Large vinyl murals on foam core advice

[Fallguy]

We are installing large vinyl backed murals onto 1/2" foam core. Large as in 7 feet by as low as 7 feet side by as long as 13' wide.

The foam core is preassembled with tape on the back and thickened epoxy at the seam. The core has low shear, so the epoxy is supported by the tape and eventually the mural itself.

We tested various adhesives and all wallpaper adhesives failed to bond well. We also realized we needed to seal the foam core and are using Roman 999. The glue we are using is actually flooring adhesive. The flooring adhesive passed our test which was to have a shear failure in the core. All other adhesives failed to bond well to the mural.

The only issue is the adhesive application is with 1/16th or 1/32 trowels and we are getting quite a bit of air pocketing. Due to the size of the mural; they are rolled onto a pvc tube and rolled off onto the glued surface carefully to help stay square to the core.

The resultant parts looks good, but I am wondering if anyone can advise a way to improve.

Some ideas....

Use a wide glue roller and roll the glue on flat and without the lines which are air, or after troweling; roll the glue flatter. This sounds ez, but a little daunting to end up line free.

Use a weighted roll off tube. Our roller is a piece of 3" pvc. We could put some sand in it and cap it on the ends. The table is designed specifically for the mural height.

Use a different glue? I don't see this is an answer, although a spray adhesive might have less air pocketing; the murals are too heavy to slip sheet and we would need to wear respirators and build a spray chamber and we might still get some bubbling.

Thank you for allowing me to post. I can add some pictures later.

 

[Gino]

Could you sport up some photos of your accomplishments, thus far..... good or bad. What you're describing sounds somewhat involved and possibly going about it all wrong.

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[equippaint]

Im confused with this. Why not just use adhesive vinyl? If that wasnt an option, solvent based contact cement would seem to be more appropriate than floor adhesive.

 

[Johnny Best]

MacTac makes 54" wide adhesive double sided tape to roll down on foam core and then roll your mural on to that.
It has rubberbased adhesive that will stick good to foam board and your mural. That floor adhesive is messy and using the groove trowel is a lot of extra work.

 

[Fallguy]

About 7' x 7', glued today, glue became contact like after drying too long and we got creasing on rolloff...tube on table

This creasing below is nothing bad and we can work out.

Thank you for replies. We rolled a mural/icon today. We discovered that contact adhesives are less than ideal. The first two we did; we used varying thicknesses of glue and we allowed an induction time today of 20 minutes and the glue became like contact cement and did not work well for us. We will apply next time no induction time and let the glue dry overtime. Here are the requested pictures and you'll see some of our application troubles on close look.

This is a 7'x7' icon already on the wall. It rolled out better than the 3rd one. A second mural rolled best and will be applied to the building ceiling tomorrow.

 

[Fallguy]

Im confused with this. Why not just use adhesive vinyl? If that wasnt an option, solvent based contact cement would seem to be more appropriate than floor adhesive.

Contact glues offer no forgiveness on rolling off the tube as we discovered flooring adhesive behaves as contact glue if allowed to dry a bit too long and we ended up with wrinkles.

MacTac makes 54" wide adhesive double sided tape to roll down on foam core and then roll your mural on to that.
It has rubberbased adhesive that will stick good to foam board and your mural. That floor adhesive is messy and using the groove trowel is a lot of extra work.

Would we be able to make corrections and lift the mural up if it is wrinkling or creasing? It seems like a minor delta in rolloff tension results in creasing. The floor adhesive allowed us some ability to pull errors out on our first part. The third one dried too much and became like contact glue and we had no chance to lift off and fix wrinkling.

Thank you both for commenting.

This is quite an adventure. We are putting up about 650 square feet of icons.

 

[equippaint]

Even more confused now. Looks like a mounted 4x8, pretty basic stuff unless I missed something? Are you a sign guy or did you buy the print and trying to stick it on foamboard from walgreens?

 

[Johnny Best]

Did you guys check to see if there was a backing paper on your mural vinyls that could be peeled off so it exposed adhesive to stick down.
Good thing it’s a Christen church so they will forgive you for any mistakes in your mounting.

 

[Gino]

How are you producing these prints ??

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I am lost as hell. You have some sort of material that you're trying to hand laminate with a PVC pipe out on foam core with flooring adhesive? Maybe this is above my head but everything about this whole situation makes absolutely no sense to me. I've done plenty of indoor wall murals...enough to make me think I'm a modern-day wallpaper hanger, but this sounds loony to me. Why wouldn't you use adhesive backed vinyl and apply directly to the wall? How big are the rolls? What does "Large as in 7 feet by as low as 7 feet side by as long as 13' wide." even mean? Are you a sign person?? Please help us understand your background and as to why you're doing it this way?

