Hard wearing mouse-friendly vinyl

[Humble PM]

Got a potential order to wrap some desk tops, grey. These are a mix of existing 80's, 90's, 00's solid office desks, almost all with a nice smooth roundover. Requirement is neutral grey, hardwearing, and capable of surviving (well, being used with) Apple's god-damned awful optical mice.

I'm thinking an air-egress automotive quality matt cast wrap film. These are for a long term (5ish+ years) facitlity dealing with colour managed screens and scanners. Effectively zero exposure to UV.

Thoughts please.

 

[DL Signs]

I'd consider using something like a polycarb floor laminate over a cast vinyl. Would probably last a lot longer with a mouse sliding across it all day.

 

[ikarasu]

Look into architectural film. It's way thicker and built to withstand use like this. 3m has dinoc, not sure about the rest... It's expensive, but it's whole purpose is to last a long time in high use situations.

 

[ikarasu]

I'd consider using something like a polycarb floor laminate over a cast vinyl. Would probably last a lot longer with a mouse sliding across it all day.

Would a floor lamp not have anti slip properties to it? In which case it may last longer.... But people don't want anti slip to mess with their mouse gliding id think.

I've never tried it, so I don't know how much of a difference it'd make... Maybe not enough to be an issue in an office environment.

 

[Humble PM]

Look into architectural film. It's way thicker and built to withstand use like this. 3m has dinoc, not sure about the rest... It's expensive, but it's whole purpose is to last a long time in high use situations.

Dinoc looks like a strong contender, thank you.

I think an antislip desk top would lead to much spilled coffee - people don't tend to expect resistance on a table top. But a vandal resistant laminate might work. However, I've seen mice play very badly on some gloss surfaces.

 

[netsol]

it's amazing how many desk surfaces are not "mouse friendly"
i keep a 50 pack of mouse pads in the van

mouse friendly may be harder toachieve than you think

 

[Stacey K]

I thought you were going to say you needed vinyl for mice cages

 

[Humble PM]

With that Dinoc stuff, we could make mouse(user) cages, and they'd never know

 

[ikarasu]

Dinoc is great, expensive but great.

We have completely done interiors of buildings and upgraded them from looking like they were from the 70s to a completely modern look.

We've done a few yacht interiors as well, you can completely change the look of something and the material is very sturdy... The wood green ones have an almost hardened shell on the outside, you can take keys to it and try to scratch it up and it won't scratch, it is probably 10 times more durable than regular overlam, and probably as durable as floor over lam without having the anti-slip in it.

When I get into work today I will send you a photo of our work desk, I got it for free off of Craigslist and it was an old s***** desk that was made in the 50s... It had the suckiest pattern on it but we had some leftover dinoc so I wrapped it, it's been about 6 years now and there's not even a scratch on it, and we use the mouse on it daily.

It is expensive, and there are alternatives though... I've heard really good things about the brand that comes from Korea.... Bodaq I believe. I think it was about 60% of the price of dinoc , and considered pretty much equivalent

 

[ikarasu]

Not my desk anymore... So ignore the mess. The whole thing was this shitty marble pattern that looks like it's from the 50s.

We had some leftover.dinoc from a job so I wrapped it, just checked and I only see one scrape in the corner.... Which may have been my shitty install job

 

[Humble PM]

Six years should do it.
Logitec mice have those nice PTFE feet, but the bigger mouse on the right looks ready to take on any colour control action that might be hand to it.

Now if 3M owned Munsell Color, I'd be able to spec the perfect neutrality I crave.

 

[JBurton]

Nekoosa has a polycarbonate overlaminate, stuff is robust, but the surface, while having a nice velvet texture, may not be very appealing on a desk. Also uncertain how it would handle a curved termination over time.
I've gotten samples direct from nekoosa (10yd rolls) https://nekoosa.com/ and dinoc from some random distributor (6x9 squares) that offered samples: https://www.designtex.com/

 

[Humble PM]

Nekoosa has a polycarbonate overlaminate, stuff is robust, but the surface, while having a nice velvet texture, may not be very appealing on a desk. Also uncertain how it would handle a curved termination over time.
I've gotten samples direct from nekoosa (10yd rolls) https://nekoosa.com/ and dinoc from some random distributor (6x9 squares) that offered samples: https://www.designtex.com/

Thanks JB, I'll have a look.

 

[White Haus]

In terms of solid laminates..........we've used these in the past:

Drytac Emerytex: https://www.drytac.com/product/interlam-pro-emerytex/ (A bit softer but has a nice finish and pretty durable)

Mactac 10mil Lustex: *Doesn't look like it's available anymore but it was a 10mil polycarbonate laminate, basically self-adhesive polished velvet lexan on a roll.