A GREAT PLACE FOR GRAPHICS
3A Composites manufactures several foam board product lines, including Gatorfoam, Smart-X, Fome-Cor and Sintra. Gatorfoam has been around for more than 30 years and is the original heavy duty foam board.
“It is seen as the staple for foam boards across the world and primarily in the U.S. and Canada. It can be used both indoors and can be used for exterior signage. It is dent and scratch resistant. It is very durable,” says Ben Branham, marketing manager for 3A Composites USA.
Foam board in general has really come into its own with advances in printing technology over the past few years. All of 3A Composites’ foam board products can have high-definition graphics printed on them, screen printed on them, cut, bent, shaped or routed to a particular design.
Gatorfoam is comprised of extruded polystyrene foam bonded between two layers of wood-fiber veneer, which makes it great for signs, point-of-purchase displays, exhibits, kiosks and framing.
“Because it is such a sturdy strong board and can be bent and routed, you can make a 3-D design,” Branham says.
Sintra is one of Branham’s personal favorites. It is a bright white PVC board that is very lightweight, rigid and durable and is very easily formed into all kinds of shapes.
“Because it is expanded PVC, a plastic, you can put heat to it, bend it and shape it. It has very good dent and scratch resistance and you can get it in multiple colors: green, red, blue, yellow, black and white,” he adds.
To show its versatility, 3A Composites made a 6-foot-tall, three-dimensional replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris out of Sintra. It looks real, with lots of bends and angles and high-definition graphics.
Fome-Cor board is the original graphics arts foam board. It was initially developed for school science fair displays. It is sturdy, easy to use, affordable and very lightweight, making it very popular for signage applications. It is also very easy to cut with a razor blade or with dies. Fome-Cor is also used for screen printing or digital printing applications.
“It is a good economical board. You don’t want to use it on complex displays,” Branham says. He points out that Sintra or Gatorfoam are better for more complex projects.
Smart-X is a lightweight foam board. It is weather-resistant and has a high UV stability and humidity resistance. It is very rigid. This is the perfect foam board for retail window displays, he adds, or any area that is in direct sunlight or faces the street.
“This will hold up well in that type of display,” he says.
Branham has seen many companies get very creative with Gatorfoam. One company made a sign for the side of its building that was layered in a way to look like 3-D graffiti. Many trade show booths are made out of Gatorfoam because it is a great product for structural work. The newest trend is for companies to mix and match the types of foam board it uses to make a sign or display because each type has different characteristics like formability or durability. Some signs need a product that is round or curved, others need to be routed or carved.
“In the past it was just printing to the board and cutting out a shape in the board. Now, with new technology like CAD, you can make different layers and signs with all kinds of structure to it,” Branham says. “It makes for interesting products.”
He adds that it goes back to advances in printing technologies and has worked its way up to 3-D options that allow signs and displays to get really intricate.
“You can use the materials differently to make the design stand out and to give it that unique shape and that unique look. That is something that has not always been available,” Branham says.
INFINITE POSSIBILITIES
The Gilman Brothers Company, in Gilman, Conn., has a new flagship foam board called INFINITY, which is a styrene-faced foam board.
Ingrid Skinner, strategic communications leader for the company, says that what makes INFINITY board so special is that the foam inside the board is 2.5 times denser than most foam boards on the market. The styrene finish makes the board very smooth. Because of that, there aren’t a lot of pockets in the surface to capture ink or to leave white spots behind. That means that the printer will use less ink, which costs less money in the long run.
“Because we have special modifiers in our foam, you can bend it,” she says. “You can’t do it with paper-faced foam boards but because of the styrene, it can be bent.”
Her company has made several trade show booths completely from foam board.
“You are not limited to flat signage. It can be cold bent. You pre-score it and then ship it flat. It gets to the store or trade show and they take it out of the box and they can just bend it to shape,” Skinner says.
At a recent trade show, the company made a 1980s rock and roll scene with a tour bus crashing through a wall, drums and guitar all made out of INFINITY board.
“The drums were pre-scored and bent. They look like round drums. It was put together on site,” she adds. “Everything we had at our trade show looked real.”
Gilman has what it calls its ColorOne White Point Management System that ensures optimum printing performance and consistency across all of its board products, including direct-printable foam board, by matching the surfaces of the board by their degree of whiteness. Surface liner materials and coatings have been carefully selected to derive consistent white balance and optimum surface properties for printing. ColorOne helps producers deliver better results for exhibit and display applications where more than one type of board may be employed, yet the imagery must be consistent across the entire project. This is particularly important when printing logos and identifiable company color schemes.
INFINITY board is also very bendable and 22 percent lighter than many of the foam boards on the market, which makes it cheaper to ship.
Along with trade show booths, INFINITY board is used for 3-D displays, point-of-purchase signage, retail store displays and hanging displays.
POST-CUT APPEARANCE
When cutting some foam boards, the edges can look ragged.
Because INFINITY board’s foam core is 2.5 times denser than other foam board options, it cuts more cleanly than other foam boards, Skinner says.
“We have had great performance with Zund and other digital cutters,” she adds.
The board comes in sizes ranging from 16” x 20” up to 60” x 192”. INFINITY is 100 percent recyclable. It comes in 3 mm to 1-inch thick. The half-inch INFINITY is very popular for making trade show booths. Its thickness and strength allows it to be carved into large shapes that won’t bend or flop over.