I have used this process for a number of years to create many faux finishes.
When using Krylon, make sure that when you look at the ingredients on the back label that includes MEK.
I know that over the years Sherwin-Williams paint company, who are the current manufacturers of Krylon, have been slowly changing the formulation.
I have experimented over the years also with their product called Fusion®. it seems to adhere very well to many of the vinyl products that are available today for plotting. It was developed so that you could repaint the deck furniture, garbage cans anything with vinyl in it, so it's a perfect fit for the vinyl that we use for plotting. The only problem that I found is that the colors can be somewhat limiting as to their availability. I have found that Walmart seems to carry the largest color spectrum, and their prices are very fair.
One thing that I've learned over the years is to pre-clean the vinyl with isopropyl alcohol prior to adding any of the paint treatments to it, this will assure you that you have a clean surface without any oils from your hands were the shop to cause paint adhesion problems.
When you use this approach to add value to the vinyl products that you're selling to your customer, one thing you must keep in mind, that each technique that you use is customized, and therefore very unique to this particular project and customer.
I have always referred to this as "value added selling”. Using these techniques and a little bit of salesmanship you can easily take a one dollar piece of vinyl, and add $25, or more, to the final selling price of your product.
Another thing that you might want to keep in mind, is that what you might perceive as a mistake because it didn't turn out exactly the way you had envisioned it, may well thrill your customer.
Unless the job is really screwed up, never admit to the customer that you made a mistake in the process, but just enthusiastically agree with him that, " yeah, that really looks cool”. Then hand him the invoice, and collect the money.
You might also consider taking a few scrap pieces of pre-painted aluminum, and make up some sample signs that can show the customer variations of these techniques. They will assist you greatly in up selling your future customers, and adding a great deal of profit to your bottom line. In my shop I use a Good, Better, Best three-tier pricing process. with this process you give the customer three choices of how to do the same sign. Good would just be a basic sign one color on whatever substrate he chooses.
Better would be the same copy but with perhaps a drop shadow.
Best, of course would be with all of the bells and whistles added such as shadows, outlines and some of the Krylon techniques that you want to add.
You can create some sample company signs using this technique, and have them on display for your customers to look at. This gives them a great visual, so that they can easily understand the good better best idea, and how it might work for them. I have five sets of these Good, Better, Best Sample signs, that I use all the time to assist me in helping the customer visualize what they can have for their sign.
A couple of $5 cans of Krylon, a little creativity on your part, and less than 10 min. of your time can add thousands of dollars to your bottom line over the period a year.
So if you don't have access to a full-color digital printer this is your next best option for adding value to your Signs.
Have fun, experiment, make money!
