Tradeshow popup panels

[LeLuni]

Hi All,


I have a 60” HP Z-series aqueous printer that I currently use to make indoor posters on matte Litho paper.


I now have an opportunity to provide tradeshow popup panels to a local company on a somewhat regular basis (at least once a month). The company I’ll do this for has a few different brands of 10’ popup frames, but they all follow the same graphic mounting standard. They all have the plastic trim strips at top and bottom and magnet-apply to channels that fit on their frames.


I’m attempting to compile a budget-friendly list of items that I will need to purchase to make this opportunity happen, and I was hoping you could help with some questions.


Here is what I think I need, with my questions:


Laminate and printing substrate

• I was thinking that I would call lexjet and go with their recommendation, but I’m curious on your thoughts. I believe total thickness (substrate plus laminate) is critical for the rigidity of the panels, but I don’t know what this thickness is. I also want to make sure the laminate is optically clear satin and can be used with a cold laminator. Thoughts?

60” laminator

• Do I need heat-assist for what I plan to do?

Black Trim strip plastic

• Do you know what material these are made of? I have a 3’x4’ laser cutter that I would love to use, but I know that some plastics are very toxic when laser cut. I don’t currently have access to a CNC router.

120” rotary cutter

• I’m assuming that a keencut will work for what I need to do, but I’m open to suggestions.

Poly bag material

• I've seen that their panels pack into nicely fitting individual bags. I'll be looking for a sources for poly rolls and some type of low production heat seaming... something or other. Any ideas?

1/2" magnet rolls

• Looking for a source for rolls of magnet. I think some of the better popup manufacturers have attracting magnets that snap the panels perfectly into place. I think it is known as 'grooved' magnet, but I'm not quite sure.

Anything that I'm missing? Any other advice (like 'you're crazy'... 'don't do it' ... 'you have no idea what you're getting into'... )

Thanks for all your help.


John

 

[Walker314]

Tradeshow murals

Hey. You probably figured it all out but.... you want your Murals to be at least 20 mil thick. Probably a 15 mil polycarb laminate on the face. I prefer thermal lam with water based inks since it sticks better. The 15 mil polycarb lam is a pressure sensitive, since
not everyone has a hot laminator.

Magnets come grooved (B side) and flat (A side). Fellers sells both with adhesive on back. Make sure you know what the
manufacturer puts on their hardware, because you will need to put the opposite on the side edges of your murals.

For hanger strips, most use a thin (1/16" thick) ABS black plastic. We get stuff that is smooth on one side and has a bumpy
"cell texture" on the other side. It is pretty inexpensive stuff.. maybe $14 for a full 4'x8' sheet of it.

For trimming, the edges just have to be perfectly straight... since they touch each other, any irregularities will really show up.

Good luck.

 

[rjssigns]

LeLuni what you are proposing is a lot of work. Sub it out. Direct print second surface 0.020" polycarb or direct print on matte finish 0.020" styrene. Either one looks smashing. Best part is you eliminate all the steps where something could go wrong.

 

[LeLuni]

Hey. You probably figured it all out but....

Heck no, I haven't - thank you!

I have made some progress on substrates and I have a couple samples in-hand. I am still waiting on a sample roll from a vendor that jmcnichol recommended.
I have an aqueous printer and I'll be printing to a 10 mil polyester surface and using a 10 mil laminate... it seems that everyone is recommending those approximate weights. There may be a possibility to use a 15 mil printing substrate and a 5 mil laminate as well, but I'm waiting on samples.
I only have the capability to use cold PSA laminates with my equipment. My understanding is that it should work well as long as I allow the laminated prints time to settle prior to cutting.

For the cutter, I'll be purchasing a Keencut E-2 at 124" long. That should get me the accuracy needed.

I was really hung up on the black plastic. I'll take a look at the 1/16th abs sheets you recommend. I don't think edge quality will be good cutting ABS with my laser, so I'll have to find someone local with a cnc.
.
.
.
Now, file setup is going to be a challenge, I think.

I will need to pull a single 10' x 8' mural graphic into photoshop and separate it into 4 graphics for printing. Somewhere in that process I will need to add bleed and crop marks.

Does anyone know what a good step-by-step to doing that would be?

Thanks again,
John

 

[TimToad]

The thickness of materials you've researched are fine for the main panels, but you'll have trouble with the curved end pieces if you go that thick. Those magnets will only hold so much if the tension is too great from using too rigid of material when you try to bend them around the frame. I've had great results from working with Eddie Price from LexJet on materials. The black 1/16" ABS is the exact material Skyline and others use for the hanger strips. We get our magnets from Essentra and they seem to be very competitive on all sorts of magnets, tapes, etc.

