Las Vegas is known around the world for its image of vitality and excitement, but the Excalibur Hotel and Casino found out that living up to the expectation in a brutal desert environment is far from a sure thing.
The Excalibur was one of the first “theme” casinos on The Strip and ushered in a new era of extravagantly designed buildings for Las Vegas after it was completed in 1990. Seemingly overnight, massive casinos and hotels sprung up along Las Vegas Boulevard, drawing visitors’ attention and increasing the pressure for existing businesses to stand out. Building managers for the Excalibur had been on a schedule of repainting the building’s brightly colored castle turrets with polyurethane every three or four years – at tremendous cost – in order to keep them vibrant under the intense Nevada sun.
The architects hired for a 2000 renovation of the structure began looking for an exterior topcoat that would provide the best possible color and gloss retention, and thus prolong the maintenance cycles for the turrets. Tnemec’s Series 1070 Fluoronar was quickly selected as a coating that could offer exceptional performance and significant life-cycle cost savings.
Formulated using fluoropolymer chemistry that resists the damaging effects of ultra-violet light, Fluoronar far exceeds the aesthetic performance of even polyurethanes – often considered to be the industry standard for topcoat performance. The product’s extremely stable chemistry prevents its color from fading and retains its gloss level over an extended period of time. An air-dried finish that can be brush, roller, or spray-applied, Fluoronar is often the top choice for high-profile buildings or for structures that are extremely difficult or costly to repaint.
Primed first with a coat of Series 135 Chembuild, a polyamidoamine epoxy, the turrets then received a coat of Series 1070 in either bright red, blue or metallic gold (now available as Series 1078 Fluoronar Metallic). The coating system’s durability was extended even further by the application of Series 76 Endura-Clear, a clearcoat infused with UV absorbers and inhibitors.
This premier Tnemec coating system should extend the building’s repaint cycle by four to five times over that of the previous system, keeping the Excalibur up to Vegas’ high standards all while saving the owner money.