This is the first and only book dedicated to this popular and growing segment of the sign and vehicle graphics industries. Craig Campbell offers the benefits of his years of experience with vinyl products, ...
How to manage vinyl recovery, repair, replacement and removal
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By Rob Ivers
Have you ever wondered how to grow your business? I offer two suggestions that go hand in hand. First, deliver a perfect job every time to every customer. This will ensure you a steady stream of repeat business and referrals. Second, price your work responsibly – this means providing good value for your customers. This makes them happy and you a reasonable profit for your skills and efforts.
Here's some good and bad news. The good news: I’m going to share some tips and techniques that will help you deliver perfect (or near-perfect) graphic installations. The bad news: I’m still learning to price responsibly. As a consolation prize, I’ll instead provide my methodology for graphic removals.
The road to recovery
First, I wish to make a disclaimer. I work almost exclusively with cast vinyl. The methods I use are proven to work with cast products, but may not work with some calendared media.
-->Everyone makes mistakes. Learning how to recover or repair helps avoid replacement, which saves time and money. The most common recovery method requires removing an improperly placed graphic and aligning all or part of it to fix such squeegee errors as bubbles or wrinkles.
The best removal technique depends on such factors as vinyl type, graphic type and temperature. With cast vinyl, snap the graphic quickly and lightly. Calendared vinyl typically requires slow, steady pulls.
Temperature plays a big role as well; very hot conditions may render recovery techniques useless. Cold temperatures may allow easy removal, but often at the expense of tearing the graphic. With so many variables and combinations, it’s impossible to discuss them all. Instead, let’s look at strategies that help determine your best solution.
Quick fixes
With any graphic, it’s imperative you discover errors immediately. Once the entire graphic is applied, but especially with cut graphics, replacement may be the only option. In optimum installation temperatures -- 60 to 80° F -- a quick, light snap should fix the problem when using cast vinyl. If the graphic comprises cut letters or shapes, only partially applied letters or shapes will have much chance of being saved.
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