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De-lamination?

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

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Will Lynes
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:53 pm

De-lamination?

Post by Will Lynes »

Hi guys,

Any advice on this one? The border and lettering were painted about a week ago. As the shop is open everyday except Mondays I had to return to put the clear on today... and found these weird bubbles in the black outline of the border. It looks like its de-laminating slightly from the glass.... it's only the black (back up from Letterhead Sign Supply) though. The gold is fine and the letters were painted with a 1shot brown outline/dropshade and that is all fine too. The glass was thoroughly cleaned prior. the glass does get sun in the mornings up until around 10:30 and as the lines are only thin I cant imagine this would effect it much? I did give the owner instructions to not clean the window until I had returned. Anyone come across this before?

thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Will
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Danny Baronian
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by Danny Baronian »

Hi Will, I'll hazard a guess, though most sling a brush considerably more than I: contamination, either in the paint, the brush or the glass itself.

I'm sure you've given each some thought, and eliminated them; you're certainly not new to the field as I remember...

How old is the paint, have you tried a sample in you're shop? Cut a 6" x 6" piece of glass, paint a stripe as on your shop window, and put it on the dashboard of your car
for a few days if you get any sun this time of year :-) . That will eliminate problems with the paint somewhat.

Don't discount the glass being contaminated. Any idea how old it is? After attending a Conclave at Ricks, I became aware of a shop that specialized in re silvering mirrors in a nearby town, as well
as gold and copper. His biggest challenge and frustration was contaminated glass. Frequently customers would complain that their newly silvered mirrors weren't like new, as in flawless deposits. Many
times there were spots, or areas, that would just not take due to the age of the glass.

If the glass is 'new' as in the last 10 - 20 years, this would doubtfully be the case.

What type of store is it, anything nearby within the store that could have contaminated the glass? How did you clean, whiting and ammonia? From what I see, the paint did not adhere to the glass, which obviously
happened after you left. It strange it happened just within the areas painted black.

I'd take a piece of wax paper, and a small, hard brayer, hold the wax paper over the paint and roll the brayer over the area.
Danny Baronian
Baronian Mfg.
CNC Routing & Fabrication
http://www.baronian.com
Will Lynes
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:53 pm

Re: De-lamination?

Post by Will Lynes »

Hey Danny,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah its pretty strange. I've used the same pot of black on countless other windows that get a way harsher beating from the sun than this one. The glass is only a few months old and was cleaned with Ammonia and whiting and then twice with Bon Ami.
Makes me think that it's the paint though as the gold and 1shot are completely fine.
Ill keep investigating!

Cheers,

Will
pat mackle
Posts: 162
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:35 pm

Re: De-lamination?

Post by pat mackle »

Did you screen print the back up paint, or hand letter it on?

It's a little hard to see, but I think I see bubbles only mid way across (looking like strips of fine bubbles) in the black painted out line. The bubbles only appear to be nearer the gold leaf line. Is this true what I see? Or do the bubbles sometimes show from edge to edge on the black outline?

I'm wondering if the out line paint was put down in one pass, or did you come back at a later time and add more. I'm thinking this type
of thing can come from fresh paint over paint that has not completely dried, thus the drying/contraction of the fresher paint acts upon the earlier uncured paint causing stress on it's adhesion.
pat mackle
Posts: 162
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:35 pm

Re: De-lamination?

Post by pat mackle »

Hi Will,
I was out in the shop burning screens and thinking about your situation.
The thought occurred as to whether or not you added any hardener to your black back up.
And, to how long or well you mixed it into the back up. Any missed back up that did not mix well may
cause problems. I always scrape the cup and blade into the mixing, and sometimes even transfer the batch to a new cup and
mix it again.
Will Lynes
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:53 pm

Re: De-lamination?

Post by Will Lynes »

Hey Pat,

Thanks mate!! Makes perfect sense now you mentioned it. The border was masked using tape then painted. We had another window to do so left that part and came back about an hour later water gilt and backed up. It has been quite hot and humid here lately so I suspect while it felt completely dry the first layer of black wasn't 100% cured and the bubbles have occurred only where the second coat has overlapped the first. Something to watch out for in the future... Again thanks for your help!!

