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ACM Sign Warping

Norma

New Member
Hi Everyone,

We installed a sign about a month ago, and now the sign is warping. The sign was made with 3MM ACM and there is no back support. The sign is hanging from the top 2 corners.

Do you have any advice on how I can repair the sign? I am wondering if I can add an MDO layer on the back to give the sign additional support.
I also think I might need to remake the entire sign again: what material should I use so that it does not warp?

The sign is about 10'x1.5'.

Any help is greatly appreciated it.

Thanks,
Norma


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Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
You need a frame behind it... Attach from the top and you won't have those ugly long bolts hanging out the back. And put a backer behind the frame to make it look nicer. Make sure to secure it properly... It's a heavy sign to be blowing around in the wind hanging on that not so confident looking wood
 

GaSouthpaw

Profane and profane accessories.
Over that length (looks like 8'+/-), there's not a lot that won't warp over that length (with what looks like limited attachment points) without some sort of frame, and/or support along the edges. An ACM pan would work, and allow for "hidden" attachments). Alternately, you could put angle or tubing around the perimeter to "stiffen" it or, you could use 1/4" aluminum for the backer (in which case you'd need some serious attachment hardware).
 

tulsagraphics

New Member
I agree with the comments above. This thing is scary and needs to be taken down before someone gets hurt (or at the very least, falls down and gets destroyed). Yes, it does need a frame, supports, solid anchoring etc... but if those things were already skipped the first time around, I'd be concerned about your installer's ability to construct those things correctly anyway. (not trying to be mean. just honest) Please get another sign shop / fabricator to perform a site survey and have them repair / install it before it lands you in court.
 
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Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
3mm ACM is a not a load bearing material. Hell, even 6mm ACM isn't for that matter. Enough people have picked on the original poster, but the practices of doing things on the cheap is far too common in our industry. Too many people are "phoning it in" and just do not care at all about the quality of the finished product. Just collect a paycheck. Who cares about pride in one's craftmanship? I get the feeling that caring about doing a good job is only for losers in our business anymore. The standard of suck has gotten so bad in recent years it is not funny.

In a vacuum of sorts I wouldn't care. But poorly made and poorly designed signs do very much indeed get noticed by the public. Eventually they get tired of the visual noise pollution. They complain to enough city council people. Then a fire and brimstone anti-signs ordinance gets enacted. That's my worry. Bad signs accumulate on the landscape. Enough of them incite anti-signs public backlash. The result is a whole city is ruined for any substantial sign work. Oklahoma isn't too awful bad, unless you're trying to do work in Edmond. But Edmond is one of the nicer suburbs in Oklahoma and so many other towns aspire to be like Edmond. So. The anti-signs stuff can easily spread anywhere else.

A sign company operating in fly-by-night fashion doesn't care about any of that. Just make the money that can be made in the here and now. Any sign shop with decades of history knows better than to operate like that. But the unethical fly-by-night clowns can utterly poison the environment for the real companies that have been doing business for the long term.
 

pitorro

New Member
Norma, you should start from the bottom up. Start in the sign industry by making decals, banners, etc and then gradually with the years of experience start making larger signs. Anyone with the right mind wont hang ACM with
2 bolts and not expecting it to warp or fall on someone
 

signbrad

New Member
Norma,
Thank you for posting this picture. We need to see more pictures of ACM failures, because we are using the hell out of this product.

ACM is a beautiful thing. A game-changer, really, when you compare it to the old labor-intensive MDO plywood. And the way the panel is installed in the picture might work, Norma, if the material were something more substantial. If I were making a panel like this for a customer and I knew they were going to install it like this, I would have used .080" aluminum, preferably with a back frame of square aluminum tube or 1/4-thick aluminum angle. This would accomplish two things. It would not warp at all. But also, it would be so heavy that the installer would be forced to use some substantial method for fastening it to the building. He would be scared not to.

