: On the same topic, while shopping I am finding "vinyl
: coated" and "vinyl laminated" in the same weights
: - thought on either?

: Thanks.

: Tim

It is how they make the stuff. I think that generally the coated material will be stronger.

In making coated material they start with a woven or unwoven cloth base and cover ti with a liquid coating. The coating gets a short chance to soak into the fabric (sometimes only a matter of milliseconds, but it does soak in a bit) then it is dried and usually heated to polymerize the resin and cure it (turn it from a liquid to a solid by cooking it).

With a laminated material they start with a sandwich of fabric between two sheets of thin plastic. That sandwich is passed through heated rollers which partially melt the plastic outer surfaces and squeeze them onto the middle fabric. The plastic bonds nicely to the fabric, but when it starts to delaminate it frequently will fail along the weak bond between the plastic layer and the fabric. The higher quality materials have a very good bond between fabric and plastic and it takes a lot of effort to get them to delaminate. the cheaper stuff peels apart as easily as separating the top and bottom of an Oreo cookie from the filling. Like plywood, where you can find panels with thick outside veneers, and panel with really thin outside veneers, these materials may have thick or thin layers of plastic, and the core may be a strongly woven fabric, or weak cheesecloth.

Either production method can be used to produce skin materials which are suitable for our needs. Generally, the heavier the weight of the fabric the stronger it will be, but something with a heavy core and a even a light waterproof film is going to be stronger than a thick, weak, plastic with a thin weak fabric core. Get a sample of your materials if you can, and try to tear it apart.
Hope this helps

PGJ