Cheers
pat mackle
Posts: 162
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:35 pm

Re: De-lamination?

Post by pat mackle »

Hi Will,
The over lap of paint was what I suspected. That was why I asked if you hand painted or screen printed. And why
I had asked if the bubbles appeared only in a strip, as I suspected the second back up paint would only go far enough to cover the leaf
and not to the original edge of the black out line.
"Speed Kills", true of driving, and of gilding.
Robare M. Novou
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by Robare M. Novou »

Well here's another thought to ponder.

Is this problem area the area where you first started to paint using the black paint.

Sometimes, after rinsing out a brush, dipping it in paint, palletting out the brush, and then starting to paint...you still have contaminates in the heal of the brush that are bleeding into the paint as you brush it.

It takes a short while for those condensed contaminates to be dispersed enough so that they don't interfere with the paint adhesion.

I usually work it (the brush and paint) a few minutes on some obscure substrate, or other area of the glass, before I start stroking the glass in the critical areas.

RMN
What's On Your Book Shelf ?

http://www.milwaukeesignworks.com
pat mackle
Posts: 162
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:35 pm

Re: De-lamination?

Post by pat mackle »

Hi Robare,
Funny that you brought this up. I have been doing a lot of brush painting of acid resist onto glass, and became aware of just how much it takes to clean a brush completely. Oh, the exposed hairs clean up relatively fast, but the material in the heel, that area deep in the hair bundle within the wire wrapped bird quill(or the rolled plastic in recent brushes) takes a very intense session of repeated cleaning ,to get 100% clean. About the time you think you've got it all, a pressing of the heel on a paper towel brings out just a bit more paint residue.
This prompted me to the idea of drilling a very small hole on either side of the wire wrapped quill, just piercing only the plastic and just large enough to apply clean solvent with one of those handy little squeeze bottles with a hypodermic needle in the cap. That way you could flow in the cleaning solvent directly, forcing the paint out.
Allowing paint residue to form down in the quill, will eventually allow dry paint residue to collect further down the hairs, bonding them outside the ferrule area of the quill. This bond now becomes the rigid point at which the hair must bend and without important support from the ferrule. This causes the hairs to break off early, thus shortening the life of the brush.
erik winkler
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by erik winkler »

Absolutely fantastic replies Danny, Pat and Robare!
Realizing we are in the 2nd renaissance of the arts.
Learn, copy and trying to improve...
Still in the learning phase ;-)
Amsterdam Netherlands
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Lee Littlewood
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by Lee Littlewood »

Here is another possibility, although your photos seems to show distinct bubbles rather than color changes.

In 2005 we did a series of glass panels for a (new construction) ice cream shop, using 2tone letters with black outlines, mirror gold border stripes, and a mottled brown background over all. I don’t remember how we did the lettering, but I know that we did the stripes by laying down tape, then painting the background and pulling the tape, yielding clear glass stripes. Then we water gilded the stripes in a loose manner - see the photo. After that we put another coat of brown over everything.
TB inProgressBacksides.jpg
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So they got installed, and within a month the brown background color, mixed from 1Shot paints, started to change wherever there was gold in back of it. Looking around, I found a piece done by a friend years earlier, where the green background had changed in the same pattern as the excess leaf, so I’m pretty sure it isn’t just these particular colors. But how can a layer of gelatin and leaf affect the color it is touching??? Maybe some sort of heat reflection, but my change was very quick.

As it happened, the installers had scratched up the gold, so we split the difference. They took the panes out and I took them back to the shop and very carefully scraped around the stripes - the discolored paint was not hardened as the rest of the background was. I left the area between the stripes alone and repainted around the border - the mottled background was a blessing, because there was so much going on that you didn’t notice the variable edge around the gold stripes. Then they reinstalled the panels, and all was good for 5 years or so until the shop went out of business.

