We need to install some letters on a press box of a local school stadium. the press box is vertical corrogated metal like you would see on a metal building. My question for you that have done this is how have you set up your spacing and/or stretching the width of the letters on the computer so the letters dont look bunched up and skinny when you apply it in the ridges. and also how are you installing this? Should I be putting it all down on the outside most part of the metal then cutting the app tape between each letter and burnishing the letters down in each corogation?
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Vinyl on corogated metal
- Thread starter FS-Keith
- Start date
Moze
Precision Sign Services
If they insist on it being installed on the corrugated surface, I would horizontally stretch the file whatever percentage the difference is. ie: Go install a sample letter on the corrugated material (or buy a piece of it) and see how much narrower the installed letter is compared to if it were installed flat. You could just use a piece of paper for that matter. If it's 8% shorter, stretch the file 8%.
Thats what I was thinking. My fab shop is the same material. Was just hoping someone had a definite answer
Thanks captain
aaronJREgraphics
New Member
You can install vinyl on corrugated metal you just have to make sure you stretch the file like moz said the when ive done it ive used a premium wrap file ex 3m ij180 or even 1j380 with single masked letters.....its a little tricky but not bad i would def throw up a test letter to make sure they read well good luck with whatever ya go with!
not really
Gino
Premium Subscriber
Maybe not for you, but without any dimensions, heights or intricacy of the design..... I think it would be. If you can get to it to put vinyl on, then you can get to it to paint it.
If you're using a serif letter, you won't be able to stretch things. That's an easy rule to remember. Also, when you stretch the letter that much, your strokes are going to look way out of proportion.... your horizontals and tops and bottoms of letters will be too skinny while the down strokes will get fatter. 'O's and other rounded letters will also suffer and cause such distortion, it will most likely not look good.
Again, that's why all the votes for installing a flat piece of stock to it. Vinyl just won't look good, unless you just happen to get lucky with the right set of letters hitting the protrusions.
If you're using a serif letter, you won't be able to stretch things. That's an easy rule to remember. Also, when you stretch the letter that much, your strokes are going to look way out of proportion.... your horizontals and tops and bottoms of letters will be too skinny while the down strokes will get fatter. 'O's and other rounded letters will also suffer and cause such distortion, it will most likely not look good.
Again, that's why all the votes for installing a flat piece of stock to it. Vinyl just won't look good, unless you just happen to get lucky with the right set of letters hitting the protrusions.
round man
New Member
Back when I was painting racetracks I encountered quite a bit of corrugated metal and came up with a solution to figure out the square footage to charge my client so I wouldn't be cheating myself by not charging for the extra sq footage on the surface area,....the same solution could be used to setup files for applying vinyl if you are intent on punishing yourself and following thru with his install,...we took a cloth tape measure and measured the difference between a normal running foot and the actual surface area per running foot with the corrugated surface,..it came out to be over two inches extra per running foot for us so we gained an extra foot in our billing for every 6 feet of linear measure,....do the same and adjust your file accordingly then apply from the center out
Its all upper case blue times new roman with a black shadow, I am going to print and cut it on IJ180. My only question was is someone had a formula for the diff kinds of corogation. I have seen many diff companies install vinyl on it. Its a pain in the *** yes but luckily this is only 19"x198" of lettering. Should be an hour a a half max into install, just need to get all my spacing correct
round man
New Member
ok I'll try to make this simpler,...first you take a yardstick and mark off a horizontal foot if the corrugation is vertical (it almost always is for structural reasons),....then you take a cloth measuring tape like used for sewing and measure the actual surface distance for that marked off foot,..it should turn out to be more than 12 inches,..take that number and multiply by 16.5(number of feet IN 198") and the result should be the width of your cutfile adjusted to compensate for the corrugation
edited to add,...this will not remedy the illusion Gino is talking about it will only adjust the spacing
edited to add,...this will not remedy the illusion Gino is talking about it will only adjust the spacing
thank you sir. yes I know its going to look terrible from all angles but head on. Tried telling the bleecher company this but they said they already did this for other stadiums and the customer liked how they looked. just going to get it done for them and keep my mouth shut
Gino
Premium Subscriber
Correction, it will look just as bad from straight on. Your down strokes will have been fattened up, while stretching only the horizontal strokes.
It is what it is. I'm not condemning what you're doing and it's been done in that fashion many times. It's just without careful kerning, stroke widths and just plain eyeballing things on site, one little screw up over 16' could get pretty iffy, should they not understand all this beforehand.
If we can't get through to you, how do you think you're customer will view it, if it looks too distorted ??
That's probably the worst thing in business... getting blind-sided and that's all I'm preparing you for. At least be prepared.
Good Luck............
Like I said before I told the customer it will look horrible, Its their dollars to spend at this point. Im not going to be blindsided because I know, my customer knows this will not look too great. Hopefully when its done the end customer will tell them to have a panel put up.
Ill let you blow some more air in here and have the last word.
round man
New Member
I have to agree with Gino on this one, working on corrugation can be the worst pain in the *** you can imagine,...even if you hand painted it there would be extra work and painting to remedy the optical illusion the corrugation will create,..much more so with vinyl copy,...I would take some extra 19"x1/2" strips of vinyl and an exacto knife to correct the illusion problem if I were getting paid enough to do the job(I would guarantee you there would be at least a 50% surcharge if I did it),....You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,....even with corrections the illusion will still be there,...worse even if you don't plan correcting them in the forefront as part of the job,....