Fire retardant spray

[syzygy]

Can anyone point us in the right direction for buying fire retardant spray for fabrics? I've used some in the past but that was when I was working for an organization that could just order stuff like this.

Where should we look to get it retail?

Dan.

(SyZyGy Visuals)

[sleepytom]

ring the fire brigade - they are the experts on fire and will be able to tell you the cheapest place to get such stuff (they are a public body and should have no intrest in ripping you off) also they know the law and can advise on all matters relating to fire prevention - the number should be in the yellow pages

[robotfunk]

A salt bath will work just fine and is less of an environmental hazard than other quicker stuff like sprays. Fire retardant chemicals belong to the nastiests sort of chemicals around.

Fill a tub with water and keep adding salt till its saturated (till the salt doesn't dissolve anymore) .
Bung in the fabric and leave it for 24-48 hours.

It won't hurt to double check with a fire dept about this but this is what I heard from professional promotors/decorators.

[syzygy]

Thanks for the advice Tom and Robotfunk.

The salt bath idea sounds interesting but I'm a bit worried that we may end up with a crusty piece of fabric to project onto.

In any case, we've found a friendly theatre supplies shop that has supplied us with some spray that seems to do the trick and is compliant with British fire safety standards.

This is the stuff we got:

http://www.mslfirecheck.com

I'd still be interested to hear more about the salt bath approach though (i.e. how does it affect the fabric? Is it compliant with fire safety laws?

Dan.

(SyZyGy visuals)

[charlielangridge]

Does anyone know how much a 750 ml bottle will cover?

[sleepytom]

it depends how absorbant the fabric is

i've dug out the instructions for making your own flambar liquid (as recomended by the cambridge fire brigade) <see attached file>

[syzygy]

Originally posted by charlielangridge
Does anyone know how much a 750 ml bottle will cover?

The bottle says 1 litre will do 10 - 12 square meters of fabric but Tom is right that the absorbancy of the fabric makes a big difference. The thickness will also have an affect (as it will determine whether both sides must be treated separately)

We had 15 square meters to treat so we got two bottles to be sure but we only ended up needing 1 and half to get the whole screen really well treated. Our fabric was thin enough that covering one side soaked through to the other.

The bit that we tested reacted favourably to a flame test. The fabric chars black after a while but does not catch fire.

Dan.

(SyZyGy Visuals)

[vjjezp]

May I recomend buying fabric that is already fire proof. We have a load for venue dressing and the white stuff is great for screens (although after reading some of the other threads I may try some ofther colours).

It makes life a lot easyer and you also have someone to blame is it goes up in flames ;-)