Shrinking Material causing failures

[HulkSmash]

I never cease to be amazing when people get surprised when intermediate vinyl fails on vehicles.

 

[Signs@MQB]

my first though would be it's because you're using a calendared vinyl+laminate,
we use 3951 paired 290 here to avoid shrinkage.

 

[Joe House]

I only swim in warm water to avoid shrinkage

 

[Jb1983]

ij35 is garbage for contour cut vehicle decals. In fact I think its just garbage period I wont even use it on coroplast signs cause I use cheaper vinyls that stick better than it. Your supplier never should have recommended it for vehicle decals! Stick with ij180 or the mpi1105 for contour cut vehicle decals. You could get away with 40c for medium term decals but I wouldn't recommend it for contour cut lettering. When you have so many edges and whatnot with cut lettering theres just too many potential failure points for the calendered vinyls, add in air egress and those adhesives are just not strong enough.

Its not overkill, its the proper product for the job. It wont fail prematurely yet it will still remove cleanly within a few years.

 

[HulkSmash]

honestly i wouldn't even use 40c on vehicles. Just my opinion. We only offer premium stuff on vehicles, there's no point to do anything else.. truly. Unless you don't care about the integrity of your business, and the poor reviews garbage material will bring.

 

[Jb1983]

What's your experience with the failures? Have you utilized it in a production line or just testing? Was it printed with latex or solvent?

My experience was a few years ago as I’ve never used it since. It was curling at the edges just like above on contour cut lettering within a few months. I too was “recommended” this product from the supplier as a short-medium term application.
I had also used it on flat panel signs like ACM and it had severe shrinkage on that too.
Printed on eco solvent at the time.

 

[Jb1983]

I have no real experience with solvents, but I can say the material shines on a latex printer. I'll see if I can get some pictures of older graphics on vehicles. On ACM we nearly always wrap the edges, so I haven't seen any shrink, but you should not be required to do that on a flat sign, I just feel better selling it like that.
I must say I never use the 3m laminate on this stuff, it just cost too much and looks like garbage, I always use arlon 3420 on this in a satin more often than not.

Ya I am on latex now, you definitely don't have the saturation issues with latex like you do with solvent that's for sure.
Curious have you tried using the Arlon DPF4500 print vinyl? Since your using the matching overlaminate.... Ive heard its a really good intermediate film.
I have only used the 510 from Arlon for hand out stickers and cheap stuff like that but it prints great and handles the heat for the most part better than almost any other calender ive put thru my Latex other than 40c.
I stick with the "use what you know" modo so I primarily only use about 4 adhesive vinyls for all my work.

 

[OPENSignsInc.]

Weve been using oracal 3641 with 210 laminate for years with no shrinkage on concession trailers (it takes the stone chips better for some reason than plain 3M IJ180C w/ 8518 - without any stone guard on top of that. We use 3M on all other wraps) and recently have started to have some of the same issues as OP. Ive been wondering if they changed their formula or something (reminds me of what Avery did).

We have mimaki CJV150 & JV150 both running OEM SS21 inks. We allow 24 hours to gas off before laminating.

The QC has also gotten pretty bad lately too. The last 3ft on at least the past 6 rolls have come wrinkled.

 

[backwoodsgirl]

Humidity in the shop can cause this even if just for a few hours. Funny thing is, if its too dry you'll also start drying out that adhesive wherever its cut. If you must use a repositionable vinyl, don't cut it until right before the install.

 

[asignstop]

I've ran into this alot lately and I figured out that I was laminating before the vinyl/ink was fully cured. what happens is that the vinyl will cure fine if it's exposed to air, but if you laminate it hinders that for awhile and causes the corners/edges to curl and peel. In some cases it can cause distortion of prints.
let your vinyl sit overnight, then laminate and contour cut. This will let the vinyl relax in it's natural shape and when you laminate it'll stay put. Think of putting tape on a rubber band, if it's under tension it will curl the tape but if the band is relaxed it will stick fine and stay flat.

 

[Signarama Jockey]

It's hard to see exactly in your pictures. Is the material there shrinking or is it curling?

My first thought was that you were laminating and contour cutting it too quickly after it was printed. If inks (or the solvents evaporating off) are introduced to the adhesive, it'll degrade. This happens when you run the cut then print function with full bleed decals. The ink gets into the cut and it starts to curl and shrivel. Looking at your picture, what you have there looks laminated.

You said that it was the edges. Is this happening to all of your decals, or is it only happening to stuff with bleed? I'm guessing that its just the ones with bleed. If so, then you know what to look at (ink attacking the adhesive on the edges).