Here are two panes back at the shop, showing the scratched backgrounds.
SmallPanels2.jpg
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Here is a closeup of the front - look at the pinkish color between the border stripes.
TuttoB copy.jpg
TuttoB copy.jpg (167.78 KiB) Viewed 14176 times
I have never figured out what the gold/paint reaction is, but now I back up my stripes carefully and rub off the excess gold. I don’t really think that this is the cause of your paint failure, but you did the same “water gild over the stripe” that I had problems with, so maybe?
where am i? Now, when i need me...
erik winkler
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by erik winkler »

Ok after reading Lee's post I come to this idea.
Our paints nowadays dry from top to bottom. Starting with creating a thin skin and then slowely binding oxigen from outside and drying to the inside/bottom. This process can take 6 weeks for normal paint to fully cure.
Metal leaf will seal most surfaces and prevents oxigen to reach the surface skin of the freshly dried paint.
I think that the liquid paint under the skin will take more then 6 eeks to dry and searches a way to flow and release its solvents etc.
Like gas in soft drinks it will bind together and create bubbles. Somehow this must be the same effect we are seeing in the mentioned glass examples.
I remeber that lead drier dries in a different way and dries from within and so this problem is a recent one, since we do not use lead in our paints anymore.
Realizing we are in the 2nd renaissance of the arts.
Learn, copy and trying to improve...
Still in the learning phase ;-)
Amsterdam Netherlands
www.ferrywinkler.nl
www.schitterend.eu
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Bruce Buckley
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by Bruce Buckley »

I agree with the above from Erik. My friend, Robert Frese, and I have had the exact same problem with these little bubbles appearing. In fact, I wrote a post on this problem a few years ago on here. We really could not figure out why these little bubbles were appearing. It was especially difficult for Robert because he had decades of success using his same favorite mixture of outlining and back up paints, which included certain proportions of japan and One Shot black. He couldn't explain why this problem was now occasionally rearing its ugly head when he hadn't changed a thing. Well, what HAD changed was the removal of lead from the One Shot. So, we had to conclude that the paint just wasn't curing the way it used to. The blistering seemed to happen most often on windows that were in direct sun most of the day. That extra heat, we believe, created a more volatile environment for the production of gasses that ultimately had nowhere to go. I even had a few cases of little bubbles appearing in backed up leaf, which looked like shiny little craters from outside the window. I guess the moral of the story is every layer of paint or varnish must be given extra time to cure properly before the next layer is added. Thanks for reading my ramblings on this. Any other thoughts?
Lee Littlewood
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by Lee Littlewood »

I wonder what adding hardener does to the drying/curing time.
I have always avoided adding extra chemicals to paint if I can, so now I have no experience to draw from.

(Bruce Buckley, I can't find your old post, and it sounds interesting. Could you re-post it?)
Danny Baronian
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by Danny Baronian »

Danny Baronian
Baronian Mfg.
CNC Routing & Fabrication
http://www.baronian.com
erik winkler
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Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 5:48 pm
Location: Amsterdam Netherlands
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Re: De-lamination?

Post by erik winkler »

A lot of signmakers who do digital printing with solvents have the same problem.
If you print on a cast vinyl to wrap a car, you should allways wait two days before laminating.
If you do not do this the solvents can not evaporate in the air, due to the laminate and it will try to find its ways down.
When it does this, it will attack the glue of the vinyl and thus reduce the tack of the vinyl and this will cause for failures in deep cracks and ridges of the car.

I also had this problem when using a 12 hour size for gilding matt centers, afterwards i watergilded over the matt centers en gloss outlines and backed this up with a high-solvent backing paint. This paint dried within 30 minutes by making a thin skin and then the problems came: the way for the remaining solvents to escape was easier to go down in the 12 hour size then through the hard skin on top.
Result: big airbubbles (quarter of an inch) in the matt centers, wich was clear to see on the front of the glass.
Realizing we are in the 2nd renaissance of the arts.
Learn, copy and trying to improve...
Still in the learning phase ;-)
Amsterdam Netherlands
www.ferrywinkler.nl
www.schitterend.eu
www.facebook.com/Schitterend.eu
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