anyone have nightmare stories RE: avery MPI 2611?
Yes! I have nightmare stories about just about every "wall vinyl" out there, seriously. I've yet to see a painted drywall wall that has a surface that is smooth enough that any vinyl will stick to it long term, regardless of what kind of adhesive it has. Vinyl shrinks and expands, eventually it's going to work itself loose. hat's why for self-adhesive projects Phototex works so well, it's fabric and doesn't expand or shrink like vinyl, it stays where you put it.
We did a 9'x18' wall in our shop with 2611 once. It was painted with semi-gloss latex (good quality), the paint was dry for 6+ months. Properly prepped the wall and properly applied the vinyl. Came in the next morning and much of it was lifting back off the wall. Resqueegeed, same thing next day. I've had similar things happen with Oracal's wall vinyl. FYI we replaced this wall with Phototex 3 years ago and it still looks perfect.
Intense01: Phototex does not have an air-egress adhesive, rather it's got a "gummy" adhesive that's very forgiving to work with. We've never had an issue installing it with respect to bubbles or trapped air. It can't be laminted as it's actually a fabric, not a vinyl. I've not tried liquid laminating it but I suspect it may be possible, not sure though, and I don't know that it's really all that necessary, it's pretty durable and scratch resistant as-is. As I said previously, when you apply it you'll apply with an overlapped seam just like regular vinyl. But you can then double-cut the seam and strip out the underlying and overlaying off-cuts to give you a perfectly smooth butt-cut with no overlap. If you line your seams up well and do this, you'll never ever see a seam in the material and I've never had one pull apart.