What would be the best way to seam gatorfoam or foam board in general for a large sign. Lets say I need to do an interior print thats 2 feet tall and 10 feet wide. The front will be printed on ij35c and then mounted. I'm just wondering if anyone has done this. How best to seam a couple 5 foot pieces from the back side so they hold tight. I don't want to actually do them separately and join on site. Will most likely be mounting with VHB about 8 feet off the ground in case that matters. Thanks!
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Seaming foam board/gatorfoam for large interior sign
- Thread starter WrapGuy10
- Start date
signbrad
New Member
I used to do a fair amount of large Gatorfoam signs for stage backdrops. Sometimes they were mounted on stand-up panels, often they were hanging from wire. Many involved multiple seams, especially if they were 30 or 40 feet long.
I never used anything thinner than 3/4-inch Gatorfoam and I often made a lightweight wood frame for the back, especially the hanging ones. I wanted them to stay flat with no bowing or sagging. These were always painted, sometimes with cutouts adhered to the face. This was before digital prints.
Instead of making butt seams, cut the mating edges at an angle, just like the scarf joints on a long run of wood trim in a house. This allows you to get good looking seams, sometimes virtually invisible. The back frame keeps the sign from bending, which prevents the seam from trying to open. I also would sometimes glue a Gatorfoam scab on the back side right behind the seam if I wanted to absolutely guarantee that the two mating pieces stayed flush with each other.
Often, though, the organizations I made these displays for wanted to be able to disassemble them for easy transport in a van, so they needed to break down into 8-foot lengths. I still used scarfed joints for the Gatorfoam, though, so that, when the signs were reassembled, the seams were less conspicuous than a butt seam.
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Gatorfoam is an amazing material, though it's not cheap. I worked for a shop for a couple of years that actually cut letters out of it that were installed outside. The edges were primed with three coats of latex and then sprayed with acrylic enamel automotive paint, front and back. They were then glued to walls with silicone. The letters stayed flat and would hold up for a couple of years in the weather. They didn't look cheap and you would never know they were foam from just looking at them.
Brad in Kansas City
I never used anything thinner than 3/4-inch Gatorfoam and I often made a lightweight wood frame for the back, especially the hanging ones. I wanted them to stay flat with no bowing or sagging. These were always painted, sometimes with cutouts adhered to the face. This was before digital prints.
Instead of making butt seams, cut the mating edges at an angle, just like the scarf joints on a long run of wood trim in a house. This allows you to get good looking seams, sometimes virtually invisible. The back frame keeps the sign from bending, which prevents the seam from trying to open. I also would sometimes glue a Gatorfoam scab on the back side right behind the seam if I wanted to absolutely guarantee that the two mating pieces stayed flush with each other.
Often, though, the organizations I made these displays for wanted to be able to disassemble them for easy transport in a van, so they needed to break down into 8-foot lengths. I still used scarfed joints for the Gatorfoam, though, so that, when the signs were reassembled, the seams were less conspicuous than a butt seam.
....................
Gatorfoam is an amazing material, though it's not cheap. I worked for a shop for a couple of years that actually cut letters out of it that were installed outside. The edges were primed with three coats of latex and then sprayed with acrylic enamel automotive paint, front and back. They were then glued to walls with silicone. The letters stayed flat and would hold up for a couple of years in the weather. They didn't look cheap and you would never know they were foam from just looking at them.
Brad in Kansas City
pjfmeister
New Member
We have done these 16'x16' custom cutout logos for a gymnasium. Mounted to block wall. We printed the seams to match and basically had a custom "seam tape" for the front. Like "signbrad" said - the hard part was lining up seams with no white from cuts or misalignment. By printing the seam about 1" wide to cover-up this worked for us to fix that.
signbrad
New Member
I have also used two thicknesses of Gatorfoam for one sign. I made a scarfed seam for the front pieces and a simple butt seam for the backer pieces, making sure the seams are not in the same place on the layers. This way the straight part of the baker supports the seam in the front pieces.
The backer piece can be cut flush with the edges of the face piece or a little undersized to create a small standoff.
Brad
858Graphics
www.858graphics.com
We do a lot of these larger signs all the time. We take a "sandwich method" which is much easier if you have a router. We use 3 layers of foam board, .5" in the middle then 3/16" on each side. We cut the middle piece into 2 pieces and the outer pieces into 3. This allows us to easily put this together on site and works every time. I believe we have a picture of one on our site. Feel free to reach out to me with questions!
Foam Board Printing & Foamcore Prints
Foam Board Printing & Foamcore Prints