Suggestions Hemming vinyl scrim banners - most cost effective way to start out

[Susan Rowlands]

Hello, I am interested in hemming banners and wondering what the options are for doing this. I am new to this so looking for something fairly inexpensive to start out with. Any suggestions from the seasoned pros?

 

[ikarasu]

How many are you going to do? If youre not doing banners daily... And the banners don't have to last for years, Buy some banner tape. $8 a roll.. It's pretty cheap. Adds about a buck to every 8ft banner... Durable enough to last for months, etc.

That's the cheapest way. Most efficient if you don't do a lot of banners. Next I'd say sewing... We've never done it, but we've outsourced for banners that we know had to last for years.

 

[Susan Rowlands]

I won't be doing them daily no. I have used a single sided fibreglass type tape to reinforce them, but It doesn't give the same type of finished appearance. Sounds like a double sided tape may be the way to go Thanks you for the advice - I will try that

 

[unclebun]

1" banner tape and a rubber brayer. Sewing is not necessary unless you're doing webbing and d-rings, really. Now, for outdoor pole mounted banners, sewing is superior. But we have never seen a taped hem fail before the whole banner was faded or shot anyway.

 

[Superior_Adam]

cheapest option would be banner tape. Sewing is a better finish but to get a good double needle sewing machine your looking at $3,000-$4,000 easy for the machine. We used to heat seem and switched to sewing for all of our banners.

 

[BigfishDM]

You can use the Dickson Coating JET550 banner that requires NO SEWING or BANNER TAPE. You just print, cut, grommet and go!

 

[kcollinsdesign]

I will sell the customer whatever he/she wants, but generally they will prefer a sewn hem. Would you want a pair of pants that were taped together? I don't care how "technically superior" a taped hem might be, a sewn hem is what most customers expect and are willing to pay for.

Most wholesalers will sew a hem for about 50¢/foot. That adds about $12 to a 4' x 8' banner. Another good reason to outsource banners. You would have to be making dozens of banners a day to afford a commercial sewing machine, the large sewing tables and shop space, and a trained operator. When I can buy a 4' x 8' 13 oz. digitally printed banner with sewn hems for $36.00 plus shipping...

 

[unclebun]

Our customers don't care about sewing. They just want a banner and they don't want the grommets to tear out like they do when you don't hem the banner at all. And, we're finding, they don't like the stick-on corners our competitors use instead of hemming and grommets.