 

[equippaint]

Did you guys check to see if there was a backing paper on your mural vinyls that could be peeled off so it exposed adhesive to stick down.
Good thing it’s a Christen church so they will forgive you for any mistakes in your mounting.

I am lost as hell. You have some sort of material that you're trying to hand laminate with a PVC pipe out on foam core with flooring adhesive? Maybe this is above my head but everything about this whole situation makes absolutely no sense to me. I've done plenty of indoor wall murals...enough to make me think I'm a modern-day wallpaper hanger, but this sounds loony to me. Why wouldn't you use adhesive backed vinyl and apply directly to the wall? How big are the rolls? What does "Large as in 7 feet by as low as 7 feet side by as long as 13' wide." even mean? Are you a sign person?? Please help us understand your background and as to why you're doing it this way?

 

[Fallguy]

They are pvc vinyl.

There is no adhesives on them. The general use of these are as grommet banners. We ordered them no grommets, of course.

The memes are cute, but not the professionalism I had hoped for.

My credentials are not what I was asking about.

The walls are uneven plaster from turn of the century and in poor shape and would cost quite a bit of money to prep.

And as long as we drifted into memes and such; we tried to find Michaelangelo; turns out he died. Who knew?

They are indeed 4x8s, but bigger. We seamed them to support the larger sizes.

I did misspeak. The smallest mural is 7' x 7' or so; the largest is 7'x13'.

Again, thanks.

I am an unpaid volunteer; do be kind.

 

[Fallguy]

I am lost as hell. You have some sort of material that you're trying to hand laminate with a PVC pipe out on foam core with flooring adhesive? Maybe this is above my head but everything about this whole situation makes absolutely no sense to me. I've done plenty of indoor wall murals...enough to make me think I'm a modern-day wallpaper hanger, but this sounds loony to me. Why wouldn't you use adhesive backed vinyl and apply directly to the wall? How big are the rolls? What does "Large as in 7 feet by as low as 7 feet side by as long as 13' wide." even mean? Are you a sign person?? Please help us understand your background and as to why you're doing it this way?

Sorry-the murals are as small as 7'x7' and as large as 7'x13'.

The wall is not good enough condition. We are double sided taping and framing the prints 12' off the ground on the wall/ceiling. It is on an angle.

We tried mounting directly to the wall and it failed due to the surface being poor; high texture, rough plaster, etc. The foamboard hides all the issues well.

We tried many wallpaper adhesives and they all failed a bond test. The Roman xtreme tack did okay, but bond failure still occurred between the vinyl and the Adhesive. Floor glue did not fail a bond test and sheered at the core.

 

[Fallguy]

Again, thanks for any advice.

 

[GAC05]

So these are banners - maybe a banner stretching system would do better than glue on foamcore.
Looks like you are framing each section so this might be worth looking at:
http://www.tensioningsolutions.com/
or
http://www.lindsignspring.com/

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

The reason I asked your experience level is to gauge what you may be capable of. I don't think using banners glued to foam boards is the right way to go about this. Even if you get the banners on there without wrinkles, I don't think it would stay like that over time... you have humidity that could effect it.

If the walls are in bad shape and wouldn't take vinyl, I'd probably print directly on polyair 4mm or similar material and adhere those to the wall. I do this all the time for "posters" and I have seamed together large pieces. That's the easiest way I can think how to do it. And I wouldn't trust double-sided tape to keep those up forever either... Gotta use something else to keep them up there too.

 

[equippaint]

Youre better off hiring someone in this trade that knows what they’re doing. Why not have whoever you ordered the material from install it or tell you how to do it?

 

[Gino]

Okay, now it makes sense. You are trying to do something, which is not meant to be. Other than the banner frame, you are attempting to make something work, but only wasting time and money. In order to save money, it helps to know what to order before ordering the wrong stuff.

Nothing you said in the beginning made sense, thus why questions were asked for pictures and better descriptions. Even once you might get the banners mounted, nothing will really hold it on the wall except for lags or rather large physical fasteners. Why not explain to us, what you want to do and perhaps we can point you towards the correct Merchant Member here to do the job and you will have a much better chance of hitting your goal ??

 

[Billct2]

Yes, unfortunately you have the wrong materials and technqiues combined with inadequate skills...The only thing I can think of that may salvage the job is to stretch the banners on a frame like you would a large canvas for a painting.

 

[zspace]

So basically this thread is about - "We saved money by DIY, then we bought the wrong thing and now we will ask professionals for free advice on how to fix it."

Shouldn't these questions directed to the company that produced the prints?