STRETCH CEILING

23/09/2009: “Stretch ceilings” are elastic sheets of calendered PVC which permit to realize suspended ceilings quickly and at low cost, without plastering and painting. The sheet is fixed to the walls through PVC tracks, which pinch it and keep it in tension.
They were patented about 35 years ago by the French inventor Fernand Scherrer, but they aren’t well known yet, not even by architects. However they offer unquestionable advantages.
They can be applied under a raw ceiling without plaster and paint, can be quickly installed (half a day is enough for a room of 80-100 m2), are cheaper than a standard ceiling, do not need maintenance (they need just to be washed by means of a humid cloth and they are guaranteed from 5 to 10 years), they are not damaged by water lacks. Moreover, all necessary services can be incorporated and integrated: lighting, anti-intrusion sensors, surveillance cameras, ventilation piping and so on.
Thanks to their features, architects can indulge their fancies without any limit: the sheets can be decorated at pleasure by screen or ink-jet printing machines, can be back-lighted, is suitable to the projection of different images and can be shaped into curves or arches creating stunning interior design effects. Finally, they can be microperforated at pleasure in order to improve the acoustic effect.
Similar products are used also to build exhibition stands (vertically, to cover rough walls) or to realize point-of-purchase displays.
More versions of different materials can be found in the market, such as polyurethane- or polypropylene-coated fabrics, which have the same characteristics of versatility and cost.
The finishing can be mat, satin or glossy. The last ones are rather delicate; when rewound on reel, the glossy face gets in contact with the mat one of the next turn and can loose the gloss effect.
In order to avoid any problems it is used to rewind simultaneously two fabric rolls of the same length with the gloss faces one against the other; however, it is necessary to avoid air trapping between them, which could leave marks. Therefore, a non-permanent lamination is necessary, that is called kiss lamination.
Recently, a special machine for this purpose has been designed and manufactured by Isotex for an Italian manufacturer, thanks to the experience of Colombo Division and in co-operation with Comerio Ercole SpA, both located in Busto Arsizio.
This co-operation belongs to the program announced during the Plast’09 exhibition: both companies decided to face together the PVC calendered film market thanks to their German joint-venture CKA GmbH.
The machine allows to hot-laminate two film reels of calendered PVC, gloss-on-gloss, achieving a uniform and stable, but not permanent, lamination: in this way the two films can be separated and installed without losing their main aesthetic characteristic. One of the film rolls can be provided with an edge-guiding system, to keep the two films properly aligned, though they may need edge-slitting before rewinding.
The lamination process is by heat, thanks to two rollers (heated by hot water and with a 270°, high-efficiency contact), and by pressure, with a roll nip (steel-to-rubber). A cooling roller is provided, to lower the temperature of the laminate and prevent the blocking of the web roll.
The tension of the individual films and of the laminate is always controlled by load-cells, that adjust the speed of the driven rollers, and the laminate is rewound at constant tension, to prevent “telescoping” or other problems in the finished web roll. The turret rewinder allows removing the finished roll, without any need to stop the line. All the parameters are programmed and controlled by a PLC, by which it’s possible to preset the production “recipe”, adapting them to the composition and the thickness of the films or sheets.
Probably it is the first machine suitable to process 2.2 m wide films, as the glossy materials in the market are all narrower.