STRUCTURED SURFACE ARTICLES CONTAINING GEOMETRIC STRUCTURES WITH COMPOUND FACES AND METHODS FOR MAKING SAME

摘要

A process for making molds for retroreflective sheeting and like articles includes making a substrate having a structured surface of geometric structures such as cube corner elements. The structured surface is in one embodiment partially replicated from a previous generation structured surfac e, and partially machined in the substrate. At least one of the faces of the structured surface is a compound face that has one machined portion and one non-machined portion, such as a replicated portion. The process can be used to manufacture substrates with desirable geometry cube corner elements, such as cube corner elements having a hexagonal outline in plan view, without requiring the use of pin bundling techniques or laminae. The process can als o be used to manufacture articles having cube corner elements in which at leas t one face of the cube corner element has two constituent faces disposed on opposed sides of a transition line that is nonparallel to a nondihedral edge of such cube corner element.