized the key to it was back in my desk...


I had a bunch of keys in my center console and a Master padlock key got it to work... and then I figured out it will work on almost any equipment..so that was a bonus.

The worst is forgetting something when you're out of town.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I have media markers. I made them with .060 HIPS about 6" x 2", with foam core or ultra board sticks. The markers sit in the appropriate media roll. When a roll is in the printer so I have a 38" banner core sitting between our two roll to roll printers, and the markers go in there when the media is loaded in the printer.
I've got the same system with laminate.

I write on the inside of the cores with a sharpie but I'm sure we aren't near as busy as you. The core marker idea has come up here before, good idea.

 

[Humble PM]

Finding three copies of a colleagues band's sheet music had been run off on Hahnemuhle Photorag 44", because the office laser was out of A3 paper. It's just paper. Removed the option to manage printers from their computer, and gave them a bill for the £240 roll of paper.
My fault, underestimated powers of stupid.

 

[rjssigns]

Recently printed a wrap repair. Same file, same profile, same media/laminate etc... Client gets it and it doesn't match. Spent the next day chasing chasing color. Ran out of ideas and finally did a nozzle check. Exactly half of the Y channel was gone.

What I learned: When color is F'd up do a nozzle check first.

My advice moving forward: Build a "color book" for each job.
It will contain the contract proof or strip of the finished job, media information, profile, temp/humidity, printer used and on so forth.
You now have the exact "recipe" and color comp and no longer have to reinvent the wheel when a job needs repair.
This is how Belmark manages color. So simple I never thought of doing it. Once again..

 

[Scotchbrite]

It's easy to mix stuff up. 3m has labels in the tubes but oracal has no markings except for about every 20' on the backing. I had a painter put coal tar epoxy hardener in epoxy primer and shoot an entire excavator. We had to literally scrape it off with a razor blade. That was a disaster. Same guy also painted a big tandem axle DOT bucket truck and forgot to put catalyst in the paint. Probably 8 gals at $300/gal. We got "lucky" there, sprayed over it and didn't hear any bad news. It's cool that you caught it and owned it, can't get too mad about that.

That reminded me of teaching my son to paint. His first couple of jobs used our Matthew's mix station but then I had a job that used a gray DTM epoxy primer that wasn't part of the Matthew's system.

After spraying for a bit he tells me it's weird stuff and hard to tell he's putting any color down. I look at it and think, yeah that does look weird, like there's no gray color. Then a thought hits me and I ask him "did you stir the can of primer before mixing it into the pot with the catalyst?" His answer, "ummm, no...."

He was used to the Matthew's system which stirs the cans of paint on the shelves, he'd never needed to stir a can of paint manually. So the first pot of primer was all the clear stuff separated out at the top of the can.

Luckily it was a personal project. I said f it, stir the rest of the primer can, catalyze it, and shoot away. It's been holding up so far.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

That reminded me of teaching my son to paint. His first couple of jobs used our Matthew's mix station but then I had a job that used a gray DTM epoxy primer that wasn't part of the Matthew's system.

After spraying for a bit he tells me it's weird stuff and hard to tell he's putting any color down. I look at it and think, yeah that does look weird, like there's no gray color. Then a thought hits me and I ask him "did you stir the can of primer before mixing it into the pot with the catalyst?" His answer, "ummm, no...."

He was used to the Matthew's system which stirs the cans of paint on the shelves, he'd never needed to stir a can of paint manually. So the first pot of primer was all the clear stuff separated out at the top of the can.

Luckily it was a personal project. I said f it, stir the rest of the primer can, catalyze it, and shoot away. It's been holding up so far.

Bet that was a fun mess to clean up.
My guys do it with flat and semi gloss paint, they stir it real quick and then it sprays out gloss because all of the flattener is stuck on the bottom of the can. It drives me insane. Same thing with zinc primer. I look at the empty can and all the zinc is still stuck on the bottom.

 

[jfiscus]

I don't think that the 8150 has the same conformability that the 180 does, so it will probably pop back up around rivets on the truck. It also doesn't have any UV inhibitors, so you are going to need to use real laminate. If you've just taken off the laminator, your options are to go ahead and double-laminate the print with actual laminate (and risk it popping/separating over rivets, or trash it and re-print.

We have accidentally laminated prints with the wrong laminate finish and then just double-laminated with the correct finish laminate in the past with no issues.

Keep your print medias away from your laminate medias!