Applying prints to aluminium & wall mounting advice?

[Ian Bingham]

10mm aluminum? sure?

[David Rogers]

You can get 10mm no bother from most metal suppliers.

It’s about 28kg/m2 at that thickness and unlikely to be anodised either.

Surface finish…well, it’s rare to get large billets without some sort of blemish / divot as it’s more ‘industrial’ than ‘decorative’.

Dave

[Ian Bingham]

So you could try franklins or Righton

Ian

[Robert Lambie]

10mm would be heavy… but do’able…
you would probably need soldered/welded metal locator’s fixings on the rear.
other options and adhesives available but for the weight ide go for the welds.

alternatively you could use 2-3mm aluminum sheet with 10mm aluminum returns? i.e. forming a tray/pan

using this method you could easily attach nylon locator’s using a two part adhesive from 3m or the like…
from the side the locator’s would also be hidden but the panel still appear to be slightly floating.

[Steve Vallis]

Thanks everyone

Some good ideas

[Adrian Yeo]

quote David Rogers:

You can get 10mm no bother from most metal suppliers.

It’s about 28kg/m2 at that thickness and unlikely to be anodised either.

Surface finish…well, it’s rare to get large billets without some sort of blemish / divot as it’s more ‘industrial’ than ‘decorative’.

Dave

Surface finish would be a must really. Natural oxide film builds up and dependant on where its going may become visible in quite a short time. If they want the aluminium finish visible, then I would suggest a clear chemical conversion coating as a minimum. Does the same job as alocrom or iridite but without the golden colour.

As Dave said, billets of that size will almost certainly have an imperfect finish. Sheet material can be just as bad, but at least you stand half a chance of getting something good as they usually still have the surface protector sheet on.