Everything else folks have steered you towards seem to be good recommendations.

I'm always puzzled whenever anyone is so adamant about outsourcing anything outside of a shops routine. I'm in the business to make signs/graphics and keep me and my employees as busy as possible, not feed some out of state wholesaler at every opportunity. If I need to expand my offerings when given the opportunity to do so, I'd rather do that than ship off work to some far off wholesaler usually located in a right-to-work-for-less state paying people low wages with little job or financial security.

 

[TimToad]

As far as your image processing goes, we work in Adobe CS bouncing between Illustrator and Photoshop until we get our final graphic. I prefer Illustrator for my text and vector graphics over Photoshop even with all of its recent advances in text handling.

I then overlay a stroked template for my panels over the adjusted for bleed final image. By making the template out of finished sized rectangles butted up against each other with no fill or stroke, you can select them one at a time with your image below and turn them into a clipping mask and copy and paste into a new file. You can then save each one as a separate file for printing.

 

[LeLuni]

I then overlay a stroked template for my panels over the adjusted for bleed final image. By making the template out of finished sized rectangles butted up against each other with no fill or stroke, you can select them one at a time with your image below and turn them into a clipping mask and copy and paste into a new file. You can then save each one as a separate file for printing.

Great, this starts to make sense to me.
I recall when I used to work for a tradeshow display company that we would typically upload files to production at 100dpi, no bleed, saved as a Photoshop eps.

So, I suppose my workflow would look something like this:
-Receive a .psd from a client
-Open the file in photoshop, check sizing, etc, and then save as a Photoshop eps.
-Open the file in Illustrator and add, say, 1/4" bleed to the perimeter.
-Add no-stroke, seamless clipping mask overlay and save individual masks to separate files
-Open each individual file and add 1/4" bleed and crop marks.
-Send batch to printer

Would that be about it? Too many steps or too few?

Thanks again,
John

 

[shoresigns]

Great, this starts to make sense to me.
I recall when I used to work for a tradeshow display company that we would typically upload files to production at 100dpi, no bleed, saved as a Photoshop eps.

So, I suppose my workflow would look something like this:
-Receive a .psd from a client
-Open the file in photoshop, check sizing, etc, and then save as a Photoshop eps.
-Open the file in Illustrator and add, say, 1/4" bleed to the perimeter.
-Add no-stroke, seamless clipping mask overlay and save individual masks to separate files
-Open each individual file and add 1/4" bleed and crop marks.
-Send batch to printer

Would that be about it? Too many steps or too few?

Thanks again,
John

A simpler solution would be to draw several artboards edge-to-edge, then turn bleeds on, then you have a template that you can just drop the file on and save as PDF. Your PDF will have one page for each panel, with bleeds. Way easier than mucking around with clipping masks and saving to separate files.

 

[rjssigns]

The thickness of materials you've researched are fine for the main panels, but you'll have trouble with the curved end pieces if you go that thick. Those magnets will only hold so much if the tension is too great from using too rigid of material when you try to bend them around the frame. I've had great results from working with Eddie Price from LexJet on materials. The black 1/16" ABS is the exact material Skyline and others use for the hanger strips. We get our magnets from Essentra and they seem to be very competitive on all sorts of magnets, tapes, etc.

Everything else folks have steered you towards seem to be good recommendations.

I'm always puzzled whenever anyone is so adamant about outsourcing anything outside of a shops routine. I'm in the business to make signs/graphics and keep me and my employees as busy as possible, not feed some out of state wholesaler at every opportunity. If I need to expand my offerings when given the opportunity to do so, I'd rather do that than ship off work to some far off wholesaler usually located in a right-to-work-for-less state paying people low wages with little job or financial security.

It's called leveraging other shops expertise and expensive equipment. Not every shop has employees, the space and most importantly the budget for certain equipment nor do we want to tread those waters. Many shops do this type of work infrequently, mine included. Certainly not enough to justify gearing up and training for such products.

Bottom line is there are people I work with that can produce high quality one-offs for my shop. All while I work on the next job. While I am capable of producing a wide array of graphics I am also cognizant of what it takes regarding resources.

What works for you is not the be all end all business model for every budding or established business.

As far as outsourcing jobs to right to work areas for low wages where did your computer, cell phone, office equipment, printer(s), and the clothes on your back come from...?

Thought so...