Is All Vinyl Created Equal?
Oh snap! The vinyl question! We’ll give you the long answer since we only have to type it once. It’s worth the read! The more you know…
NO! Not all vinyls are created equal. There are good vinyls and bad vinyls. The gooder (it’s our website so we are allowed to make up words😂) the better! The better material used, the less you will pay in labor cost maintaining your upholstery. In fact, Brodie itemizes the vinyl on every invoice just for that purpose. If an upholstery shop can use a lesser quality material, first, they don’t have to pay as much for it, and second, you will have to call them to come back and fix it sooner. Our goal is to be your upholstery shop for a lifetime, so we only use the best materials that will last the longest. Or, alternatively, we match the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) material so things match and look brand spanking new at all times 😍
Back in the day, vinyl was judged by the weight of the vinyl. Vinyl is sold by the yard and weighed by the ounce. The idea was that the heavier the yard of vinyl, the more material must be in the product, and the more material the better. This is only somewhat true today. These days vinyl manufacturers have developed a top coating that protects it and makes it last longer. Naugahyde calls it their “Beauty Guard” and Boltaflex calls theirs “PreFixx”. Naugahyde is one of the first (and best) vinyl manufacturers there is. It was invented in 1914. That’s over one hundred years old! Naugahyde has many lines but their top seller is called Spirit Millennium. Which is better known as just Spirit in the industry. Boltafex is a little newer to the vinyl game, making its debut over 50 years ago. Their top selling line is called ColorGuard and it’s proven to be the strongest vinyl time and time again.
The New Fangled Test:
The “abrasion test” also known as “the double rub test” has been the new fancy way to tell if a material is strong or not. This test involves a cotton ball rubbed on a piece of vinyl over and over again. As soon as the vinyl shows wear, the test is stopped. The cotton ball is attached to a clicker or a counter type mechanism. Once the vinyl shows wear, the test is stopped, the count is recorded, and marketed on the back of a sample card. The funny thing about the abrasion test is that the number keeps getting bigger over the last couple decades but the vinyls still look and feel the same to us. It also seems to last just as long. For these reasons we feel the double rub test is more of a marketing scheme than a real measure of durability.
The Brodie Test:
Since our largest revenue stream is upholstery on fitness equipment, and gym pads get beat up more than most, we decided to test these vinyls at the gym. How do we do that? Enter the Roman Chair machine aka the captains chair, the leg lift or whatever you want to call it (just do call it the hyperextension because that’s something totally different Mr. Trainer Guy). It’s an abdominal workout, you get up in this machine and put your forearms on these two pads, let your legs dangle down then lift your legs out in front of you. It’s what allows you to drink so much beer in the Summer. Basically you can not use only one arm pad on this machine, so what we do is, put the newest, latest, and greatest vinyl on the left arm pad of the Roman Chair, then we put Colorguard on the right arm (ColorGuard wins every time), then we put the date on the back of the pads, in our customers digital profile, and wait. When we come back months later, we see which vinyls lasted the longest, log the dates, then run the test again. Not all vinyls have the same texture, and due to this we run the test against the all-time champ first (color guard) then we run the testing of similar textures. For instance, we can tell you that even though Spirit is the OG of vinyl, Olympus, a spirit imitation, actually lasts longer. Patriot Plus is a knock-off of Spirit made by spradling but doesn’t last as long as Spirit, which is why we don’t market it on our site.
Long Story Longer:
If you’re working with us, you don’t have to worry about any of this. We will either match your booth package exactly, or if some other upholstery shop has already used many vinyls in your gym we can switch you to ColorGuard or any vinyl of your choice. We can even get you back to OEM. We can typically get any vinyl on planet earth. We work with many suppliers and with enough time we can find anything. However, to save you time we have linked our favorites to our site. These materials link back to the manufacturer site so you can check all the specs yourself, is it fire retardant? Do you live in California and need some sort of state mandate adhered to? We wanted to link back to the OEM so you can stay as up to date as possible. We can even mail you some free samples so you can see these materials in hand.
Not all computer and phone screens show the same dye lots so you really need to see these colors in real life. It’s important to note that all vinyls do two things as they age and oxidize. 1) They darken and 2) they get shiny. Due to these two factors, freshly upholstered items will need about 2-3 months to shine up and darken before they match your existing items exactly, but don’t fret, they will match, we promise.