Tru Mark's Trail Blazing Blog

Have you ever visited another soccer facility and picked up some great operational tips?

Tru Mark Athletic Field Marker recently visited the Portage Soccer Complex at 4422 Bishop Rd., Portage MI 49002. This community facility has been well designed and maintained with excellent field drainage, a central building for registrations, meetings, concessions and facility operations and maintenance, and hard surface parking with curbs. Field operations are primarily conducted by some dedicated volunteers, the ones I met were Vern Genisio and David Rice.

The Portage Soccer Complex is home to Portage Soccer Club and the AYSO Region 74. The complex has expanded with access to additional fields next door and a new indoor complex, Portage Soccer Zone.

With delivery of a Tru Mark self-propelled Model RS-500F Vern Genisio is incorporating another time and supply saving tool to his operations. He mentioned that the complex had invested in a new tractor to handle their aeration duties as well as their new pull behind mower. They recently invested in a deep tine aeration with sand top-dressing service to help with a two fields that weren't draining as well as expected.

Storage is always a challenge at most sport facilities. The Portage Soccer Complex has some well thought out and installed tools to help with their daily operations and year around storage requirements. From soccer goal nets to tool storage the facility personnel have integrated some space and time saving features.

Check out Vern's many Portage Soccer Complex facility operational and maintenance tools and equipment.

Review some additional images of the Portage Soccer Complex and the RS-500F Field Marking Operations. See how easy the unit is filled with field marking paint, the foot pedal operations, the floating paint shoe assembly in action, and "making a straight line in less time".

Please share your time saving tips and tricks.

Labels: Demos, Product_Review, Turf _Tips

During some recent business travels Tru Mark had the opportunity of applying a water-based synthetic turf paint on existing soccer field lines of a synthetic turf field at Wyzata High School, MN.

This particular turf field used a crumb rubber infield with sewn-in football field lines and the soccer field touch lines (sidelines). This field is used by a local lacrosse club as well. The field had been previously painted several times and the paint build is significant reminding me of gum in a carpet situation. The football field hash marks were painted along with soccer goalie, penalty, and center circle and the standard lacrosse markings. The soccer field lines were painted yellow and the lacrosse field lines painted red.

The customer asked Tru Mark to over stripe the existing soccer field painted lines with the TrailBlazer Solar Trail, Bison Gold, permanent synthetic turf paint. There was no attempt to remove the paint that had been previously applied. The existing paint appeared have a very strong bonding agent, similar to rubber compound, and was concentrated at painted intersections. Also a lot of the paint had been applied to the crumb rubber infield making it just about impractical to clean the lines effectively before reapplying turf paint. During the striping operation we did not use a string to guide us, just the existing line.

Lesson Learned: Avoid overstriping at intersections when painting synthetic turf surfaces. Plan ahead when to start and stop your striping. For example, Minnesota Metro Dome uses a 4" x 4" cardboard spacer at the edge of the sideline when painting the 5-yard lines to ensure separation.

Lesson Learned: Whenever time allows and precision is needed pull a string to guide your striping operations, especially on synthetic turf surfaces.

Lesson Learned: Under application of paint on synthetic turf surfaces is preferred. Reduce the amount of pressure on your line striper to minimize over application and over spray. Practice your walking speed, stop and starting procedure, on a test strip when possible.

Labels: Demos, Turf _Tips

Tru Mark Athletic Field Marker general manager, Mark Hall, along with Darrell Ervasti of D.Ervasti Sales, and TK Products representative participated in synthetic turf cleaning and painting demonstratation. The demonstration team visited Minnetonka High School in the suburban Minneapolis, MN area, home to a $2.4 million baseball and multipurpose synthetic turf sports field and grandstand area.

The demonstration included the cleaning of an existing painted baseball coaches box along the 3rd baseline using TrailBlazer Trail Wash cleaner, applying TrailBlazer Moon Daze paint as a test stripe, applying the same paint over the cleaned area as well as over stripping the coaches box along the 1st base line. Besides the physical labor for turf cleaning Tru Mark used the Graco FieldLazer as the line striping unit. The FieldLazer was outfitted with a RAC 5 SwitchTip LL5419. The Moon Daze paint is designed for multi-game application without any dilution and was applied directly from a 5-gallon pail.

Two weeks after the application several images were taken of the painted surfaces. There was not flacking of the Moon Daze paint nor any degradation due to traffice and wear activities. The customer was very pleased with the performance of this new formulated paint for synthetic turf fields.

A series of pictures were taken and are listed with captions in a on-line Picasa Web Album.

Lessons learned from the demonstration include:
1) grooming the synthetic turf fibers before painting to achieve a more vertical standing position for more uniform paint application,
2) a long handled short bristle brush for less wear and tear on the back,
3) access to running water and cleaning rags,
4) using a taut string line to help the operator achieve straight painted lines
5) backpack or hand sprayer for applying the Trail Wash cleaning solution,
6) drip rag for wiping spray tip to avoid any dripping when moving between application areas,
7) after stopping the spray gun/tip application, pull back the paint striper to avoid paint dripping on unpainted turf
8) use a cardboard sheet (old refrigerator box) for test pattern and tip height adjustment

Labels: Demos, Turf _Tips

Tru Mark Athletic Field Marker representative, Mark Hall, along with Darrell Ervasti of D. Ervasti Sales Co. visited the Fargodome, Fargo, ND on May 17, 2007.

It is time for a synthetic turf face lift as the existing turf paint has faded and needs to be repainted. The short dense (no infield material) synthetic turf is about 7 years old with inlaid lines for the football field except for logos, hash marks, and outside boundary markings. The synthetic turf is one continuous cover and is rolled and stowed when not used. The field paint needs to wear well and not flack off due to the rolling operations.

Several months later the team went back to apply the first of two coats of TrailBlazer Solar Trail field marking paint. Refer to the on-line album for images.

D. Ervasti Sales provided their newest paint formulation, TrailBlazer Solar Trail, a permanent field marking paint for synthetic turf (paint application for nylon, polypropylene, and polyethylene or a combination turf fibers). The enclosed images are the paint application using a Graco FieldLazer (RAC 5 standard spray tip LL5521) without use of the paint shields. The hash marks being painted are the perimeter marks around indoor football field.

Solar Trail is a permanent synthetic turf paint and was applied with no dilution which is the recommendation of the manufacturer.

The Solar Trail Label and MSDS recommends that the paint should dry completely within 6-8 hours.

Also demonstrated was the Solar Wash cleaning agent which was used a couple of times to clean up due to a paint drip or mistake was made during application. This product can also be used to remove the paint after it has dried.

With a short dense field turf the spray tip was within inches of the surface.

Tru Mark found that the paint flowed well and application was uniform while using the Graco FieldLazer. Although not tested the RAC 5 spray tip LL5419 would be recommended since the paint was not diluted.

Stay tuned for more field marking demonstrations.

Labels: Demos, Turf _Tips