ACM, especially the cheaper 5-year versions we are using now, is going to see more failures, I believe, as time goes by. I am seeing delaminations now, so I would not use ACM for a routered face of a lighted sign. This type of routered sign is expensive to build and going cheap on the routered face may backfire. "Best practice," in my opinion, calls for .080" aluminum for routered faces, backed by 3/16" acrylic mounted with welded studs and finger-tight nuts. A routered face of ACM backed with thin acrylic mounted with double-sided tape may be likely to fail. Either the ACM will begin to delaminate or the plastic backer will fall off inside. This type of sign is expensive to build, so why cheap-out on the face?

I want to add that, in contrast to the ACM panels the industry started using years ago, the ACM panels now are of lesser quality. I remember some ACM brands that carried a 15-year warranty at one time. Do any of them now? Most seem to be rated at five years—hell, that's the rating for MDO. Some brands are even "five-year limited." Limited? What the heck does that mean? I asked a manufacturer rep once about that and he said, "we want you to use an edge cap on ACM." Good grief, does that not defeat the purpose?

An ACM panel is only as good as its adhesive and its paint job. Now that there are many players manufacturing it, who knows what we are getting and what we are using? The price of this stuff is a fraction of what it was when it first came on the market. Do I not remember pricing of over 200 dollars a sheet many years ago? Or is my memory totally failing?

ACM has been around for a long time. It has been used by the construction industry for many years on storefronts. Numerous auto dealerships with their fancy fronts use ACM extensively. But I believe the quality has plummeted. Was the aluminum skin always so paper thin? It is typically 12, 11, or even 10 mils (not millimeters, but mils) in thickness. That translates to .020", .011", and .010". That's getting close to some vinyl thicknesses. Has it always been so thin?
One problem, when the aluminum skin is so thin, is that it can easily corrode all the way through if in contact with a metal that galvanically reacts to it (like stainless steel). I have seen ACM skins get eaten away around a fastener from contact with stainless steel screws (in the presence of moisture). The galvanic reaction between aluminum and stainless steel has never been a big issue in sign work in the past because we have typically used much greater thicknesses of aluminum. Engineers have routinely required insulating washers (nylon, for example) between these two metals in some areas of construction (hanging HVAC equipment from ceilings in indoor pools, for example). We in the sign industry have never really been bothered by this incompatibility between stainless and aluminum—but we have never used paper-thin aluminum till recent years. And honestly, many of us sign goobers are so cheap that we ignore stainless steel fasteners, anyway. Interestingly, one metals guy who claimed to be an authority told me that, for installing ACM panels, I should use aluminum fasteners, or galvanized screws as a second choice.

And what are they painting the ACM aluminum skins with? I can't believe that our stuff gets painted with anything as durable as PVDF. Hopefully, it's polyurethane. But if many of the sign panel brands are using the cheap old polyester coatings like aluminum from years ago, I won't be surprised. All these aluminum skins are painted by "coil-coating," which is a method of roller-coating using machines as big as a warehouse. It is high production and they have one goal in mind—produce a low-cost product.
And though we may be quick to blame the Chinese, they only do what buyers tell them to do. If a US buyer says "make it cheap," the Chinese say, "no problem." Big coil-coating operations are not just in China, but in India, Mexico, and other places as well.

End of rant.

I should ride my bike tomorrow. It helps when I'm feeling frustrated.
Have a nice day.

Brad in Kansas City
 

DL Signs

Never go against the family
End of rant.

You're rant is right on the money signbrad!

I found a dusty old ACM color sample deck in a drawer when we were cleaning out the shop a while back, no clue how many years it's been there for (company is 52 years old), but the aluminum was noticeably thicker than anything we get from any manufacturer today, and the finish looked better, even after getting abused in that drawer for god knows how long. When I came back after a handful of years of retirement, I don't ever remember it being so flexible either. It's all just cheap garbage. Every time someone makes it cheaper, everyone flocks to buy theirs, so everyone else has to cut the same corners to compete, and quality goes out the window. We save a buck making signs with it, then lose our shirts and reputations when it doesn't deliver.
 

