Everything on this page Copyright 1999 Mark Matyjakowski
This page best viewed if you go grab yourself a frosty beverage
while it loads... maybe crank some background music... turn to
the left... open your gray matter and...
Enjoy!
On a bright sunny Saturday afternoon where Uncle Slam
and Johnny Newbie are enjoying a frosty beverage, not worrying
about the daily hassles of the sign world.
Little did they know that this escape would not last
long.
For somewhere in 
cyberspace
the evil Dr. Helvetico was lurking, spying on the letterheads.
Plotting and scheming bad designs and difficult substrates. All
in an attempt to discourage creativity in signs everywhere.
His master plan being to rule the world by placing
instant sign kinkos in every fast-food restaurant on the planet...
thus controlling ultimate visual perception everywhere.
(What a dick)
Dr. Helveticos newest creation may just be the most
evil menace to terrorize the heads yet...
The Rivetron
Not ten minutes after the alert is sent over the bullboard
the Rivetron passed the nice shady tree and frosty beverages of
Slam and Johnny.
"There it is Slam"
screamed Johnny "What
should we do?... I know... good thing I happen to have my sledge
hammer handy."
"Whoa... slow down there
Johnny" explained Slam "The truck itself is not the problem. If
we can cover those festering rivets I'm sure we could calm this
beast and have a valuable advertising source. You see, a commercial
vehicle that travels an average of 60,000 miles in a year will
receive over a million visual hits, effective advertising
in any ones book.
"OK, sounds like a plan...
where do we start?" asked Johnny
"You start by washing the vehicle
while I prep some vinyl" answered
Slam
"Wash it how and what kind of
vinyl." asked an even more confused
Johnny.
Slam answered "Oh your full
of questions Johnny... good, you'll never learn anything if you
don't ask. First wash the grime off the truck as you normally
would, if we had a power washer that would be ideal to blast away
the dirt, then follow with a denatured alcohol or wax and grease
remover... and make sure you wash around the rivets extra good.
As for the vinyl I only use high performance CAST vinyl because
of the way it is manufactured. You see cast vinyl is formed to
it's thickness from a liquid where as calendared vinyl is stretched
to form which makes it less dimensionally stable right from the
get-go.
So as Johnny got busy washing,
Uncle Slam went to prep the vinyl making sure to squeegee the
masking tight to the vinyl without bubbles or wrinkles because
those imperfections in the masking will make it a tougher job
on application. For the finishing touch Slam makes sure to cut
the masked vinyl very straight to ensure proper hinging.
A short time later they're ready
for application.
"I have my application
fluid ready." stated Johnny
"NO"
exclaimed Slam "It's muuuuccchh
easier to remove the air from around the rivets than it is moisture."
"Dry?... how we gonna do that?" asked a truly worried Johnny
"Not to worry Johnny we will
just mount the vinyl as we would on any flat 
surface,
using overlapping strokes with our squeegee, we just let up slightly
on the squeegee pressure as we go over the rivets... and try to
work towards and into any seams."
"But look at that air that's
still left around the rivets."
Johnnys getting really scared about now
A calm Slam responds "We'll
get back to that after all the vinyl is on."
Just then from out of the blue,
the radio starts playing the Spice Girls at top volume, shaking
the whole truck.
"Dr. Helveticos throwing us
a curve Johnny... still have your sledge hammer handy?" asked Slam.
Johnny was more than happy to respond.
Thank
You
A short while later...
"Now that the vinyl is
on we push the air towards the rivets"
"But all the air wont come out."
noticed Johnny
Slam responds " Lets pull the
masking off and attack those pesky rivets... BEHOLD EX-CALIPER"
"What?"
asked Johnny
"Um... x-acto #11... I'll make
a tiny hole at the base of the rivet, then using my thumb I will
caress the vinyl in a circular motion starting outside the bubble
and getting smaller towards the rivet, around-n-caress, smaller,
smaller, closer, tighter, around...."
"SLAM" "Oh... sorry
got a little carried away. At this point we could hit with a rivet
brush but in my opinion this does not do an adequate job of getting
the vinyl tight around the base of the rivet so we will push the
vinyl tight to the base of the rivet with our squeegee."
"Now let us continue with our frosty beverage"
Johnny at this point thinking the
job is done relaxes not realizing the vinyl is coming up from
around the rivets as they enjoy they're frosty beverage.
A short time later Johnny notices.
"OH NO Slam look there's
air bubbles all around the rivets again"
Slam explains "You
see Johnny the vinyl has a memory all it's own, that memory needs
to be destroyed... QUICK get me my XJ42-2000 memory death ray."
"What?"
"UM... grab me that heat gun over there. First we make sure
the vinyl is tight around the rivet before we heat... because
simple science tells us that air expands when heated and we wouldn't
want our vinyl to blow up like a balloon and pop. Also the vinyl
will shrink... think of it as if you threw a blanket over a bowling
ball... now pull the blanket tight and it will pull away from
the base of the ball. We will have to tighten an heat each rivet
a few times to make sure the memory is dead."
"And then we are done."
"Thank you Uncle Slam now
I know the way to do it."
"NO Johnny now you know the
way that I do it... and the way I do it has no basis in fact other
than my own meandering experiments, and thousands of rivets that
came up to bite me in the ass during the course of those experiments.
If you would like to learn other methods or have more questions
I would suggest you go to the letterhead web site bullboard
and ask the friendly professionals who hang out there but be careful
Dr. Helvetico is still out there somewhere. As for me I'm going
home
to pound down a few more frosty beverages.
ALL Rights reserved
Copyright 1999 Mark Matyjakowski
