Road sign reflective lettering

[RG]

Some one at the local county road crew asked me for a price for white, reflective, high intensity, 4 inch, vinyl letters to go on county road signs. They have already bought high intensity green blanks. They want to stick the reflective letters on as needed. My question is which high intensity vinyl will do for this application? I want to cut the letters with a 30" Graphtec FC7000 or a Gerber Envision 375 plotter. Looks like 3M 3400/3800 has to be die cut. Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[J&R Sign Company]

I've never had good luck cutting H.I. sheeting. Whenever you use enough pressure to cut through that material (which is real thick) you end up cutting the the liner also. The backing on the 3m H.I. is just thin plastic and doesn't handle a 60 degree blade and the extra pressure. I've heard it can be done with a graphtec by adding additional pinch rollers, but I haven't tried.
We usually sheet our blanks H.I. white and reverse weed green 3m 1170 transparent.

 

[Mosh]

++We usually sheet our blanks H.I. white and reverse weed green 3m 1170 transparent.

Grimco has die cut H.I. letters, I think that is what they will have to use since they already got the green blanks.

 

[SqueeGee]

EC film on HIP sheeting would be much easier for you.

If you have to cut the HIP with your cutter, you'll need to add a backer to the back of the release liner. We use app tape in a pinch. Good luck!

 

[MikePro]

EC film on HIP sheeting would be much easier for you.

+1

 

[RG]

Thanks for your input, guys. It really helps!

 

[gabagoo]

Not recommended to cut that vinyl with a plotter as the edges would need to be resealed after. Alandatagraph made a cutter that had the edge seamer included some years back

 

[Techman]

I've never had good luck cutting H.I. sheeting. Whenever you use enough pressure to cut through that material (

If you set the blade depth just right it should make a difference. Blade depth is set just right it may score the liner just a very slight bit.

 

[qmr55]

Yeah we cut this stuff on our Graphtec no problem. Took some fine tuning to get the blade depth to be exact so it doesn't cut through the paper as well. Don't worry about damaging the blade because these blades should have absolutely no problem cutting through this material.

 

[RG]

Again, thanks for your help. Looks like I will try a 15" short roll of 3M 3930 and stay away from the 3400.