Signarama Jockey

New Member
Hey, Norma.

It is hard to see what the board is mounted to and how you've got it secured. The reason for the warping could be a lot of things. Just at first glance, it looks to me like the installer had drilled 2 holes for the bolts, but drilled them farther apart than the anchor points the bolts were attaching to. My guess is that he had to squish the sign a little and that caused that bowing in the middle (it would not have to be a that far off). Keep in mind also that these structures swell and shrink with the temperature and humidity, so whatever you are anchoring this to is likely to put some stresses on your panel - especially at 10 feet wide. You might want to ream out the bolt holes a tiny bit so that the anchoring bolts have a little play.

You could take the panel down and beef it up with some kind of frame or partial frame. Considering the weight you'd be adding, and the pedestrian traffic underneath, I'd suggest a more robust anchoring plan. Build for safety.

Either way, this is recoverable. Probably going to take some time and material, but you can fix it.
 

DChorbowski

Pixel Pusher
Its in the direct sun. ACM expanded in the heat and due to mounting holes it had nowhere to expand so it bowed out. ACM mounting holes should be a little larger than the bolts going through it. Also it very much needs a frame and more mounting points. One strong gust of wind and thats going to come down in a violent fashion. Structure behind appears to be wood, you could probably get away with a wooden frame.
 

gnubler

Active Member
And though we may be quick to blame the Chinese, they only do what buyers tell them to do. If a US buyer says "make it cheap," the Chinese say, "no problem." Big coil-coating operations are not just in China, but in India, Mexico, and other places as well.
Another fine post from Brad, thank you for the solid rant and educational info! Now it seems the "cheap" stuff has gone up in cost and down in quality. When I order ACM, I always get the mid-price brand, which for quite a while was ePanel and it was pretty decent. On my last order I received Nudo brand, and it was the worst ACM I've ever worked with. Rough, sharp edges with some delamination already starting, and the liner was so hard to remove it was like removing low-tac vinyl. Probably took me 45 minutes to pull the liners off three sheets...I was sweating and swearing. And overall the panel felt flimsier, even though I compared it to an old piece of ePanel and they were both 3mm.

These now cost me $85/sheet, but a year ago ePanel was $75/sheet. I'm going to see what Dibond runs, and if it's really a better quality ACM.
 

JBurton

Signtologist
Probably took me 45 minutes to pull the liners off three sheets
So I had about 15 panels to pull the backing off of for a gas station canopy, but the liner was either ancient or was from a bad batch, more like removing fresh stuck ij35 in the summer. So we were taking 3" cores, starting at one end we'd free up the film, tape it to the core, and roll it down the sheet, it was better, but time consuming still. So I took that drill that moze showed off augering holes with (I mean my own I bought after seeing his video), and instead of the auger I slipped a piece of 3/4" emt over the adapter, taped the film to it, and literally had to run down the table to keep up with the damned thing. It was glorious. You could strip a panel in 1 second flat, after the 3 minutes of picking at one edge to get something to tape on. In the end, that piece of emt weighed 20lbs.
$85/sheet, but a year ago ePanel was $75/sheet.
You need to shop around some more, my dirt cheap 4x8's cost $39 from Reece. Film comes off fine, even sitting on a pallet outside with a cover over it for 6 months at a time. If you're after an upper mid tier panel, Laminators brand Omegabond is good stuff, $58 a sheet.
 

gnubler

Active Member
Maybe I got a bad batch of the Nudo. Pulling the liners off was as you described...trying to pull off vinyl in the summer. It was stretching and ripping off in my hands, like heavy duty Saran Wrap. Crap crap crap.
 

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
I get the cheap stuff from Grimco. $40 a board. Liner comes off like a breeze when you yank on it...that's why notareal calls me the angry signmaker
 
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