Sign tray material what do people use

[Chris Wilson]

We make them from composite… can’t say I’ve ever found them to be flimsy.
Any joins between sheets we tend to frame out behind the join.
Never had issue yet anyway. There are ways to do them, certain router bits, worth playing around with the corner folds.

[Andy Thorne]

We make a lot of sign trays for the trade (mainly in the south east) and tend to only use 2mm aluminium unless the height gets up to around the 1300-1400mm (or more) mark in which case we use 3mm. We can make ACM trays but for us we find it quicker to make aluminium ones (but then we have the equipment to do so). Just be careful to set your router right to leave all of the thin aluminium skin in situ. If you do make your own trays in more than we piece we have a standard extrusion available to the trade for interlocking one tray panel into another to keep the faces in planar called tongue and groove if that helps?

https://simplexltd.com/wp-content/uploa … _range.pdf

[Justin Atkins]

Composite trays in any size up to 3m x 2m in one piece. Larger surface areas will flex in the wind so bond some lengths of ali angle or signfix channel to the rear with vhb tape to stiffen up.

[David Stevenson]

Here’s probably one of the most boring yet useful books you’ll ever read lol "The Dibond Fabrication Manual".

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KpEOME … p=drivesdk

[Paul Smallbone]

Thanks all for your responses.

Forgot to mention i wasn’t thinking of making these myself.

So i just bought & installed an ACM tray first one arrived very damaged/bent which didn’t fill me with confidence also delayed the job a few days whilst a new one was being delivered which also arrived slightly bent on the folds but managed to fix. I felt the corner folds weren’t strong enough & seemed to come apart very easy.

So for me i think i’ll be going back to Aluminium trays from now on.

Thanks again

[Michael Cunney]

We always generally look to push our solid aluminium trays, there is a small price difference, but for the quality, the look in terms of no visible joins / fixings on the corners and the benefit of powder coat both in it’s durability and the fact customers can pick near enough any colour they like, rather than being limited to a swatch set, you can soon justify the difference.

Composite obviously has it’s benefit when you’re competing for customers who are very much budget focused, or they’re after a particular off the shelf finish like brushed metallic, but aside from that :thumbsup:

[Michael Cunney]

quote Paul Smallbone:

Thanks all for your responses.

Forgot to mention i wasn’t thinking of making these myself.

So i just bought & installed an ACM tray first one arrived very damaged/bent which didn’t fill me with confidence also delayed the job a few days whilst a new one was being delivered which also arrived slightly bent on the folds but managed to fix. I felt the corner folds weren’t strong enough & seemed to come apart very easy.

So for me i think i’ll be going back to Aluminium trays from now on.

Thanks again

By the way, and no doubt you were, but just with mentioning the corners, obviously need to re-enforce these with some right angle section fixed to the internal corners