
How we make
Safety & Compliance Signs
Manufactured by us from our facility in Balbriggan, North Co. Dublin.
Signs Direct - The safety sign people
We’ve fine tuned our manufacturing process to prioritise exceeding quality & service expectations. We work directly with our customers to ensure their signs are manufactured on the best suited materials and delivered on time and on budget.
We deal with customers of all sizes, from companies who just need a couple of signs to large companies who need safety & compliance signage for a whole building site or warehouse. We can supply solutions for companies of all sizes.
Priority on quality
Delivering signs that are made to exacting quality made on application specific materials is what we do. We work directly with our customers to ensure signs are made on the material and with the method that best suits the application.
Our process means that quality is continuously checked from file prep to print & finishing. Before signs are delivered we quality check to ensure they are perfect.Â
Our production process for safety signs
We’ve fine tuned our manufacturing process for safety & compliance signage to put emphasis on turnaround time and outputted quality. Our goal is always to match and exceed expected quality and service life for our safety & compliance signage. We’re proud to put our logo to our work and constantly invest in equipment and processes that help us meet our quality goals.
File prep & prepress
Once an order has been placed and artwork approved we then proceed to prepare your signs for print. This involves double checking artwork sizing, colour, fonts and wording to ensure everything is good for print.Â
Once everything is checked your job is then forwarded on to our print station to be ripped and queued for print. At this stage we can organise jobs by material, sizing or substrate they are to be printed on so we make the most each material and reduce waste.
Printing your signs
The next step in our process is print production. This is a multi step process that begins with loading the correct material onto the machine. We stock a range of materials from short term monomeric to longer term polymeric vinyl and reflective also.Â
Once the machine is loaded we can take a breather and let the printer work it’s magic. Our machines can print unassisted onto a take up unit freeing us up to monitor quality and prepare for the next stage of the production process.
Off gas and curing time
For material that needs to be laminated we work off leaving 12-24 hours for out gassing and ink curing into our process.Â
Out gassing is the process where the residual eco solvent evaporates from the material. If this process is not done before lamination it can cause issues down the line including failure of the material & lamination & can shorten the life of a sign.
Not all of our signs need to laminated. Signs for temporary use like site safety signs generally aren’t laminated and move to the next step without the need for out gas time.Â
Lamination
For signs that need to be laminated we use our easymount laminator to apply the overlaminate. We can apply the material either hot or cole depending on the type of material is being used.Â
The reason we laminate the vinyl used for long term signage is to extend the life of the sign & protect the sign from surface damage.
Lamination works by locking the print under a layer of thin PVC that helps protect the vinyl & ink underneath from UV rays, damage from scratching & weathering. Lamination extends the life of signs substantially.
Mounting vinyl
Once the printed vinyl sign has been laminated the next step in the process is mounting the vinyl to the substrate. A substrate is the flat material that the vinyl is adhered onto on such as corriboard, dibond, foamex etc.Â
We use our rollover application table to do this process. Our rollover table makes this process quick, easy and helps cut application errors like bubbles or creases down significantly.Â
Our rollover table is an indispensable piece of equipment that makes the sign process so much quicker.Â
Cutting and trimming
Once the vinyl us mounted to the substrate it’s then time to cut the signs down to their finished size. We use a range of equipment for this including our Keencut evo 3 and Steeltrak materials cutter to help us make every cut perfect!Â
We can finish cut a large range of sign materials in a huge range of thicknesses from 1mm aluminium to 3mm+ dibond to 10mm+ foamex or corriboard.Â
The machines we use
We've invested in robust, high quality machines


Printing – Roland VG3
We primarily produce signage on our Roland VG3. The VG3 is the latest version of the Roland truvis series and is both a print and cut machine. Our VG3 is configured to run an extended ink set including orange ink to help with colour accuracy & vibrance.
The VG3 uses Roland TR2 inks which are eco solvent inks developed for outdoor use. They have a non laminated outdoor life of 3 years which can be considerably extended with the use of overlaminate.
Finishing – range of machines
For finishing our signs we have a range of equipment including a Rollover application table, Keencut Evo 3 cutter, Easymount lamination system & Keencut Steeltrak materials cutter.
Each of these machines help us to take printed vinyl and turn it into a perfectly finished sign.Â
Our favourite machine is the Rollover applicator, it makes mounting vinyl material to substrates a breeze!
Our material partners




