Do any of you use Komacel or Komatex expanded PVC products?
What sort of processing? (Paint, Print, Vinyl, Routering/Carving?)
What do you like about them?
What do you dislike about them?
How do they compare with competitive products?
Thanks (in advance) for your input!
[ February 20, 2003, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: Jon Aston ]
Posted by Bob Stephens (Member # 858) on :
I use a fair amount of both. I like them far better than wood. We Paint, Vinyl, Route, and Carve it mostly.
Not much to dislike about it.
Posted by Bob Burns (Member # 268) on :
I use KOMATEX in 1/4" and 1/2" sizes. If I can convince the customer to use a white background, I can do a vinyl letter job in nothing flat. The 1/4" stuff gets pretty brittle in cold weather, so I use the 1/2" almost exclusively. If I paint the background, I use gloss latex house paint. Seems to hold up the best.
Posted by EmpY (Member # 138) on :
Although the movie "Blue Vinyl" focused on vinyl (PVC) house siding, the very serious problems with the chemicals involved span the entire range of thousands of products made with PVC.
This includes the self adhesive vinyl everyone is using for sign making, as well as PVC sheets like Komatex, Komacel, Sintra, Trovicel, Celtec or whatever the trade name might be.
There's an unspoken assumption that if you see something being used everywhere, it must be safe. PVC is certainly used everywhere these days. Personally, I have serious doubts about it's safety and the consequences of working with it over the long term.
Manufacturing it produces toxic by products. People employed in the manufacturing of PVC have contracted cancer and other related illnesses as a direct result of working with the chemicals that are in PVC. Do we expose ourselves to the same chemicals when we handle or cut or router cut PVC ?
Disposal of it is a major problem, with all known methods of disposal producing toxic by products.
Vehicles have it inside and out, new homes have windows, plumbing, siding and gutters, door skins, floor coverings, fake wood trim, fencing, etc all made from PVC.
Remember taking a drink from that hot garden hose in the summer and the water tasted like plastic? PVC!
I don't know what the solution is, or if there is any solution, but I'm not running searching for more ways to use PVC. I'm looking for alternatives.
Posted by Bob Stephens (Member # 858) on :
Empy you are more than likely right but death is inevitable and everyone seems to think they are going to avoid it somehow.
More people die every year from alcohol and tobbaco than do from PVC. Even if you avoid plastic based cancer agents you would still have to starve to death not eating foods that can kill you.
Have fun while you're alive. Its a short journey anyway.
