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Outdoor durability of PVC Banner material
Hi guys,
Just wondering. I did a couple of fairly large signs for a client recently. They are a cold storage company, situated on the water’s edge in harbour. Their previous signs rusted so badly, the panels started falling off about 5 years down the line. ( these were done in chromadek)Not a nice thing, getting 4 x 8ft metal sheets tumbling down where your staff’s vehicles are parked! The signs were fitted to a corrugated asbestos type roof sheeting, used to complete the top half of the warehouse. The client brief was that my sign should be EXTREMELY lightweight, and able to withstand wind storms of up to 50 knots (occasionaly) or 25 knots (almost daily) They did not want me to paint their logo, because of the corugated surface. The signs are big – about 2,5m high, 15m long.
My soloution: 25mm Aluminium square tubing frames (appx 2500 x 1500mm each) covered with 550gsm PVC, and signage applied using vinyl cut lettering (and some digital printed vinyl) I couldnt print directly on the PVC, because we only run a SP 300. I applied the vinyl with an application solution of 75% water, 25% isoprophyl alcohol. (this, by the way, works great when doing wet applicatins on vehicles) I attatched the frames to the asbestos with galvinised "butterfly screws", the type used for hanging stuff from suspended ceilings, and "enhanced" rust proofing by spraying fixtures with a rust preventor.
My problem: will the PVC turn yellow in the sunshine (remeber, we are in the middle of the Namib desert, and have about 9000 days of sunshine per year!!) I do not have any specs on the PVC banner used, exept its weight. I bought this from Maizeys in Cape Town, South Africa. In Windhoek, Namibia, there is a large "indoor" shopping mall that had it’s entire roof area covered in PVC. 5 Years later, still no probs. I hope my sign will last. I gave a 5 year repair warrantee on it!
Please remember when replying, we do not have access to most of the products commonly available to you guys in EU. We have to make do without the benifit of specialised materials for specialised jobs.
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5 Replies
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Hard to say Gert without knowing the specs of the PVC. Suffice to say, if it had a good PVC rating you should be OK. 5 years would be at the end of its life tho, unless it is very good quality. I’ve seen shopping centers with PVC roofs older than 10 years, but understand there is pvc and there is PVC materials.
I use PVC material’s here that is specific for the sign industry. Some are guarranteed for 12 months, some 3 years, others 5 and 10 years.
The yellowing is caused by the migration of plastizers. The cheaper the material, the quicker the yellowing.
Rod Gold may be better to answer as he probably has better experience for your area
cheers
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just a quick reply as im popping out…
do you have flexface signage in your country?
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flexWHAAT??
I dont think so… we occasionaly get sales reps coming through from South Africa, punting some materials we never seen before. We do buy from reasonably stocked suppliers (again, in ZA) but, because we never get to see any of the weird and wonderfull stuff on their catalougues, dont know what we’re dealing with. They are also very unwilling to give any guarantees with regards to the materials they supply, presumably because of our exreme weather and long distances. (Maybe somebody from Israel, Southern Spain, Arizona, or some such place, can share experiences on durability on the boards.)
Namibian "signage suppliers" stock 3-5 year vinyl – basic colours -, 1 & 2mm ABS, 3mm Correx,3 & 5mm Clear and (maybe) 050Perspex, and 1000 x 700mm Screenprint Vinyl. Oh, and 0.9mm Chromadek sheets, white only. That’s It. With that we have to do screenprinting, digital, vehicle wraps, shopfronts, billboards, etc. etc. I’d love to be able to call a LOCAL supplier for some speciality product, like banner film, and get it delivered! Gawd, I’d even pick it up, myself!!
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Herewit a go at posting pics of what we’ve been talking about
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I agree Rob Ideal flexface application say a retro fram
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