Warwick Printing has completed a challenging wall mural project, relying on Drytac ReTac to get the job done in a single day.
The client, South Country Liquor in Redcliff, Alberta, Canada, required Warwick Printing to design, print, and install 48 individual wall panels making up a mural spanning the store. As well as promoting the spirits, beer, and wine on sale, the mural had a personal touch with a ‘Cheers Redcliff’ message. The installation took around eleven hours, including the set-up and tear-down of scaffolding and having to negotiate some fragile obstacles – the bottles themselves.
Lee Weighill, owner of Warwick Printing, explains, “The main challenge was figuring out how to reach the 17 inches (5.2 meter) install height with racks up against every wall without having to empty the whole store out.
“There was not enough space for even the smallest scissor lift or boom lift, and regular A-frame ladders would not get us close enough to the walls in the right position. We ended up using painters’ scaffolding and had to stack two units to get high enough, but it was still a 26 inches (66 centimeter) reach to the wall, which made it a little more difficult.”
However, the team overcame these problems. “It was a good day’s work, and not one bottle was knocked to the floor!” says Lee.
The choice of vinyl was key to completing the job on time, and in total Warwick Printing ran over 260 inches (80 meter) of Drytac ReTac Smooth 150 through its HP Latex 360 printer. This 150 micron white polymeric printable PVC film is coated with ReTac ultra-removable adhesive technology on one side, making it simple to install, reposition and remove printed graphics from surfaces such as walls.
Lee says ReTac is his ‘favorite go-to’ wall mural vinyl. “We’ve worked with Drytac ReTac many times previously and are very familiar with it,” he says.
Based in Lethbridge, AB, Warwick Printing has evolved from mainly offset press commercial printing to more digital wide format work in the last two years. Diversifying has helped the business reach new customers and survive the difficult trading conditions of this year’s pandemic.
“We have fared pretty well so far during Covid-19,” says Lee. “Overall business was down significantly, as much as 65% in the beginning, but we have seen some major gains in our wide format and signage division during the same period. I estimate we have done more volume during the pandemic than we did in the previous year and a half.
“We saw an opportunity very early in the pandemic for signage and floor graphics and quickly created marketing materials, so we were ready when business started opening up again. We’ve used dozens of rolls of Drytac FloorTac in the last six months, at one point running our HP Latex printer day and night to print Covid-related floor graphics.
“Because of this, we also picked up a lot of other vinyl business unrelated to Covid. This has for sure helped fill the void left in our other areas of our commercial printing.”
Drytac is an international manufacturer of adhesive-coated products, including graphic films, window films, double-sided tapes, self-adhesive print media, label stock, industrial adhesives, and heat-activated and pressure-sensitive laminates and mounting adhesives. The company also creates unique customized adhesive products to customer specifications.
Drytac operates in the following areas – laminating films & mounting adhesives; window, wall & floor graphic media; product development services; custom and pattern coating; high-performance tapes; industrial adhesives; and durable labels.
Its products include ReTac Textures, Polar Chrome, Protac Anti-Scratch Gloss, ViziPrint Illuminate, and ViziPrint Deco SR, winners in the SGIA 2019 Product of the Year competition; and Protac AMP, Polar Street FX, and SpotOn SynTac, winners in the 2020 Printing United Product of the Year awards.
