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Can I laminate Stainless Steel to PVC?

fresh

New Member
I have a job where the client loves the look of Polished Stainless steel, but the price for fully fabricated letters is too high for him :(

Can I cut the design out of both rigid gloss PVC and Polished stainless steel, and them glue them together for added dimension? Do you think it will delaminate due to differences in expansion of materials? This is for an outdoor sign.

Thanks!
 

Moze

Active Member
I think you'd be fine as long as you used VHB tape. The tape allows for the different expansion rates.
 

synergy_jim

New Member
there are companies out there that make a polished ACM already. Do some research. VHB should do the trick if you have to go that route.
 

fresh

New Member
there are companies out there that make a polished ACM already. Do some research. VHB should do the trick if you have to go that route.

I called one company who sells mirror polished ACM, and they said its mostly an indoor product... Outdoors it only has a 3 year warranty. Have you used it outdoors for longer than that with good results?
 

synergy_jim

New Member
I called one company who sells mirror polished ACM, and they said its mostly an indoor product... Outdoors it only has a 3 year warranty. Have you used it outdoors for longer than that with good results?


you may also want to try Gemini. they have exactly what you need with lifetime warranty
 

fresh

New Member
you may also want to try Gemini. they have exactly what you need with lifetime warranty

I'm trying to keep the costs down. Also, their Gem Leaf product is only warrantied for interior applications. AND they take 4 days to get a quote back to me AND their turn around is very slow lately.
 

Marlene

New Member
on a side note, we did the high polished shiny silver letters for a car dealership a few years back. the biggest problem with them was they are like a mirror and reflect the sky, trees or whatever is around them making them super hard to read and see. it looks more like sky/tree pattern then shiny silver. just throwing that out there as the dealership ended up replacing them as you couldn't read their name very well
 

PushProductions

New Member
We do this all the time and have never had a problem. We use a double sided laminate and laminate the pieces together first. Mask off the aluminum and route the letters out. Then we paint the edges on the pvc with a metalic silver so it looks like on big thick piece of aluminum but its much cheaper!
 

fresh

New Member
We do this all the time and have never had a problem. We use a double sided laminate and laminate the pieces together first. Mask off the aluminum and route the letters out. Then we paint the edges on the pvc with a metalic silver so it looks like on big thick piece of aluminum but its much cheaper!

Thanks!
 
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