What happened here???

[parkedcar]

Went to visit a customer and while checking over some of the work i did for him i noticed this little failure.
Its nikalite reflective and its been up for maybe 6 months. He said he noticed it happening within 2 months.
The color is separating from the reflective layer. It is in a car wash, but i never thought it would fail like this.

 

[Pat Whatley]

NOOOOOOOOO! Dear Lord please don't let Nikkalite red reflective be failing.

 

[ddarlak]

got some out there pat?

 

[Pat Whatley]

Oh, $20,000 worth, give or take a house payment. NEVER had the first bit of trouble with Nikkalite, I love the stuff, I recommend the stuff. I haven't heard of any failures so far but I may have to make a couple of recon visits this weekend.

 

[Brandon708]

ouch. I never heard of Nikkalite vinyl before.

 

[phototec]

Do not wet reflective material?

I see in some of your past posts that you apply reflective wet, did you apply this job wet?

I've installed reflective wet in the past, several times and never had an issue. Some trucks I still see after 7 years and the vinyl is holding just fine.

So, I wonder if applying the reflective wet caused it to lift and peel in such a short time period? Also, being installed on a car wash that may be very wet and humid all the time may have contributed to the failure?

Just trying to offer suggestions.


Here is a previous quote from Gino on this subject:

I'm not sure if this is fact, but it's what I was told years ago by various distributors and one manufacturer.

They all stand firm on no wet method applications because of some of the ingredients of the media itself. Years ago, most, if not all reflective vinyls had metal in them and the water helped to make this stuff mildew, lift, peel, turn colors or just not perform the same as other vinyls. Therefore across the board.... no wet methods allowed for reflectives.

 

[striper14]

i could understand trapped water underneath the vinyl maybe causing mildew & possible adhesion failure but i fail to see how getting it wet when installing could infiltrate between whatever layers it has & cause a failure like that. I mean it does rain in most parts of the world.
I've installed reflective wet for 30 odd years, most of it Nikkalite cos its cheaper than 3M & never had a failure like that. a few for other reasons which are a secret
I'd guess its something to do with the car wash. Steam, detergent or something. Looks more than a little failure tho.....

 

[Fitch]

Vinyl... ANY vinyl be it reflective or not has three "set" times.

1) Tack time - the time to adhere and allow removal of application tape

2) Dry - time - the time that it takes for gravity and pressure to take affect and allow most fluids to make it's way out to normal air pressure ( hence the reason why air pockets and bubbles of fluid form from many small into one large)

3) Absolute Dry - When all fuids and air have been secreted between the film and the substrate.

Depending on the time of year - humidity, temperature, heat / cool time frame ( obviously in summer the temps come up quick, last longer and cool slow - the reverse in winter) and the cleanliness or receptivity of the substrate, the planets must "align".

I would have suggested in summer shutting down the wash for at least 24 hrs and in winter 48 hrs minimum. This could be reasonably done on a Monday say when required useage would have been much lower compared to weekends.

Do the right thing, remove, replace, SHUT THE CAR WASH DOWN and save face and a client, and never have to worry about fixing it again.

When the blade cuts reflective it stretches - oh so slightly, making it want to curl. Poor adhesion will make it want to return to its weakest shape. That's why it curls rather than jusrt lifts. ALWAYS.

Cheers - G

 

[AUTO-FX]

i can hear the owner of the carwash now- " i'm not shutting down my car wash and losing an entire day's revenue because your stupid stickers are falling off - just fix it! "
If you really think that environmental exposure induced premature failure, a better solution may be to make up an aluminum panel at the shop, allow for "absolute dry" , and then install .

 

[R08]

Maybe because of the humidity you could laminate it.

 

[AUTO-FX]

It's hard to say what's going on here, because we dont know about all the variables - Parkedcar may need to make his own observations.
First, I'll say I doubt his installation had anything to do with it. It appears the top film layer is delaminating from the reflective layer, not the adhesive layer. That , to me, indicates a material failure over an installation induced failure. The carwash environment MAY have something to do with it , especially if, say, the material used had outlived it's shelf life prior to application.

 

[visual800]

Another vinyl failure , great! And the sad thing is whne this happens it ALWAYS the fault of the installer. Neve rthe product even if 5000 rolls out there are bad it is still not their fault

I dont think either it's anything to do with the installer.

 

[BobM]

I've had reflective Avery delaminate while installing it. Re-cut it and re-applied a replacement, three years no problems.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Agrees with Auto - FX install on panel install... Also chemicals used in car wash might cause this (vapors)

If still fail paint

 

[Jillbeans]

It looks as if the reflective layer stuck fine.
I'd blame the mist of chemicals or whatever is in the car wash environment.
And kind of blame the vinyl too for not performing.
Can you offer the guy aluminum signs to patch the bad stuff?
And use 3M Scotchlite if it has to be reflective.
Love.....Jill

 

[Gino]

Notice anything peculiar about the failure ??


For the most part, it's rounds and from the top. This indicates that something is causing the vinyl to de-laminate from the top-down. Usually when the facing vinyl lets go, it's one of two things. Either faulty vinyl or something has gotten in under the colored layer and the reflective itself. The reflective seems to be holding up fine. I would doubt there is any outside force such as chemicals or whatnot working on this. That, would usually allow most edges to go bad at the same time. This looks as if something has been working away at this from very early on and is going to be considered application failure.

Two parter question, what is the substrate the vinyl is applied to and what direction does the sign face ?? Well, while I'm at it.... did you use any wet method and if so, what chemicals did you use ??

 

[speedmedia]

Why not apply the vinyl to a substrate such as Alumalite or something and then mount it in the carwash. I would agree with Gino, this is what it looks like. You could always take it a step further and laminate over the board after the vinyl is mounted to the substrate.

A couple of extra steps but it would be worth it.

Thanks,
Kurt

 

[phototec]

How come the "N" looks perfect

First, I'll say I doubt his installation had anything to do with it. It appears the top film layer is delaminating from the reflective layer, not the adhesive layer. That , to me, indicates a material failure over an installation induced failure.

Don't you think if it was material failure, all the letters would be effected the same? How come the "N" looks perfect in between two peeling "O"s?

What does that indicate?

 

[parkedcar]

Wow, lots of feed back! Thank you!

This is installed on a new touch free wash last spring. The surface i believe was just a plastic cowl covering part of the jet dryer. It wasn't opened until a week or 2 after install. It was installed dry. The only time i install wet is if i am layering the vinyl.
It is about 2' inside the wash and doesn't see much direct sun.
Also, as far as shelf life of the material, its been on my rack maybe 1.5 years, cant imagine that had anything to do with it.

I told the customer I suspect the chemicals in the wash caused the failure. All the letters are effected. If you look close at the N you can see its lifted there as well, just not curled.

 

[James Burke]

The surface i believe was just a plastic cowl covering part of the jet dryer

Hmmmm...does the dryer utilize hot air?