Trim around screen

[cklguy2013]

I'm wonder if there might be some suggestions to deal with a problem I'm having.

I purchased a screen from Cory and purchased some foam to go around the screen to use as trim. I cut it into 9.5” widths and adhered two way Velcro to the back of the foam, the hook part. I took the female part and adhered it to my angle iron around the frame of my screen, the screen came with a female Velcro trim. I put the foam in place, and it looked great, however when I started hitting balls into the screen, the screen both parts of the Velcro (male and female) ripped away from the foam. The angle iron part did hold though. Has anyone else experienced this problem? How did they deal with it?

I'm thinking I have to adhere some glue or epoxy to the back of the Velcro strips to reinforce. Has anyone done so, and if so what kind of adhesive or glue did they use?

[AJA]

Could your trim function if it was just velcro-ed to the angle iron?
I'm guessing the problem your encountering has more to do with the movement of the impact screen. I haven't installed my screen yet so take my 2-cents with a grain of salt, but I'm planning on trimming out my impact screen with the foam protection attached to the walls/angle iron only. This would mean that the movement of the impact screen would be independent of any surrounding trim.
I've seen professional installations at a simulator center where the Velcro would regularly come unstuck due to screen movement.
Hope this helps.

[xdreamgolf]

Two sided carpet tape works wonders for added adhesion. Foam is tough to stick anything to as you have found. Velcro brand has better adhesive than some of the copy cats. Also the warmer the better. I have also used the hot melt carpet tape to repair side panels that have been torn. Nothing sticks to the fabric, but the hot melt works very well as it permeates the fabric weave. Velcro does market and sell a product for fabric that is applied using an iron, but it's really expensive and never local. Word of caution with the heat and vlecro. You can melt the loops on the vlecro and just as well foam. I would first try the two sided carpet tape that is designed to be used without heat. Add it to a piece of vlecro that has it's own adhesive. Lay it over a piece of foam and try different ways to warm it up a bit. Iron or even hair dryer. If you use and iron make sure you protect the Velcro with an old tee shirt of some type of cotton fabric. If this fails you can try the hot melt carpet tape, but it will be tough to get enough heat threw the Velcro and not damage it. At a min just try the Velcro it self warming it a bit.
Oh and if you have not figured this out. Ebay is the place to buy Velcro. 100 feet for the price of 15 at the hardware joint.

Also if you don't mind the spray can 3M makes a spray adhesive for foam and it works very well. Make sure you get the proper kind as some will melt your foam!

[cklguy2013]

So an update on the trim, my wife came up with the idea of gluing thin pieces of cloth to the foam, and then gluing the Velcro strips, to the cloth, and it worked. Also, initially I had adhered the Velcro to both angle iron and screen, and it did mostly hold, however a new problem was that it made the screen too tight so balls were flying back after impact, as opposed to just dropping as they had before. So, we ended up just adhering the Velcro to the angle iron and not to the screen at all, and for the time being that seems to be working, the trim seems to be holding and the screen now has sufficient play in it to allow the ball to just drop once it makes impact, so no large bounce back. As a side note, I did butcher a bunch of pieces of foam, when testing all this out, so once that I see it hold I will redo with new foam to tidy up.

As a side note, I had also purchased foam for the ceiling, which is finished and smooth. The Velcro adhered very nicely to the ceiling, so the next step will be to adhere Velcro to the foam using, the "thin materail" approach above. Oh and one other side note we did use the 3M spray,and it worked very well.

[golfsimxpert]

A custom padding system is the key to alleviate all these issues in the future.

The screen is only part of the overall system which includes the framing, walls, ceiling and all seams. If the proper materials are not used and considered it will be a constant battle.

Consider a baffle system for your ceiling. They do wonders for preventing bounce back and protect the key angles for ceiling shots.