Following with interest. I'll be curious to know when all is said and done how you feel this compares to a whole car dip in terms of total cost, time, and quality of the finished product. I'm on the verge of ordering material to dip my car a new color but this looks like a solid alternative.
Armitage wrote: Following with interest. I'll be curious to know when all is said and done how you feel this compares to a whole car dip in terms of total cost, time, and quality of the finished product. I'm on the verge of ordering material to dip my car a new color but this looks like a solid alternative.
Yeah man, I will keep you updated. I will say that for a beginner the vinyl take a lot more time and patience. I think I will like it over plasti dip because I didn't clear coat my job so durability started to become an issue. I also really like the vinyl because I can work on it as late as I want to in my condo's garage without disturbing neighbors with compressor noise or the sound from a cheap buss gun when plasti dipping. I'm going to try and finish the 25' roll tonight. I should be able to get most of the car done, but if I need a little more it should only be another 15' or so, which would bring the project to $170 including the heat gun.
Keith Tanner wrote: Compound curves and convex areas are the fun partThe hood's a great place to start because it's a relatively easy panel and you get a whole bunch done all at once.
So, I'm guessing bumper covers are a bit of a beeotch...
Something to point out that jr10cross just mentioned - spend the money on proper heat gun. Don't even think about attempting this with a hairdryer. Most of the pros actually use propane torches with flame spreader tips instead of electric guns.
on bumpers, heat and stretching is key. It's not as hard as you might think but it does take a certain "touch." Still, by the time you finish the second bumper you should be getting the hang of it.
Look forward to seeing how this turns out.
In reply to ultraclyde:
Exactly man. photos on the way!
Wrap Job complete. I only used the one 5' x 25' roll for $96. I left the roof plasti dipped and the back because I like the look. So with heat gun and razor project ran me $120, not counting my estimated 9 hours of labor. LOL
Damn, that looks great! Are you going to do the front bumper and the headlight buckets? I do like the back bumper in black.
wow. Looks great man!
Spoolpigeon wrote: Damn, that looks great! Are you going to do the front bumper and the headlight buckets? I do like the back bumper in black.
Thanks man. I'm still a little undecided. I'll take a pic out of the garage directly from the front later so you can see what I mean. I kind of like the look. But I may do the front lower bumper later. My back needs to recuperate a little bit, lol. I like the headlight buckets a different color. I know I'm crazy. ha
ultraclyde wrote: wow. Looks great man!
Thanks Bro! I really recommend the project to anyone that doesn't have painting skills and who has a budget.
I've never seen a Plastidip job that wasn't clearly Plastidip. Vinyl can look like paint. This is either a plus or a minus depending on your feelings towards the look of Plastidip.
Porsche looks good!
how easy is this stuff to remove? im having bad ideas about turning the daily orange, but would want to remove for resale down the road.
also, how do you deal with things like door and hood edges?
Pretty easy. We peeled one of our shop cars a month ago. It had been wrapped in 2008. Came off nice and easy, most of it in big sheets. The paint underneath looked perfect.
Dusterbd13 wrote: how easy is this stuff to remove? im having bad ideas about turning the daily orange, but would want to remove for resale down the road. also, how do you deal with things like door and hood edges?
Yep I agree with Keith Tanner MegaDork really easy to come off and preserves your paint.
I did my doors separately and removed the door handle and side mirror. I left a little bit of an edge so it could fold the vinyl partially into the door. Used a heat gun to warm the material up and press it down on the edge. Cut away excess.
I left extra on the sides of the hood and folded the vinyl on the sides. Then I cut the excess away and again used the heat gun to mold and secure the vinyl.
jr10cross wrote: Yep I agree with Keith Tanner MegaDork
Sorry, I don't mean to bust your chops, but that cracked me up.
For future reference dork levles is the way they measure post numbers around these parts.
Now back to your regularly scheduled vinyl thread. I'm following with interest.
I really like that blue, wonder how hard a c4 would be to wrap.
How was doing the rocker panels?
Brian wrote: How was doing the rocker panels?
Well, I didn't do the rocker panel directly under the door because it's a style thing for me to leave it plasti dipped. I'm thinking about lettering "Porsche" in white, but I'm thinking it over, don't want to get too ridiculous. LOL but the hardest parts was really the fenders. I had a habit of wanting to start from the top down and that just doesn't work. I wanted to make sure the sight points were completely clean but doing it that way produced too many figures and unnecessary stretching. I'm going to preach "Always, Always, Always start from the middle!" because I had to learn it after beating my head against the wall for an hour asking God why wasn't it working.
Ironic. Was just thinking about this thread, as the paint on the roof of the wagon is junk. Planning on wrapping it black for a two tone job.
Im vey tempted to try this on my miata now. The paint is pretty bad and Im tired of owning two cherry red cars
Dusterbd13 wrote: Ironic. Was just thinking about this thread, as the paint on the roof of the wagon is junk. Planning on wrapping it black for a two tone job.
Do it bro! do it. I love two tone done right. I started noticing car companies doing it out of the gate with the black roof look on Mercedes. Now i see Ferrari 488s with the same look.
Fitzauto wrote: Im vey tempted to try this on my miata now. The paint is pretty bad and Im tired of owning two cherry red cars
It should be super cheap because the Miata is nice and small. It's a great alternative.
I'll input my thoughts and experience on vinyl...
I bought my 97 miata this past spring with a vinyl wrap on it. It was horrible. Basically the moral of that story is DON'T CHEAP OUT ON YOUR VINYL! The PO didn't want to paint the car, but the current paint was horrible, so he wrapped it. He bought cheap (probably china made) vinyl off of eBay, and wrapped the car. Originally it probably looked cool, it WAS a deep red with metallic flakes (read: sparkles). He had that on for about a year an a half before I bought it, and by the time I bought it it had faded to pink. Sparkly Pink. This was supposedly garage kept too... Anyway, cheap eBay vinyl may fade, so be aware or that before buying. I feel like 3m vinyl is probably a lot more durable, and almost certainly easier to work with. I don't know how much patience the PO had when installing the vinyl, but there were a few spots that he cut the vinyl to make it lay "properly". Also, my final note on the vinyl itself, removal of the vinyl was not fun. Where there was half decent paint underneath, it came of semi easily, but still in chunks and left a bunch of residue that is a pain to get off. The front bumper had been replaced, and was just plastic, no paint. The vinyl was incredibly hard to remove from the plastic. (Fortunately? I rear ended someone and need a new bumper anyway, so I don't have to mess with the rest of that vinyl.
As of now, the car is rocking a motley paint job or the original red, respray red, and black primer. My plan has been to try my hand at painting it come spring time, but this post has revived my interest in vinyl, despite my original pains.
Take my experience how you will, hopefully your VViVid vinyl, and 3M vinyl work better, I only know what I have had experience with.
Please keep us posted on how it holds up after a few months as to durability and fading.
Link to my miata build thread/work diary so you can see the pictures of the horrible vinyl:
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