Etched Glass for Blackhawk Transportation’s New Offices Beloit WI

When a customer prepares to move their offices, there are a great number of things that need to be done before hand. Exterior signage, business cards, additional permits for parking lots, and probably about 100 other items. One of the things that is often missed is the conference room. Especially when you have large windows.

Blackhawk Transportation has made an image for themselves as being a premier carrier. If you need it moved, they can help.  We were asked to recreate a reproduction of one of their new International ProStar trucks for the windows of their conference room.  The conference room is decorated in a very unique style in that the conference table is a copy of a flatbed trailer complete with tires.  So we had to make sure we delivered a hit with our design.  Our design was very detailed. It was so detailed that when it came time to cut the design into the Oracal Etched Glass, our designer had to slow the plotter down to it’s slowest setting so as not to tear the vinyl.  After almost an hour to cut three 24″ x 36″ decals we had to weed the vinyl. Weeding is when you remove the extra vinyl so that you have the exact image that you want to place on the glass.  It took over two hours to remove each small piece of vinyl and ensure that we weren’t removing anything that was important to the design.  We had to use a natural light spot light and shine it on the edge of the material to highlight what had to be removed as the product is translucent and very difficult to see in direct light.

Once we arrived on site, we had to clean the windows with alcohol to remove any impurities and make sure we had a clean surface to install the designs.  Once the alcohol dried, we had to spray the glass and the etched glass with water so that we had time to place the decal and make sure that it was exactly lined up. We measure from all four corners, all four sides, then squeegee the decal in place.  It usually takes about 30 minutes for the water to dry but we found out that if you spray a little RapidTac application fluid on the decal it will release from the application tape in half the time. This also helps the decal adhere to the glass preventing the edges from peeling up.  Overall this was a seamless installation that took just under an hour.

If you have glass doors or even a glass conference room wall that you would like to dress up with your companies logo or maybe a design that has nothing to do with the company logo call Optimum Signs. We can be reached at 262.289.9481 or email at info@optimumsignswi.com.