Two Color Reflective Stripe

[SellersSign&Design]

Being that I do a lot of fire trucks, I do a lot of reflective striping. Normally they are either single color multi stripes, or printed multi color stripes. But every once in a while I get something like a 1-4-1 stripe that is two standard 3M reflective colors. For example, 1" gold- 1" gap- 4" white- 1" gap- 1" gold. The best, longest lasting end product for the customer would be standard unprinted 3M gold and white vinyl. But the problem is, it seems like there is no good way to put this multi color striping together. In the past I have put on the 4" stripe and then ran the 1" stripes on either side of it, but that involves a lot of labor. I have debated on cutting the 2 1" stripes prespaced out of a roll of 15" material on my Gerber Envision, applying that, and then applying the 4" stripe in between. I've also kicked around the idea of printing the gold stripes onto white using my Edge, since transparent gold should be a match for 3M gold reflective. What methods do you use for multi color striping like this? I'm always looking for ways to improve my workflow and give a better end product to the customer!

 

[SignosaurusRex]

I find that using pre-slit rolls of desired colors is the best route. Attempting to reduce total efforts, costs and wasted material in any other method has proved fruitless over time for myself when total costs of materials, waste and labor is weighed. You may feel that the aforementioned method is labor intensive but that labor time can be dramatically cut with a bit of thought as well as more time spent doing so. I'm sure that over the course of your experience, you have noticed that the emergency vehicle apparatus manufactures generally do the same.

 

[Modern Ink Signs]

Contact your supplier they can get that made for you as 1 pretaped stripe kit. If you can’t for your supplier please call me and I’ll give you the number of my guy that can for me

We did tricks for NYFD and they had the white/gold/white combo. 3M680cr

 

[Sign Works]

I think you can find someone to produce that as a roll stripe for you, try Gregory Inc, Sharpline Converting or Universal Products. Any of those should at least be able to provide you with the individual roll striping.

 

[printhog]

I'd use preslit rolls as suggested earlier, unless you do a lot of this.. then look to buy a rotary knife roll slitter, Smart-Slitters.com { Automatic Log Slitters, Roll Slitters, Rewinders and other Converting Equipment. }.

heres a video of what looks like a home built thing that doesnt use a rotary knife(so the edges will have more potential for drag damage)..

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In any case if you roll slittting get silicone release spray (for mold making) to spray the knives - prevents glue melt when slitting thru app tape.

I've had one of the rotary smartslitters and they are very good at making quick work of stripe rolls and app tape and are worth the investment if you do truck stripe kits in any volume.

You may be able to jig up your laminator to do the 1-4-1 offwinding, taping and rewinding. or maybe build a simple roll prespacer. . Older units like GBC/Orca had accessory kits that featured rotary knife heads and slitting/idler rolls with power take up rolls.

Prespaced roll stripes are done inline - basically you slit rolls first, then load a machine or jig with your rolls with proper finish gaps and configuration. Next step is to offwind the stripes usually across a vacuum fan table or thru guide blocks (often across a few idlers), then apply app tape, then offwind the slit backing tapes from the stripes to get a fully sticky surface prespaced, and then apply a new baking media slit to proper size. I knew a screen printer in the 80's who had a plywood and roller kit using dowels and a cheap hand crank roll laminator to do that. They were just as straight as anything you could get by machine.

 

[strypguy]

Sharpline Converting has done it for me plenty of times but I believe there is a minimum you have to buy before they will do it. John