preform process

all the walk-behind talk has got my gears moving... around here in slower-lower delaware a lot of parking lots are catching up with the rest of the civilized world and having more thermo work done. i lost some jobs last year cuz i didnt offer thermo. i think preform is definately the way to start out for me. so other than the material and the torch, what else do i need to get started, and just how do you get er dun? thanks

One of the things that would be helpful would be a heat gun. So you could see how hot your getting the asphalt before you put the thermo down to heat it up. After that there isn't a lot more needed besides the material, big propane bottles, razor knives and a torch. If you're already doing parking lots you'll have pretty much everything Else you'll need. Its a pretty simple process to do, you just want to make sure you do it right or it'll come up. Another problem you'll come across is heating the material to much. The beads well start sinking to much and it'll start to actually burn the thermo if you keep the torch on it for to long. Depending on what time of year it is it wouldn't hurt to have water to put on it to help cool it off after you're done.

Check out this cool web site it will tell it all... www.flinttrading.com/

so you heat up the blacktop before you put the preform down? then you heat up the material and thats it?? -sounds too good to be true_

theres not much compitition here that uses thermo, but one crew i know has had problems with it coming up. so what do you have to do to avoid this?

I would use Flint's Premark. You put it down then just heat it, you do not have to heat the ground first. There is special bonding agent in the asphalt that the thermo bonds to when you heat it. The key is to get it very hot. My Flint rep came out and did a little demo for me. Me told me to heat it until it almost turns brown. I use a weed burner to heat it, but he had a handy dandy heater thing that worked great. It is costly, but I do not do enough to thermo to get one yet. As far as the thermo coming up it will happen. Until you learn after you do a few. I learned the hard way on a $1200 job ( my cost ). The entire job has been coming up a little at a time. I still have to fix a few more. I learned on old asphalt with a lot of exposed rock and not a lot of oil you have to use a sealer they sell. This is the same for concrete. Nowhere on the directions did this say anything about this. So my Flint rep replaced half, I guess that is better than nothing. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you can make real good mark-up on it. The stuff is not cheap, 1 arrow is around $109.00 cost.

I haven't done preformed thermo for around 4 years. When i used to do it you were supposed to heat the ground first. From looking at Flints site and as A-striper said it doesn't look like you need to do that anymore? One other thing to be carefull of is, if its cold out be very carefull. The thermo shatters very easy. Your three arrow pieces well turn into a hundred pieces. Each box of thermo well have sheet with basic instructions on how to put it down also. One of the problems we had when doing it was heating the outer edges real well and not concentrating on the middle as much. So after time a piece in the middle would break and it would start to come up from the middle out.

We did several HC stalls in pre-formed thermo this past February. We had to remove slippery polyurea markings first with a grinder then reapply Flint Trading's Visigrip pre-formed thermo. It was on concrete so of course it required the primer but it went well and so far, it is holding up the way it should. The temp outside was around 20 deg but it was sunny and the concrete was dry so I expect no problems. Pre-formed thermo is very expensive as compared to thermo put down with a hand liner. However, there is a time and place for all types of thermo - you just have to know when to get out the hand liner.

I have quite a few pre-formed handicap symbols, blue square with white symbol. Half price, Email is in my profile.

ever wondered why thermo cost so much/

thanks for the input. so do i need flints special torch, or can i just use my weed burner torch???

We always used a regular weed burner torch.......

The reason for preheating is to drive any moisture out of the asphalt. Even if the asphalt looks dry there can be moisture under the surface. If a vapor barrier forms beneath the preform it will not adhere properly. Also, it is important to heat and feather the edges so there is a smooth transition from the asphalt to the edge of the preform. this will prevent it from peeling up under traffic. It's actually better to slightly over heat and the brown will eventually fade. for a long line it can be a little difficult keeping a straight line. We recently did 100ft or 8in line for traffic control and the line tended to distort a little from the heat.

We pay $ 17.00 in Memphis,TN

In N.J. we pay $22.00 for a 8'' wide 5'' high 6' long.

I'm paying 18.75 in Deep South Texas. Domingo

13.50 including pins

$18.50 near Charlotte,NC

$54.00 CDN. on the West Coast no pins ,no kidding.

In centarl pa. its 23.50