Sign repair in el paso

[artbot]

i have a set of panels that were installed at the Sierra Providence Hospital in El Paso a few weeks ago. my shop is located in the houston area (11 hour drive).

two different adhesives were used on this project. 8 panels got sika-bond. never had an issue with this adhesive.
two panels were glued with an untested adhesive because we had to deliver to a truck the next day and it was past midnight (rush order).

i have gotten word that there are tiles that have fallen off these panels. the buyer refuses to send me photos of the extent of the damage. just keeps requesting that i
confirm a date that i will fly or drive to el paso to "view the space" to repair on site or something far more complex.

is there anyone that is in the el paso area that has a slow week that might be interested in a site visit/photo shoot/possible repair?

 

[Moze]

It's a 10 hour drive from me or I'd offer to help.

Just curious - how much adhesive and how much VHB did you use?

 

[artbot]

i used about a 1/2" high blop of sika-bond on each corner and then a small "x" in the middle. sika-bond cures in about 3 hours. the alternative adhesive just never cured, so i pulled them up and added lexel silicone. works well but it's much slower than sika-bond. we then headed to the dock with the pieces. the offending panels were not acting right so the frame shop manager swore by gorilla glue cynoacrylate (kind of slow thick-ish super glue). i pulled them AGAIN and placed this super glue at the corners so that it would well up at the intersections. how these pieces are falling off in that each tile weighs nothing with three different glues in the same spot and that the pro installer didn't see any sign of an issue while installing is beyond me. but now weeks later i've got word that gravity is ripping these lightweight tiles off. perhaps they were transported wrong or in a 120F evinronment?

lesson learned is this:
no rush orders ever on any product that is a "new" system. old product lines have been debugged and one can predict pretty much everything. i think i spent more than half of my time figuring out how to make these pretty little tiles than actually painting and cutting them.

also, sika-bond, as good as it is, can cure straight through right inside the unopened cartridge. buy four if you need one and keep the receipt. i wouldn't be dealing with this if i had one more cartridge that night.

also, life is full of invisible bullets to dodge. adhesive failure and shipping damage in this business is possibly the most expensive to fix and the least expensive to avoid.

 

[Moze]

Just a thought (because I had a similar issue lately, only with a much heavier sign) there have been quite a few recent reports of graphics failing to adhere to painted walls. It turns out the increasing use of low-VOC paints is the culprit. Something in them negatively affects tapes & adhesives.

Have you ever tried E6000? It's expensive but works really well.

 

[artbot]

these are attached to black sintra.

the low voc has got some weird stuff. some have anti-microbial or anti-dust coatings built into them which oddly means that the surface electrons are designed to "throw off" molecules due to some kind of electron reaction to oxygen or something. the term is "active surface" or something. i forget.

E6000 works well. i've used it on many projects. but the sika-bond is better. stronger, more elastic (to negate thermal expansion) and faster curing. plus E6000 has a solvent that burns out which can attack painted surfaces. silicones kick over and cure rather than dry or outgas.