Painting Vinyl floor

[Jon Majors]

We are doing Wizard of Oz in the fall and I am interested in a 30'x50' vinyl floor for the yellow brick road. There are companies that supply large vinyl tarps with designs on them for indoor percussion and guard. My 2 questions are:

1) Would you recommend a vinyl floor covering at all - with considering set pieces will move on it and I don't want it to rip or fold up at all.
2) Would you paint it yourself or have it digitally printed on by a company? If painted, any recommendations?

Thanks!

 

[kicknargel]

I've not seen that type of vinyl tarp used in a theatrical setting, so can't really comment on efficacy. I'm pretty sure guard groups do paint them.

There's a long tradition of using a ground cloth, which is a heavy cotton muslin or canvass stitched into a cover and stretched on the edges. Some searching here will provide many discussions on the topic. There are other methods using sheets of hardboard, MDF or particle board. Easiest if you can screw or staple them down, but there are ways without. Again, discussed at length in other threads.

 

[jtweigandt]

If you are painting vinyl.. I found out 10 years ago when I wanted to freshen our office, that the commercial vinyl textured wallpaper could be painted if you used a special primer first
I can't remember the brand, but primed with the special stuff and painted with regular interior paint. No peeling 10 years later. Wonder if you could lay some commercial vinyl wallpaper painted to suit. Its tough stuff, and a good peel scrub afterward would bring it back up. ours is sand texture with a cloth backing. Also look at your sight lines to see if most of your audience will even SEE the floor from any effective angle. Otherwise you might have a lot of wasted effort.

 

[Van]

Years and years ago... I worked at a theater in the World Trade Center in Portland, Or. since the room was used as a corporate meeting room during the day all of our shows had to strike to above the 1st traveler where the Film screen hung. This sucked for doing really cool floors as it meant every hard floor we put down had to be removed every night during the week, after the show. Well my TD at the time, a Brilliant man I learned so much from, came up with the idea of using cheap roll vinyl, upside down. The back side is not shiny sealed vinyl it takes paint readily, and is smooth as... something really smooth.
Now, if you want to roll anything on it you have to be really careful it will bubble/wave up in front of the casters. But man, tacking the corners down with dbl stick every night rather than unscrewing Masonite, man it was so simple. It's 12' wide, has the properties of a Marley, non slip, holds up well. can be repaired with a heat gun and gaff of the opposite side, and the cheap stuff is really cheap. It can be sealed with "future" floor polish if you want a high sheen <a favorite product of mine BTW and it makes the theater smell Lovely!> <no, really!> you can paint it with latex which adheres very well and it wears decently.

I was tempted to use a vinyl printed floor for our Production of "Lt. of Inishmore" after seeing Seattle's ACT production. They used a digitally printed single piece vinyl sheet they purchased from a billboard printing company. It was a great looking wood floor. they were able to stretch it tight, adheres it to the platforms and it held up perfectly to the Blood and Guts and boots. I think Rose Brand and Rosco both offer Digital vinyl printing but whe their TD told me they had a billboard company do itI thought he was brilliant!

That's what I know.

 

[MarshallPope]

I've used painted billboard vinyl for a short run of a show with minimal set moves but lots of foot traffic, and it held up wonderfully. I believe billboardvinyls.com was the supplier I used, and I painted it with regular interior latex.

I've used printed billboard vinyl for a few backdrop applications and I would be slightly worried about the print layer wearing off under heavy traffic, though it might not be an issue with a lighter color print. I've used BillboardFlex and BestOfSigns, both with good results.