JW Stephens | 9 Jun 18:53

Repurposed aerial banner > wheelcovers

For several months I have been working on securing a used, towed
aerial banner to repurpose into sailcloth wheelcovers. Success!

The company that I work for prints grand-format (17' wide inkjet
printer) projects, one of which was several aerial banners for a
wireless phone company. They are printed in vertical strips and welded
together into a 150' x 40' final banner. The welding and prepping
needs to be done by an FAA-certified company, so we had this banner
returned to us so that we could reverse-engineer the finishing to do
it in-house. Typically, this done, the banner would be trash. Basura.
Landfill.

But this one banner could be repurposed and fill the world's need for
light-weight, easy-to-make fibre wheelcovers so I pestered my bosses
until they were thoroughly sick of the harrasment and begged me to
take my shit and get out. So to speak. Seventy pounds of printed and
welded banner, too big to take home in my Versatile.

Now I've got it home, beta-tested my project, and have this on offer.
Get some for free! As much as you need. You pay for the packaging and
shipping and throw me a bone for my time and effort. The fabric is
"Spinnaker Cloth" like this:
http://www.northsails.com/north_america/North_Cloth/fiber_to_fabric.html
(scroll down to the bottom) printed with a very large-scale graphic.
Most sections are orange with black specks. Some image a phone.

What's cool about using this fabric: Instead of sewing it, you can use
tape. I used one-inch 3M ATG tape, which leaves the adhesive in place
as it winds up the paper carrier. The fabric is translucent, so you
could illuminate your wheelwells with LEDs and get some interesting
(Continue reading)

JW Stephens | 12 Jun 01:31

Re: Repurposed aerial banner > wheelcovers

There have been a couple of people who wanted some of this Spinnaker
ripstop nylon, printed orange and black (this part). I sent them an
arm span x about 30", folded into a 9x12 Tyvek envelope for $2.50.
I'll put a button on my www.lobosolo.com page for others who want to
"get some."

Here's a picture of the first one off:
http://www.lobosolo.com/wc/LeftFrontNr42.jpg

So far the tape is a good idea. It makes them much easier to make than
sewing in circles. One thing that the picture doesn't show is the
little piece of Velcro pile that goes in the center so the bolt won't
burn a hole in the wheelcover.

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 9:53 AM, JW Stephens <lray <at> mindspring.com> wrote:
> For several months I have been working on securing a used, towed
> aerial banner to repurpose into sailcloth wheelcovers. Success!
> ...

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