Anybody mess with Vinyl Wraps?

I am looking into Vinyl for my challenge car. Has anybody messed with it before? Any tips tricks, advice on where to buy or how to prep the car? thanks

I want to wrap a car in a graphic of nothing but license plates, then roll through the EZ Pass lane at tolls without my EZ pass and not ever worry about traffic cameras.

I have looked into this a bit, seems overall easy but will take some time and work to get it right. Will this be a one color or more than one color project?

I'm about to wrap the hood on my civic. I'll let you know how it goes.

some cheap car mag did this to a miata

I wanted to do the same thing to mine (minus the custom hood art) but I never heard back from any at that unnamed publication.

My old company did buses and semi wraps, a couple a day. It's not difficult if you are patient and start with good product. For a challenge car I think it would be cheaper to rattle can it.

I'm thinking of doing the old Castrol livery so about three colors, i thought the rattle can may be cheaper, but dunno how doing the stencils and what not will turn out. Just tossing some ideas around. And yes mazdeuse let me know how it goes thanks

I'd like to wrap my sailplane in a giant Hawk suit, feathers and all.

Terrorize soccer fields of 8 year olds.

I wrapped the roof of my Z gloss black. I have no prior experience with wraps or tint and it came out great. Almost everyone thinks its painted. I did no real prep work other than remove adjacent trim and clean the surface. I think I used 3M foaming window cleaner to rid the paint of oils and such because I had it on hand. I suspect using some dish soap n water would have worked just fine. If I remember right I used soapy water as a lubricant while positioning the film. It was time consuming and many times throughout the process I thought I botched it. Heat gun and patience will fix most issues.

914Driver wrote: I'd like to wrap my sailplane in a giant Hawk suit, feathers and all. Terrorize soccer fields of 8 year olds.

DO IT!!

Pterodactyl would be equally awesome

I've been checking around, and people keep telling me decent wrap will be over $500, and that's just for the wrap.

914Driver wrote: I'd like to wrap my sailplane in a giant Hawk suit, feathers and all. Terrorize soccer fields of 8 year olds.

haha!

Jamey_from_Legal wrote: I've been checking around, and people keep telling me decent wrap will be over $500, and that's just for the wrap.

500$ just for the vinyl that sounds a little low for the 3m stuff that I have used in the past.

A really good vinyl wrap job can run 3-4K easy with the labor involved. For a 2K challenge car the restolium roller technique might be better and way way cheaper.

I do see 3m stuff all the time on craigslist for 0.10$ on the new cost dollar all the time though as shops go out of business or have old stock that they need to rotate.

I just checked into this. Wrapped by someone else? 3-5k. Diy? A 5x5' sheet of the good stuff is 140$ from 3m. Now granted, to wrap and entire car would be less than a nice paint job, and remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1_vVjYwJKQ

Good article, no price.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/project-cars/2013-factory-five-818/818-gets-wrapped/

Someone suggested that I try wrapping my Goldwing instead of finishing the paint job I'm in the middle of procrastinating. I was looking at the parts and some of them have a lot of ins-and-outs and nooks and crannies. It looks like getting the vinyl to cover surfaces like fenders and hoods would be pretty easy, but any tips or how-tos for some of the more complicated bits?

914Driver wrote: I'd like to wrap my sailplane in a giant Hawk suit, feathers and all. Terrorize soccer fields of 8 year olds.

This is awesome. You are now REQUIRED to do this and post a youtube link so we can see the fun.

In reply to OldGray320i: How about Pteranodon for maximum terror?

Trackmouse wrote: I just checked into this. Wrapped by someone else? 3-5k. Diy? A 5x5' sheet of the good stuff is 140$ from 3m. Now granted, to wrap and entire car would be less than a nice paint job, and remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1_vVjYwJKQ

That was the trippiest car I've ever seen.

After starting on the Goldwing vinyl wrap project last night, unless you can get the wrap for a really really really good price, I think you're going to be better off with rattlecans if you're trying to stay in the challenge budget.

I found a seller on eBay where I can get 5' wide 3M 1080 for about $10/linear foot. I don't really know how much you'd need to do a car, but I bought 2' to experiment/get started with and I just ordered another 30' today and I think I'll probably need a little bit more to do a full dresser. I'd think you'd need at least 2x that to do a small car, so you're probably blowing half the challenge budget there. There are some other brands out there that might be more like $4-$5/linear foot, though, so that might be a little more reasonable.

Other things that you'll need that won't cost in the budget: A lot of alcohol -- both the drinking kind and the denatured kind, but don't get them confused: One is for you and the other is to clean the surface real well. Xacto knife (razor blades are just too big, I think). Propane torch with a push-button ignitor (heat gun electrical cord just gets in the way). Squeegees -- I bought a cheap set of kitchen spatulas at Meijer and removed the silicon heads from the sticks and then wrapped them up in some leftover felt, but you can buy various sizes, too. Really good scissors. Knifeless tape -- expensive, but you basically use it to draw the pattern or seam you want to cut, lay the vinyl over it, then pull to perfectly cut the vinyl in place.

Get the surface really smooth. Any little particle will show up as a huge bump.

Work in small sections, getting the flat parts adhered first and then moving to the curves and angles.

I found these videos to be very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdfLij5dx2Q and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx9_BxTwj0k

Also, plan to ruin some vinyl as you're learning how to work the stuff. It's amazing how much it can stretch and pull, but it does have its limits. I started with the fuel door and it only took me about 30 minutes -- I had to pull the first vinyl piece off and try again because the surface had some little grains of primer on it, but once I gently scraped over it with a razor blade (I don't care about the finish, I had just sprayed the metal in primer to protect it from rust), it went on nicely:

914Driver wrote: I'd like to wrap my sailplane in a giant Hawk suit, feathers and all. Terrorize soccer fields of 8 year olds.

Hawk attacks are no laughing matter.

Those bastards hurt