Oraguard 290 Laminate Shrinking Badly

[MontereySigns]

Over the past three and a half years we've done full wraps on over 60 vehicles. Most of these were wrapped using the Oracal 3951RA and 290G combo. We are aware this combo is more difficult and time consuming to install, but have had zero complaints or issues due to lifting, peeling, fading, or really anything. We've been happy and stuck with it.

One of our shop vehicles is wrapped using Oraguard 290 Matte one year ago. I noticed last week that where I have trimmed the wrap along the body lines the laminate has shrunk back about a half inch. The print media (3951RA) is in place, but there is an obvious shrinkage problem here. I was writing it off as a bad roll until this week when I saw another wrap we did with Oraguard 290 Gloss that had the same problem.

We use cast materials to not have this problem. I can understand one sixteenth of an inch, but not a half inch.

Anyone else out there have this problem with Oracal?


-Bud

 

[Typestries]

YIKES, scary stuff indeed. Any pics to post? Wonder how much "support" you'll get from Oracal.

 

[HulkSmash]

Wonder how much "support" you'll get from Oracal.

I bet more then 3m.

 

[mnapuran]

We use the same combo for most of our wraps, and have NOT seen that problem.

And yes, Oracal stands behind their stuff better then 3M (in my experience). Hopefully you have gone through the approval process with your materials for their warranty as well.

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

Sounds like either you may have received a roll of calendared (210) or whoever laminated it used a calendared by accident. Sounds like a calendared vs cast problem to me though. Human error is a possibility is all I'm saying.

 

[DRamm76]

I bet more then 3m.

HAHA! Agreed. Oracal stands behind their stuff and all the problems that go along with it.

I'm not a big 3M guy...there's a lot of it that gets purchased strictly because the 3M logo is on it..

Cavaricci Jeans were the same way. Spending $110 on jeans because of a label and they didnt last a year.....just sayin

 

[JoshLoring]

Just email Oracal. They have excellent support and stand by the product 100%.

Send photos, the lot # for lam and material and you will usually get a response within a day if not the same day.

I've never seen matte shrink that much to be honest. Make sure that your laminator isn't over stretching the lam though. I've seen people set the tension to tight and actually stretch the lam before application.

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

I would be VERY surprised if an experienced person who has wrapped 60+ vehicles can't tell the difference between a 3mil cal. lam and a 2mil cast lam. There's no way you could load and web a laminator, mount, then install vinyl with 210 without noticing it isn't cast.

Just sayin' - I really don't think that's the issue here.

I agree with that...but he kept saying "we". I have 3 guys that handle the laminator & a couple different installers. You're probably right about noticing the difference...I was just stating what the symptoms looked like. I've never seen Cast shrink that much...ever. It would be tough to get by unnoticed here as well.

 

[MontereySigns]

I sincerely think it's a product issue. If we had inexperienced workers I could see human error (but we don't). If the tension on the laminator was too high and the lam was being stretched as it was applied then I would think this same issue would have shown up on other wraps (it hasn't).

I like Oracal products and wasn't looking to bash them. My thought was if I was experiencing a quality issue with a particular product then it wouldn't be limited to my two rolls of Oraguard 290 and others would experience this shrinkage too. Looks like no problems or people aren't using it.

-Bud