I have a customer who has mentioned a stain repellant called "Vector". I am not familiar with it. It's being sold by the upholstery fabric place here in town, and I can only imagine it's priced high and no better than Scotchguard...
Any opinions? Or experience?
perry
I really think that all the different brands of stain guard products are basically the same in effectiveness.
A local furniture store that was going out of business gave me ten 5 gallon containers of the stuff that they sold to their customers (I can't think of the brand right now). They said that they paid $50 a gallon for it.
I sell it when a customer wants the extra stain protection. I apply it with a garden pump-sprayer. But I don't charge the normal retail mark-up for it because I don't offer any guarantee with the product. I usually charge around $20 for a sofa. Most stores charge $50 or more.
I've never seen any of the expensive treatments that impressed me any more than an ordinary $5 can of Scotchguard from Wally World.
I am a 303 distributor and sell 303 Fabric Guard. Miami Mike and I talked at length about this
and he suggested my customers only use the 303 FG on acrylic fabrics such as Recaccril and Sattler.
He explained that most scotch guard products contain silicone's and PD's ( Petroleum Distillates ) which will destroy the factory finishes applied for waterproofing and UV ray resistance. Actually Sunbrella only approves of 303 FG on their products.
I cannot speak for household or upholstery fabric as I have no experience with it. But the 303 works awesome on acrylics. I also use it on my car interior because the seats are fabric and not leather or vinyl.
Sorry I couldn't have been more help.
Chris
SofaDoc, you probably got Guardsman Fabric Protector and Mohawk Finishing sells it. You can do their plan which is a warranty Protection Plan where you buy the 5 gallon pail at a great price and you sell the program to your customers. It used to be like $150 for a sofa and the warranty covers stains, rips burns and so on. The manufacture will pay to repair or replace the fabric if not remedied by the guidelines. Excellent product. I buy by the gallon and use an electric paint sprayer, I charge 50-100 bucks no warranty, sometimes I do for free, it is not a big deal and so easy to apply.
I've been servicing Guardsman Protection Plan claims since I opened the business. It was almost always my largest customer on an annual basis, and now that I've "semi-retired" is my only customer.
One of the retail stores that I used to do work for sold the plans, but they put the Fabri-coat on everything, whether they sold a plan on it or not. They gave me their sprayer full of solution when they closed the store and emptied out the warehouse.
The brand of the stuff that the furniture store gave me is called Stainsafe. The manager once told me that the manufacturer didn't charge by the liquid gallon for the actual product itself. They charged according to the number of warranty certificates that came with it. It just averaged out to around $50 a gallon.
The manager offered to give me their leftover warranty certificates, but I'm not too terribly interested in handling any warranty claims, so I just sell it "as is". I'm sure they're all expired by now anyway.
I did dining room chair seats and the homeowner paid a company to come into my studio and spray the fabric with a protection type product. This company sold "protection programs", where they would come in once a year or so and spray again. It seemed very expensive, but if you have family and friends that eat like pigs wallowing in a mud hole filled with hickory nuts, I guess it could be worth it.
gene