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Sign Board Help
Hello!
Can anyone please advise me on the most suitable (and cheapest) board to use for some signs. They are quite large (about 3m x 1½m), to be fixed flat onto either walls or wood. Need to last about a year . Currently the signs there are unframed and appear to be just 5mm foamex, some are glossy (is it called forrex top?), some matt. They seem to do the job okay, but some appear to be slightly warped – (you can only see this when you get up close). I don’t know if they are slightly warped due to the fitting, or due to it being foamex. I have been told that you can get an “outdoor grade” foamex, does anyone here use it?I don’t often get asked to do signs this large – usually just internals or short term builders boards for which I use foamex.
Any advice would be much appreciated.Many thanks
Ali
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5 Replies
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Cheapest, most durable option would be something like Alucolor I think (?) Not huge amounts of money, comparible to DiBond or Reynobond (ie its aluminium faced, has a squeegy centre and lasts upto 8yrs exterior), relatively easy to apply to (bit like doing a flat sided van, ie vinyl onto metal) and its lightweight, weighing slightly more than a sheet of 5mm foamboard.
You could have opted for an even cheaper ally-faced board with Le Board, but I think its maximum size is 2.4m x 1.2, where as the Alucolor is 3m by 1.5m 😕
Hope this helps a little 😀
Cheers, Dewi
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Hi Ali
Might well be tempted to use a dibond, you can get it in just over 3metre lengths by 1.5metre, not as cheap as the foamex, possibly £35 more but will save you time in cutting etc.
Chris
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Ali, if the customer is just looking for cheap and the quality is not so important then 5mm foamex will be fine, if it only has to last about a year there shouldn’t be a problem at all. You can get White 5mm foamex in a 3mtr x 2mtr sheet so each sign will be one piece. In fact the supplier will cut it for you if you give them the required size so no cutting for you to do at all.
When fitting if you drill the fitting holes larger than the screws you are using and don’t overtighten the screws then the board can expand & contract a bit which helps to stop it warping.I don’t like to use foam for jobs like this and try to talk the customer into using a more suitable material like alucolour but sometimes price is the only thing that matters.
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Hello, thank you for the replies.
The customer will be happy to have the same as what he’s got now, but you know how it is – we always like to offer BETTER than the old supplier…
Because I don’t do a great deal of signs at the moment I normally just buy individual foamex sheets from a local plastics supplier to save on the delivery costs and stipulated minimum orders.
I know that price will be a great consideration for this customer, and the boards are likely to be changed every year, so I don’t think I need to go for the aluminium type, as it’ll be too dear and probably quite unecessary (in their opinion) for their requirements.
I was led to believe that there is another “finer” type of foamex which is more durable for external use. I think it’s dearer than standard foam board, but substantially cheaper than dibond etc.
I can’t remember how I found out about it though as it was quite some time ago. Does anyone know of it? -
Yes Martins right, if you drill the fixing holes a bit bigger than the screws it should be OK, see if these signs are south facing or not, if they are not there should be no problem with warping.
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