Fabric Banner

[Signed Out]

Looking for some recommendations on fabric/canvas material for indoor banners. Looking for a material that prints good with roland eco-sol max ink. Also want to make banners that can be rolled up/ folded for storage and won't crease and wrinkle. We normally power tape and grommet our banners. I think this hampers the banners ability to be folded for storage. We are hoping to find a fabric material that when used indoors, would be able to be grommeted without power taping. I'm looking at ultraflex matte true canvas giclee 65/35, and ultrapoplin pes c240. Anybody use this stuff before with good results? Or does anybody have other material recommendations?

 

[printhog]

Your ask is for a material that behaves like an uncoated fabric.. but then you mention hems..

First - any coated fabric will not lay flat after folding. Limits you to pure polyester and there's no poly that eco solvent can go to.

For a nice canvas look. I've used Sonoma Graphics Venetian heavy canvas. freaking gorgeous off a Roland.. but you must hem it.. they do have some fabrics that are eco solvent friendly. Www.Sgpweb.com

As for Hems on vinyl banners.. my rant.. Hems are a throw back to the old days of cotton sign cloth. They're basically unneeded in modern nylon scrim fabrics which are rip stop.

Having worked in this trade back when cotton sign cloth was prominent and vinyl was yet to be, i can tell you the old fabrics tore quickly unless hemmed. Vinyl coated Nylon scrim was sold as an upgraded rip stop, and withstood much more wind load than its cotton forbearers. I've seen Cooley scrim banner material support a 7,000 lb billboard from falling..

So long as you properly grommet so it spreads the tension loading without the grommet cutting the scrim you can skip hemming most of these modern fabrics even for outdoor use. If you do hem it needs to be welded.

Structurally the only hem that improves the strength is a heat welded or solvent welded hem that fuses the coatings. Tapes do not spread any load nor reduce any edge failure potentials. In fact, the tape will worsen the situation, the tape layer causing a flexing on the edge and at the grommets, loosening the grommets "set" in the material. Once loose it can cut the fabric and fail. Even then the grommet failure is not a structural fabric failure. Sewn hems are akin to perforation on paper, most failures occur on the sewn line.

For indoor use you can skip the labor expense of hemming without any issue to your client.

My firm paid an engineer review the hemming options for banners for a product we made. The only issue is the customer's expectations, that is on your sales forces side to deal with.




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[Signed Out]

Your ask is for a material that behaves like an uncoated fabric.. but then you mention hems..

First - any coated fabric will not lay flat after folding. Limits you to pure polyester and there's no poly that eco solvent can go to.

For a nice canvas look. I've used Sonoma Graphics Venetian heavy canvas. freaking gorgeous off a Roland.. but you must hem it.. they do have some fabrics that are eco solvent friendly. Www.Sgpweb.com

As for Hems on vinyl banners.. my rant.. Hems are a throw back to the old days of cotton sign cloth. They're basically unneeded in modern nylon scrim fabrics which are rip stop.

Having worked in this trade back when cotton sign cloth was prominent and vinyl was yet to be, i can tell you the old fabrics tore quickly unless hemmed. Vinyl coated Nylon scrim was sold as an upgraded rip stop, and withstood much more wind load than its cotton forbearers. I've seen Cooley scrim banner material support a 7,000 lb billboard from falling..

So long as you properly grommet so it spreads the tension loading without the grommet cutting the scrim you can skip hemming most of these modern fabrics even for outdoor use. If you do hem it needs to be welded.

Structurally the only hem that improves the strength is a heat welded or solvent welded hem that fuses the coatings. Tapes do not spread any load nor reduce any edge failure potentials. In fact, the tape will worsen the situation, the tape layer causing a flexing on the edge and at the grommets, loosening the grommets "set" in the material. Once loose it can cut the fabric and fail. Even then the grommet failure is not a structural fabric failure. Sewn hems are akin to perforation on paper, most failures occur on the sewn line.

For indoor use you can skip the labor expense of hemming without any issue to your client.

My firm paid an engineer review the hemming options for banners for a product we made. The only issue is the customer's expectations, that is on your sales forces side to deal with.




Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

I'm not looking to hem the fabric banners, only grommet them. Possibly add a 1"x1" square of power tape on the backside where grommets will go, but only if the fabric would tear without it. These are going to be banners for indoor use only.

So you are saying that coated fabrics won't roll up without creasing or wrinkling? And uncoated fabrics can't be printed with eco-solvent? Have you tried the 2 materials I asked about in the original post? Both those materials claim they can be folded without wrinkling or creasing.

Has anybody used either ultraflex matte true canvas giclee 65/35 or ultraflex ultrapoplin pes c240 before and can tell me how they perform?

 

[GaSouthpaw]

I'm not looking to hem the fabric banners, only grommet them. Possibly add a 1"x1" square of power tape on the backside where grommets will go, but only if the fabric would tear without it. These are going to be banners for indoor use only.

So you are saying that coated fabrics won't roll up without creasing or wrinkling? And uncoated fabrics can't be printed with eco-solvent? Have you tried the 2 materials I asked about in the original post? Both those materials claim they can be folded without wrinkling or creasing.

Has anybody used either ultraflex matte true canvas giclee 65/35 or ultraflex ultrapoplin pes c240 before and can tell me how they perform?

Nope... he said "folding." And I have to agree- no material is going to be crease-free after folding.
If the customer wants to reuse them, they need to be store rolled onto a core so they'll be in good shape afterwards. And you need to spell that out for them explicitly, and do not cave in when they come to you and complain because they rolled it up on itself- without the core you provided them when they picked it up (or you delivered it, or shipped it on), then tossed it on a shelf and piled a bunch of crap on top of it so now it has creases as sharp as the pleats in a Marine's uni.

I'd suggest calling your media supplier and getting samples of the materials. That's the only way you'll know for sure if they'll work with your printer.

 

[eahicks]

As for Hems on vinyl banners.. my rant.. Hems are a throw back to the old days of cotton sign cloth. They're basically unneeded in modern nylon scrim fabrics which are rip stop.

I 100% disagree with this. Not sure what banner material you use, but I don't have a single one that would not rip outside without hems in it. For indoor banners, sure, leave off the hems. But I would not call any modern banner material "rip-stop".