Curious if anyone has experience using a heat gun/Marley Weld for regular Marley maintenance. We are a full-time dance company in Denver, Colorado. We have a massive studio with permanently installed, Welded, wall-to-wall Harlequin Marley. We have a few slices and general use damage on the floor from normal wear and tear. Not enough damage to warrant replacing a panel. Directors would like to avoid using tape on the floor if possible. They hate vinyl tape, and we typically are a gaff company. Does anyone have experience with using Welds to repair small punctures? There doesn't seem to be a lot of information on the web about this. Hoping someone might have thoughts or equipment recommendations. Thanks!
In-house Marley Welding
- Thread starterBlackHare
- Start date
Yes, this is exactly how you do it, and is done all the time in permanent installations. It can even be used on portable marley as well. Any flooring company should be able to do this for you, it is the same process when laying vinyl flooring commercially. Or you can learn to do it yourself, which my organization does.
Here is the kit we use, although no longer available Amazon sells comparable kits:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N2PNVFC/?tag=controlbooth-20
The key is finding the correct "welding rods", they sell round, triangular, etc. This may be something your marley vendor can assist with. Although Harlequin is the most well known, there are tons of other vendors who can help if you're not sure what brand the flooring is (for example, I import all of mine in bulk).
Just practice and you will get the hang of it fairly easily.
Here is the kit we use, although no longer available Amazon sells comparable kits:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N2PNVFC/?tag=controlbooth-20
The key is finding the correct "welding rods", they sell round, triangular, etc. This may be something your marley vendor can assist with. Although Harlequin is the most well known, there are tons of other vendors who can help if you're not sure what brand the flooring is (for example, I import all of mine in bulk).
Just practice and you will get the hang of it fairly easily.
Oh man that looks like a pile of tools that would cost me a few grand in damages.
The tools are a couple hundred $. The damage cost of inexperience: total replacement.
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Exactly. Looking at all that I don't even know where to start, but I think with every second using them whatever I was trying to fix would get 10x worse. Those are the tools that the guy who has been sitting around on the job for 4 hours doing nothing pulls out and does something totally precise for 20 minutes, then leaves and still gets paid for the full 8.
I suspect a really good vinyl repair tech is like a good ceramic tile installer. What makes them good is their prep work, technique, and attention to detail. That comes from experience, and I'm willing to spend budget money to not acquire those skills at the expense of my employer or client.
It is fairly simple when you get the hang of it. I found a flooring person on Craigslist who came in for a few hours and showed one of my shop techs how to do it. Within a few hours he was producing more than acceptable results.
Another tip on the topic of marley...using an iron and wet rag you can get out 95% of the distortions caused by props being dragged over it, corners being taped incorrectly and rolling up, etc.
