Banner Brackets and Fly Fishing! - The Third and Last In This Series

In the past couple of posts, I related how our company was the originator of the fiberglass street banner bracket and I described where the inspiration came for using fiberglass (fly fishing!) and then how the "canting" of the banner arms came about in 1985. Our most recent innovation in the banner bracket arm business is the BannerFlex Airow, which we first introduced in 2004 but for which we had spent about three years researching and developing.

The Airow is an eccentrically milled pultruded fiberglass rod that allows up to 50% of the wind force on the banner to be dissipated through the extreme flexing of the rod. For a visual description of this see the video at the upper right of this blog site or view it at www.kalamazoobanner.com. By using modern materials like milled pultruded fiberglass in this innovative way, we are able to provide a product that will last for many, many years in windy outdoor environments. That is, there are no mechanical parts in our system that involve wear, friction or even rust as in the case of springs or mechanical levers, and so on, that might be termed "machines" (and we all know machines wear out). Instead, we have incorporated what I term "space age" materials, for lack of a better description, that include high performance synthetic composite chemistry to do over the long term what older mechanical technology cannot do. Other examples of these "modern materials" are easily found in our current automobiles, sports equipment and even office chairs, such as the Herman Miller Aeron chair or, for that matter, the space shuttle!

The actual shape of the Airow rod is a bit hard to describe so I've included an image here but please visit this link to see it in action: www.kalamazoobanner.com/br_airow.php. As you may be able to observe, the top arm in an Airow banner bracket installation has a rounded top surface and an angled and tapered bottom surface (and the opposite for mounting the bottom of the banner). These rounded surfaces are to protect the banner fabric and the angled surfaces give the arm the increased flexibility that a standard full-round arm does not.

And, to bring the title of my last three posts into the discussion again, this shape takes its inspiration from my fly fishing rod back in 1984 and '85 that was so inspirational to me in deciding upon using fiberglass. So, in a way, we've come full circle back to that fly rod but have modified the typical cone or whip shape that tapers down from the fly rod handle to the tip and have made it an eccentric taper to accomplish the extreme flex and add necessary longitudinal strength as well as provide protection to the banner hem.

If all this seems a bit technical it's because it is! But, since our technology is well-researched and field-tested in thousands of applications over the past four years, I hope you'll take my word and guarantee that it works!

Roger