Friday, October 28, 2011

Decalwork is War

I have a new appreciation for those sign companies who do adhesive decal work. Worth what you pay for it, most likely! This particular decal is almost too fine to work. It is a gradual process to lift up the masking tape and make sure that the parts you don't want are removed. And then to get the decal to stick back down without rips or wrinkles.

I've worked hard at the soap bag design to get it to be as efficient as possible. But this decal stuff is still a challenge. I'm using recycled margins from actual sign companies. Sometimes the decal material off-cuts don't work -- not adhesive enough, or the wrong kind of material --and I have to recut.

However, now I can boast that the soap bags are 100% glue free! Also, I'm sewing the velcro closures instead of gluing them.

(Previously I had a trial batch of soap bags rejected because I used to glue the decals on with Vynabond. The potential reseller didn't like that and asked if the glue seepage could be removed. That would have been impossible, it would have lifted up the underlying ink. What a disheartening request, I didn't feel like continuing the joint venture after that. I paid to have them shipped back to me. That glue seepage was barely detectable, only visible at certain angles, and all of the bags I eventually sold with no complaints whatsoever by the customers. So I guess it was one of those agree to disagree situations.)

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